On Inflexibility, Innovation, and the Comfort of the Familiar
Recently, I found myself noticing a pattern across three completely unrelated companies. Before anyone starts trying to guess who they are — don’t. I’ve never worked for any of them, and this isn’t about calling anyone out. For simplicity, let’s just call them Company A, Company B, and Company C.
What struck me based on recent observations from different levels of interaction – is that all three share something in common.
Each of them was founded or built around something clever, unique, or genuinely innovative. They created a formula, a method, a technology — and it worked. So much possibility…
The smart people I know at each place could point to it and say, “See? Here’s the model. Here’s the framework. This is how it works.” Then they draw hard impenetrable lines around it.
And that’s where the trouble begins. Especially where people are involved….
Because once they drew those hard lines around the idea, those lines became walls. The same rigidity that protected the original idea eventually started suffocating its evolution. Their brilliance got boxed in by their own rules.
I’ve watched all three companies — independently — now struggle with eerily similar problems. Not because they lack smart people. Not because their technology stopped being relevant. But because they never put anyone in the room who thinks differently from the people who drew the original lines.
The innovators protected the idea.
But no one protected it from stagnation.
A Thought Detour (But Stay With Me)
This might be the part where I lose some of you, but bear with me.
There’s a trending misattributed quote that floats around, falsely credited to Dostoevsky:
“Tolerance will reach such a level that the intelligent will be silenced for the comfort of fools.”
There’s no record of him ever writing that — not in Demons, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, or anywhere else. But the reason the misquote circulates is because, whether intentionally or not, Dostoevsky did explore themes that echo it: mass psychology, conformity, and what happens when people outsource their thinking to the masses.
So yes — even though the quote is fake, the spirit of the idea isn’t.
And that loops us right back to the problem of inflexibility.
When people — whether in society or inside a company — learn that they can stay safely within the lines and simply think what they’re supposed to think, anyone who colors outside those lines becomes “dangerous.”
Different becomes threatening.
Questioning becomes disruptive.
And innovation becomes impossible.
We do it to ourselves.
We create the disadvantage.
Heading Into the Holidays (and Everything They Bring)
As I walk into the holidays, preparing myself mentally for the usual seasonal drama — the comments, the opinions, the unspoken expectations — I’m trying to do something different this year.
I want to stretch different parts of my character.
Not just physically or professionally, but mentally and spiritually.
Not because it’s easy.
But because I want to set an example for my kids.
To show them what it looks like when someone refuses to stay trapped inside someone else’s lines.
To show them what real flexibility looks like.
To show them how to think — not what to think.
Because if we don’t model that, who will?
When 5 am comes and the progesterone hasn’t worn off yet and I want to sleep, I get up and work out. I am a little stiff from a race. Work out anyway.
When someone runs their mouth and their wrong or hurtful. Smile – especially if they were rude. Maybe say something thoughtful or helpful – but thats it.
And for all the rest of it – health, job, finances and future – you guest it – I keep pressing on. Its tattooed on me for a reason.
And yes, there’s a book coming – and its well on its way – and I hope it is helpful to just one life.
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