Good ideas are the greatest wasted resource in America. People have them every day. All too often, though, they don't act on them. I'm as guilty as anyone...perhaps more so.
We fail to act on our ideas because it is far more comfortable to maintain the status quo than to disrupt it with an innovation. Ideas force change and, for the most part, people hate change. And so we cling to the familiar until the last possible moment.
Welcome to the last possible moment.
Tough times force change. Pfizer and Nextel today announced they would each layoff 8,000 people. GM will cut 2,000 jobs in Michigan. Caterpillar will slash 20,000 jobs globally by the end of March.
While layoffs are painful for the families involved, I believe those layoffs will have a powerful, positive, and unforseen effect. They will unleash innovation.
Those layoffs represent more than 30,000 people but also a vast collection of good ideas that those employees never pursued because they didn't have time, or preferred the security of their 9-5 job. Not all of them will have the courage to pursue their ideas, but some will, and I am excited to see the torrent of innovation that will flood this country in the coming years because the recession disrupted the status quo long enough to free the good ideas it once held captive.
Spread the fire. GS
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