…successful products and strategies are quickly copied. Without relentless innovation, success is fleeting. …there’s not one company in a hundred that has made innovation everyone’s job, every day. 
In most organizations, innovation still happens “despite the system” rather than because of it.
…innovation is the only sustainable strategy for creating long-term value.
Gary Hamel, What Matters Now:  How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

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There is no debate…  it is an innovate or die era.  What worked yesterday will likely be surpassed by someone else’s product, or service, or process, tomorrow.  If you don’t make it better, someone else will.

Innovate, innovate, innovate.

But we are all so busy just doing our work that we don’t have time to think about doing it differently, better, in a new and more innovative way.

But if we don’t, we could be left behind.

Here are two questions to ask every week, in every meeting…actually, to ask almost every day.

Question #1 – Where are we missing it?

We are missing it.  I can assure you of that.  There is something we are doing, now, that isn’t quite right.  There is something that needs our attention, now.  What is that?  Identify it, tackle it, fix it.

Question #2 – Where are we hitting it?  Can we hit it even better? 

Be sure to applaud your best successes.  Celebrate them.  But then, go back to the game film, and ask, can we tweak this to make it even more amazing, more dominant?

Fixing what is wrong.  Making even better has is already quite good.

Innovate, innovate, tweak, fix, and innovate some more…

We’ve got our work cut out for us.

Take these two questions into your next team meeting, and the one after that, and the one after that…

Question #1 – Where are we missing it?
Question #2 – Where are we hitting it?  Can we hit it even better?