A couple of questions to ask yourself:

How do you foster the extraordinary?
Do you really want your firm to be seen as something special?

Which statement is true in your firm:

• We try new things.
• We take risks.
• We fail sometimes, but we learn from our failures.
• We do not take any risks whatsoever…..because we might fail.
• Not only do we not take risks, we repeat the things we know will not work.
• We are so dedicated to maintaining the status quo, that the thought of trying something new is unsettling.
• Please don’t talk to me. The risk of hearing a new idea scares me.

A thought occurred to me today, and I think I may be on to something. Sure, companies of all kinds say they want more business. They’re always trying to attract new clients. But maybe that’s not true.

I think we take for granted the idea that companies want to be innovative and better than the competition. Maybe that’s not the case.

When I think about it, why would you bother trying to put out interesting, though-provoking marketing materials, when you don’t want to be seen as extraordinary? When there’s no motivation to be better, the motivation switches to “let’s not be worse.”

If trying and failing is punished, wouldn’t you rather not try?

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