Diehards Die Hard

Some people are so set in their ways that they resist innovative ideas even when the benefits are demonstrable.

At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City Dick Fosbury amazed the audience when he did something revolutionary in the high jump - he went over backwards. The traditional way of jumping was to use the straddle where you jump facing the bar. Fosbury's innovative method won him the gold medal but in the next few years most of the top athletes did not copy him. They had too much time, effort, practise and muscle memory invested in the technique that they had been using for years.

Forsbury's innovation was derided. The U.S. Olympic coach Payton Jordan said, "Kids imitate champions. If they try to imitate Fosbury, he will wipe out an entire generation of high jumpers because they will all have broken necks."

Fosbury knew that he landed on his shoulders not his neck and there have been very few injuries with his method. But that did not stop his detractors. They were stuck in their ways.

"The problem with something revolutionary like that was that most of the elite athletes had invested so much time in their technique and movements that they didn't want to give it up, so they stuck with what they knew," Fosbury said.

It took almost ten years before his method came to dominate the sport and nowadays all the top performers use it.

You have probably seen it yourself - diehards will stick to their tried and trusted methods. We sometimes call them the office CAVE men - Colleagues Against Virtually Everything!

Paul Sloane gives keynote speeches on lateral thinking and innovation.

http://destination-innovation.com