Healthcare Leadership: Innovation Drives Brilliance

Amy Cosper, Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, wrote the following in the June 2011 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine:

“I remember Blockbuster.  Not the sad, dusty, blighted Blockbuster of recent years.  No, definitely not that one.  I remember the hustling, bustling, sparkling Blockbuster where everyone rushed on Friday nights to rent the most recent Jason Bourne video (and later DVD).  People came in herds to pursue aisle after aisle of movies.”

“Yes, it’s true.  Just a few years ago, you had to walk through a retail store to rent a DVD.  And get this – if you didn’t return said DVD by 5 p.m. the next day, a hefty penalty was levied.  Enter Netflix.  Buh-bye, late fee.  Exit Blockbuster.”

“Innovation is what drives brilliance.  But equally important is the relationship between a company and its tribe.  That’s the kind of brilliance that puts the previous generation of brilliance out of business.  Netflix nailed it with its hassle-free approach to the old video store model (and the spiking of the late fee), and continues to remain relevant by delivering with pinpoint accuracy exactly what its customers want.”

Right now, as you read this article, there are many brilliant, well-funded people and organizations committed and planning… yes even piloting… the next significant and revolutionary innovations in healthcare treatment and delivery.  They are creating and learning to execute innovations that will drastically change your personal and professional world, and that of your organization!

You have many advantages, but you also have some huge and very distinct disadvantages.  One of your advantages, which is also one of, if not your greatest disadvantage is your current financial and psychological investments in your current business models, your current infrastructure, and your past “successful experience.”

Cosper is exactly right when she writes, “Brilliant companies are disruptive and take pleasure in tackling impossible challenges.  That’s Apple in a nutshell.”

Think about it.  There are very few industries in the entire world that offer the huge potential opportunities that healthcare treatment and delivery potentially offer.  The huge financial and other potential rewards within healthcare are irresistible.  Constant, brilliant, radical and disruptive innovation will continue.

Are you a part of the movement and this brilliant innovation?  Or are you busy protecting and defending your current reality… that which will inevitably be disrupted and destroyed for a better promise and a better solution?          

One of my favorite quotations is appropriate here.  “The future belongs to those who prepare for it.”  As difficult as it is, leave the present… be a part of a better future!  

Copyright © 2011 by Dan Nielsen

Founder, National Institute for Healthcare Leadership  http://nihcl.com/   

Cell 214-695-1292