Stopping innovation to save some money is like cutting off your hand

Henry Ford said: “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”

When the financial crisis was at its height in 2009, I started NoTosh. I invested my final payslips from a ‘safe job’ in getting as much around the United Kingdom as I could in the year to come, getting my foot in the door wherever it would fit.

It paid off.

Investing in the development of what you could do isn’t something you save up for the good times. You don’t wait to explore the next move when the current crisis is over, when your revenues, schedule or timetable might be more predictable.

You do it today, amid the swirling chaos, so that you come out like a swan when the waves calm down.

Is there a crisis today? If you were to listen to an average conference line-up you would think so: a mental health crisis, multiple conflicts playing on our news cycle 24/7, and the whiff of a pervasive technology-driven doom-scrolling gloom.

When people feel they are faced with crises, they fall back on fight, flight or freeze.

It’s worth taking time to think about what we’re doing in our teams today.

Each of us can audit ourselves, our teams or even our whole organisation.

Which parts of it are in a position to fight, but currently people feel frozen in inaction? Who’s freezing when they could be fighting? Which department assumes it can’t work as well as it used to, because it’s trying to do things the old way in this new context? Which bureaucrats are telling you that the technology you need to use can’t be used because it’s not ‘safe’? Are they fighting to provide as good a replacement, or freezing, and waiting for you to fight?

Just because others freeze, doesn’t mean you should. And sometimes that means you have to fight a bit with some ice cubes. Just remember that the heat of fighting the right battles will, eventually, melt the rationale of those who insist on standing still.