I have 5 year old twins. Jasper and Fynn. Two of the most exciting humans you will ever meet. They were born 3 months premature, which is not unheard of and manageable by our amazing South African doctors. But Jasper didn’t have sufficient amniotic fluid for 3 month prior to his birth. When he was born he was 900 grams and had a condition called Hypoplastic lungs. His lungs were completely undeveloped. Babies born with this condition die. There was no history we were able to find where a baby with a case as severe as Jasper’s, had survived. They die within 24 hours. Jasper is 5. He is alive today because of a remarkably smart, courageous pediatrician, Hedi van der Watt who chose to try something different.
Hedi had had many little patients like Jasper. I don’t want to pretend that I know or understand how Hedi did it, but I know that Hedi took a chance. She knew what the educated, normal procedure was. But it had not worked before so why would she stick to it. She trusted her gut. She used all her instincts, creativity and experience and intelligence and worked through the night doing the same things but differently.
I have no doubt, what so ever, that if Hedi had stuck to the textbook way of doing things, Jasper would have died. I have no doubt that if it were an exam, a hypothetical situation, under an examiner, Hedi would have to have followed the correct way and Jasper would have died.
I have sat in client presentations and watched clients with their babies dying in ICU. I have seen them too petrified to try something new. Frightened to move away from the textbook. Fearful of their “examiners”. Unable to try something untested or simply too stubborn. Not brave enough to realize that what they are doing is fatal.
Great marketers and creative people, by their very nature need to try new ways of doing things. The old ways deliver the same results they always have. And even if they were good results at some point. They are not good enough anymore.
Experts, including expert creatives, designers and dreamers make these calls everyday. When we are next sitting around a boardroom table and we have identified the problem. We get to choose, we do things the way they have always been done, or we find a new way. We take a risk. If you don’t trust the experts around the table to make the calls, find an expert you do trust or step aside. Because you are standing in the way.
