That part is the contention that we often overvalue our ideas, especially if we only have a few. In many cases, we treat our ideas like albatrosses treat their chicks. Most species of albatross breed only every two years, because the process of raising a chick is so resource intensive. They travel thousands of kilometers on feeding trips to get enough protein to bring back to their quickly growing kid. And after months of nurturing and caring, eventually the parents take off and don’t come back. When the chick gets hungry enough, it eventually tries flying for the first time so that it can head off looking for food on its own. Unfortunately, not all of the young albatrosses are that competent at flying, and if they don’t get too far off shore, they run into a group that gathers every year for the first flights of the albatrosses:

Tiger sharks!

And this is the risk with a lot of ideas – if they’re not sound, they don’t fly. This is fine if you are in a stable environment that requires little change, and consequently little variety. How many businesses are in that situation these days?

That’s why I say we have to be more like salmon. Salmon generate lots and lots of eggs, and out of the thousands laid, a couple with good genes and lucky circumstances are fortunate enough to grow up to be adults. The odds are pretty low, but once they make it, things are generally pretty good. This is a good strategy for situations where the environment is unpredictable, and you consequently need to generate a lot of variety.

So when we’re thinking about innovation one of the key questions we have to think about is how turbulent is our environment? If the level of uncertainty is high, we need to try a wide variety of ideas. It’s too dangerous to pick just one idea and sink all of our resources into it. We need to try out many ideas, and sink the resources into the ones that show the most promise once we’ve executed.

In a stable environment, it’s fine to be an albatross. But in uncertain times, we need to be salmon!