I was on my way to the market, shopping list in hand. “Honey, can you grab some lemons?” my wife called out as the door hit me on the bum. “Yep!” I shouted through the closed door. I hopped in my car, got to the store, whipped out my list, got everything on it, and headed home, feeling pretty darn proud of myself that I’d spent less than 30 minutes door to door.

I came into kitchen, bags in hand, and began unpacking, my wife pitching in. She stopped suddenly. “No lemons?” she asked, eyebrows raised. Dread. I’d forgotten them. They weren’t on my list.

Silly story, right? Happens all the time, no big deal, right? Wrong. Big deal.

We hear a lot about how to get things done. Not so much about getting things right. Imagine if I was a pilot or surgeon, and the “lemons” weren’t lemons at all but a vital step in a complex, life-endangering process that I left off the preflight check or surgical protocol.

What’s this have to do with creativity and innovation? A lot, actually. The role of a good standard is not limited to execution mode.

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