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BOOK REVIEW: 42 ideas that could do severe damage to your business

Legacide: Why legacy thinking is the silent killer of innovation, by Richard Mulholland

READING this book will, at the very least, achieve one goal: rethinking some business verities. The title is a combination of ‘legacy’ and ‘cida’, killer in Latin. Author Richard Mulholland attacks 42 commonly held ideas that could severely damage your business – and the attack is not subtle; it is forceful, irreverent and replete with expletives.

In any business, there are “the stupid, inane things that would shrivel in the light of logic given half the chance”, Mulholland asserts.

Here are three pieces of legacy thinking that are legacide. “If you want something done, do it yourself.” This is a delusional self-belief and a sure sign of a deficient delegator.

“We must follow best-practice.” This produces little more than the acceptable but unremarkable; the opposite of the stand-out spectacular. 

“Keep your eye on the competition.” What has this achieved for the most pointed rivals in business history? Take Visa and Mastercard. Mulholland’s view: the public probably couldn’t care less.

It is what we know for sure but that isn’t so, that this book is designed to seek out and eradicate.

The term ‘innovation’ is widely overused in business and always in the context of creating something new, not eradicating something that is old – legacies that hold us back.

It's not 'the best' but 'the favourite'

Consider the “Fallacy of Best”. We too easily accept that success comes from being the best at what we are trying to sell, and we put a lot of effort and money behind this belief. What we should be trying to achieve is not ‘the best’ but the ‘favourite’. We don’t eat at the best restaurant or buy the best clothes, we eat at our favourite restaurant and wear our favourite clothes.

The ‘best’ is an intellectual construct, but ‘favourite’ is an emotion. “Here is the not-so-breaking news – we’re emotional creatures, doubly so when it comes to making purchasing decisions,” Mulholland notes. The very act of striving to be ‘the best’ is never ending: there is always someone right behind you doing the same, but ‘my favourite’ is a lot less likely to be easily upended.

‘Exceeding customer expectations’ appears with regularity in the values of so many companies. On checking in at a hotel in Doha, Mulholland was told by Achmed, the receptionist, that his room was not ready yet and was offered a seat and a drink. Soon afterwards Achmed told him his room was ready and thanked him for his patience.

When he got to the room there was a two-tiered tray of Belgian chocolates with a hand-written note: “With compliments – Achmed.” This did not ‘exceed expectations’, that is really little more than doing what is ‘expected’ - better. A chocolate apology when it was least expected made a huge impact by being a completely surprising delight.

Innovation is too often a chase after the biggest, fastest, lightest or some other ‘-est’. Mobile phones were too big, and so everyone aimed at making them the smallest. Our mobile phones were thick so the race was to make them thinner. Few complain that their phone is not small enough or not thin enough – everyone complains about the battery life! So why isn’t the race to make phones with bigger batteries?

Creating what is just right

Mulholland calls this “Goldilocks innovation”, not trying to create the “-est” product or service, but rather trying to create the “just right” one, like Goldilocks’ porridge. Not the hottest, not the coldest, just right.

To innovate you need to think outside the box – right? “You don’t need to think outside the box at all… you just need a heap more of them!” It is the wide variety of interests you pursue and enjoy that adds to your thinking. It is your parenting box, your running box, your religion box, your fiction box, your movie watching box, and so on, that widens your thinking.

Innovation comes from having more things you are passionate about. If you only have one box, thinking in or out of it won’t really help you that much.

Legacy thinking is not necessarily bad, but it does need to be intentional and worthwhile.

Readability:  Light +---- Serious
Insights:       High -+--- Low
Practical:       High -+--- Low

* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of the recently-released Executive Update. Views expressed are his own.

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