“Why don’t the friendly, nice, smart guys have more girlfriends?” I remember having this conversation with my dad when I was in my early teens. Why don’t the good guys get more dates?
He explained that sometimes it wasn’t always about looks, smarts or personality. The guy who asked more girls out was likely to get the most dates. While he might only succeed 1 out of every 10 times that was better than the guys who never asked once. I think there’s a baseball analogy here too – the more times you are at bat the more chances you have of hitting a home run.
The same with innovation and new product development. You’ll never know if you have a winner until you put it out there. The more successful organizations make calculated bets. They organize their new product development process so there is a steady stream of innovations being launched. If any one new product doesn’t work eventually another will.
If you want more home runs you’ve got to innovate more often.
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