Why companies choose the safe bet
Optimization usually wins inside companies because it’s easy to measure. Calvin Ross Carl on why the safe bet is always easier to sell to the boss.
Summary
Calvin Ross Carl explains why most brands and companies let optimization win over innovation, even though both are necessary. It comes back to how you sell an idea to your boss. Optimization works on something that already exists, so you can put numbers to it, judge whether it worked, and predict whether it will keep working. That measurability is where the tension between optimization and innovation begins.
Highlights
- Optimization and innovation are both necessary.
- Optimization wins because it can be measured.
- Measurability creates the tension between the two.
Key insights
Easy to prove, easy to sell
Ideas built on existing work come with numbers attached, which makes them easier to approve.
The tension starts with data
Innovation can’t offer the same proof up front, so it starts every argument at a disadvantage.
Detailed analysis
Calvin pinpoints the mechanism behind safe decisions. It isn’t that leaders dislike new ideas; it’s that approval processes reward what can be measured. Since only existing things can be measured, the system tilts toward optimization by design.
Conclusion
The safe bet wins because it comes with numbers. Innovation needs a different case.
Within every company there are always these two opposing forces of optimization versus innovation. Both are necessary, but the problem is that most brands and companies end up letting optimization win, and best practices become the only thing that matters. And that’s because—to get back to the “how do I sell it to my boss” thing—you can measure optimization. Generally it’s something that already exists and you can put numbers to it. You can assess whether it was successful, whether it might continue to be successful, things like that.
So that’s where the tension between these two things comes in, the tension between optimization and innovation.