Innovation often feels risky. Typically, it entails committing significant resources to something that may not bring about the needed outcome. This uncertainty often causes decision-makers to shy away from innovation.

But as the rules governing business performance continue to mutate, it may be reasonable to look at innovation from the opposite direction: Why are we committing significant resources to something—in this case, the status quo—that will certainly not deliver the needed outcome?

And there is no doubt that our present IT solutions cannot deliver needed outcomes. As Andy McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Center for Digital Business, recently explained, “We have collaboration tools that are not social, and social tools that are not collaborative.”

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