“Those who make new innovations and are successful in breaking the rules are creating the new rules. And in a  never-ending cycle, those new rules will have to be  broken as well.” From “The New Rules of Innovation” (2012) 

There are so many individual thought pieces that can be discussed when writing about innovation… but risk-taking and rule breaking are two that I have NOT specifically targeted… so far!! 

As you… we… all watch and participate in a world that realizes change on almost a minute by minute basis… old ways and old rules just seem to be a heavy weight around fast-paced progress. Even when the latest innovation arrives and some question its success impacts… if it improves the status quo… it must be considered some form of  “winner”. 

Hence as the opening quote proclaims, if you don’t plan to: Break Some Rules!… progress will remain at the “held hostage-starting gate.” 

During my Director years, one of my biggest innovation rule-breaking challenges was to inform those at the next higher level of leadership that applying their old rules to our new way of service delivery… would NOT work! Whether we framed our new initiative as a “demonstration project” or “pilot program”, the ultimate goal was to up-scale everyone’s mindset on how to evaluate us.  New/alternative “measuring sticks” were debated and ultimately applied because traditional rules of performance needed to be “broken”! 

Bottomline: if you really believe in innovation and you Break Some Rules… it should not be considered illegal/subversive/disrespectful or non-compliant.  Rather it should be assessed, non-traditionally measured and given appropriate support for an attempt to modernize and encourage progress.  Additionally when one Breaks Some Rules…unplanned successes and diverse development outcomes often occur! 

Remember, innovation action needs to be accepted and encouraged…. or new successes may never be allowed to grow.