A long term successful business must do two things well.  It must consistently deliver planned results in an orderly environment.  But when the situation demands it, the business must also deliver different results in a changing environment.  A business must master the processes of stability and the practices of change.

Good performing businesses are built upon stable platforms; budgets, plans, standard procedures, products, services, and processes.  The key performance driver is execution.  Stable platforms, with results driven by execution, resist change.  This resistance to change, in the form of organizational friction, is always present.

Innovating projects challenge the business to consider the need for change in its stable platform.  In order for change to have a chance of being accepted, you must start by creating momentum that can overcome the initial static friction, and later, the dynamic friction, that resists any change.  This ratio of Momentum to Friction determines the Rate-of-Change that is possible in a business.

The relationship of the Rate-of-Change to the tension generated by the Momentum / Friction Ratio defines the Momentum / Friction Paradox.  The Rate-of-Change is small if:

1.     Momentum is less than static Friction, preventing the initiation of change.

2.     Momentum greatly exceeds static Friction, creating instability in the business, driving dynamic Friction that ultimately suppresses change.  

Delivering “More Innovation Faster” requires managing the business Rate-of-Change.  Specifying change big enough to make a difference (i.e. create new solution momentum), but small enough to prevent business instability (i.e. manage organization friction), is a leadership skill that is essential to high hit rate innovating.