Look before you leap.

In the book, "How the Mighty Fall" by Jim Collins, he studied and compared Top-Ranking companies against Top-Tanking companies, and the stages that were identified.  A very insightful read over all, but I wanted to point out how Innovation does not mean Success.  Just because something is new doesn't mean it will work.  

http://www.epicfail.com/2014/12/08/never-stick-your-face-into-unknown-holes/

In the book, Jim talks about how many companies try all sorts of new things, and seldom do they work.  The companies that tended to dive after completely new and unproven strategies did poorly.  As the image shows, look before you leap.  Many of the most successful companies would take small, low risk leaps.  (Testing the water, so to speak) And then after successes, increase their foot print slowly.

Its a valid concept that applies to large businesses, large projects, or even putting your face in a hole. :)  But it also has to do with everyday life, and every day tasks.  We can try completely new things, like skate boarding (for those who haven't skate boarded before) but we don't start by jumping off a 40 foot X-Games Ramp on our first day.  If we do want to get there, we start by just getting on the skate board at all, and then gradually increase the difficulty and danger.  With tasks, start looking at what you can improve.  Try new things.  But don't completely change everything at once.  Slowly improve, throwing out things that impede your success and increasing the experiments that improve your capabilities.