When we think about American progress, we often consider companies that have evolved alongside our citizens. We may imagine an ice-cold Coca-Cola or browsing the aisles at JCPenney. We can conjure images of state-of-the-art General Electric appliances that were the first of their kind in American homes. Or we can think back to MetLife insurance agents making calls to homes to collect payments. While these companies had to make slight tweaks to their approach over the years, they didn’t have to undergo much change for the first half-century or more that they were in business. 

These companies are virtually unrecognizable compared to their late 1800s and early 1900s business models. Coca-Cola is now a global conglomerate that supports more than 200 beverage brands globally. Meanwhile, JCPenney is a shadow of its former self, never quite recovering from late 1900s inflation and the shift from catalog and in-person to digital shopping.

A casual observer may think that these iconic brands’ success or decline is based solely on being industry leaders and adopting new technologies before others. However, the truth is a bit more exciting and elusive. Staying ahead is less about leading and more about perpetual learning and adapting.

Business cycles are shrinking. In a 2011 Forbes article, Steven Denning, author of “Reinventing Capitalism in the Digital Age,” wrote, “Half a century ago, the life expectancy of a firm in the Fortune 500 was around 75 years. Now it’s less than 15 years and declining even further.” Since writing that article, economists have estimated that the business cycles for the largest corporations have shrunk to between four to seven years. In other words, for a business to stay viable, it must reinvent itself nearly twice a decade. That could be through new product offerings, partnerships, acquisitions, or a complete restructuring. The point is that businesses today are innovating to survive.

With business cycles shrinking and technology advances accelerating, most organizations’ rallying cry seems to be, “innovate, innovate, innovate!” However, telling a team member to innovate is not unlike handing the average human a set of watercolors and saying, “Paint something amazing!” In almost all cases, the results will be underwhelming at best. More reasonable leaders hold themselves and their teams to a standard of “catching up.” But that’s just as problematic. We are not living in the 1980s when average people were considered a techie if they could set their VCR and use a fax machine. If we were to download every piece of data we need to know for our jobs today, that information would be outdated by tomorrow. You will never be caught up again. But then, neither will anyone else.

Leaders must adopt a new goal to remain innovative, not hold themselves to an impossible standard. People cannot commit to being innovative any more than they can pledge to be artistic. We cannot commit to staying on top of the new developments because we do not have enough waking hours or the brain capacity to absorb that much information. We need a new model for adapting and thriving during fast-paced change.

Small children are born with limited knowledge. They are bombarded every day with new information about the world around them. They learn that some things are hot, and they come to understand gravity. They discover that by smiling, they can make others smile. They learn words, phrases, manners, and all manner of new data. Yet, most children who do not have unique learning issues are not overwhelmed by all the new information they are required to absorb daily. When you show children something new, they typically don’t cross their arms and say, “That’s stupid.” No, adults who are afraid of looking foolish do that. Instead, children ask, “Why?” They ask it repeatedly. Sometimes, they’ll even ask, “How?”

The key to adapting oneself and one’s organization in a rapidly changing business environment is to encourage curiosity over innovation or even being “caught up.” Curiosity causes team members to look at existing processes in new ways. Curiosity encourages people to get out of their silos and better understand how their work impacts another department. Curious team members take courses or play with technology, not to immediately learn but to see if there are practical applications for solving an existing problem or creating new lines of business.  

MIT Sloan Professor Eppinger and QUT professor Kowalkiewicz talked about how companies can boost innovation with curiosity and creativity in the Future Enterprise webinar series, hosted by MIT Sloan and Queensland University of Technology. These practices are especially useful in a world changed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Curiosity and creativity benefit from structure,” Eppinger said. “These practices can and should be systemized. Companies should also emphasize questions over answers and carve out space for exploration.”

Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva, one of the foremost academic experts on reinvention and sustainability, shares several models featuring questions to spur curiosity in her book, The Chief Reinvention Officer Handbook: How to Thrive in Chaos.

If you and your organization are trying to survive and thrive in this time of accelerating change, encourage your teams to adopt childlike curiosity. Embed activities into your meetings that encourage “what if” thinking. Schedule personal development time for team members where they get to simply wander. Perhaps they’ll take training courses for another department. Or maybe they’ll simply start surveying your frontline employees to get additional insights on client challenges. Require them to report back with their activities but give them the space to play … like a child.

 Learn more about how your brand can prepare for a future-focused world.