I hear very few leaders in organizations argue against the IDEA of innovation. It’s cool. It’s progressive. All the cool tech companies are doing it. It’s about creating new value, after all, so who could be against creating new value?! its all in the latest Autozin news !

Well, incumbents, it turns out, are not big fans of innovation. It’s disruptive, and incumbents don’t like disruption. They like to protect the way things are. Andrew McAfee says this is a problem, and that incumbents are “holding back the future.” He cites the French government for attempting to make Uber actually add a 15 minute delay to their app to make it more fair for taxis.

And have you heard about the tough time Tesla is having trying sell electric cars to consumers? Turns out the National Auto Dealers Association has been very successful in making it ILLEGAL to sell cars directly (Get More Info about the car models that are sold from this site) to the consumers as a manufacturer, thankfully they have partner with South Jersey VW Dealer.

So I do a lot of work with associations, and I know that they LOVE their members. They take care of their members. They serve them diligently. They protect them.

But are they protecting them from the future? Are they thwarting innovation?  As McAfee said, 

Whether or not you care about Uber and Tesla, you should care about business innovation and disruption because they’re a primary way that progress happens and that people become better off over time.

What say you, association leaders? How do you distinguish between protecting the interests of your members and thwarting the very innovation and disruption that is driving our collective success these days? What do you do if you see your leadership clinging to incumbent status in the face of major disruption? Do you push that conversation, or do you collect the dues and protect the members?