"Innovation again?" This may be the honest inner voice of employees confronting yet another call for "innovation" whenever a new CEO takes office. At that moment, innovation becomes a burden rather than an expectation, received as just another assignment rather than a voluntary challenge. Is innovation inherently a painful process, or is it painful because we are being "dragged along"?
"Innovation is joyful when you lead it and painful when you are dragged along." This was the message I delivered to members of my organizations when I took office as President of the Korea Employment Information Service in 2013 and as President of the Korea University of Technology and Education in 2023. It is not merely a slogan. It is an essential question about what attitude we choose to adopt while living through an era of change.
We already know the answer from our daily lives. We easily tire of work assigned by others, but we do not easily tire of difficult work we have chosen ourselves. Everyone has had the experience of being absorbed in something late into the night. In such moments, we feel the sensation of being alive more vividly than fatigue. Ultimately, what makes the difference is not the "difficulty" of the task but "initiative."
The same applies to innovation. The moment it is accepted as an assignment handed down from above, innovation becomes a burden. But the moment we set our own direction and lead, innovation becomes an intriguing exploration and achievement. Even with the same change, an entirely different world unfolds depending on whether you are dragged along or you lead the way.
Having served as head of two institutions, I have experienced the remarkable results produced when members share the direction of innovation and willingly participate. The Korea Employment Information Service was praised as a "role model for public institution innovation," and the Korea University of Technology and Education achieved dazzling results including the nation's top employment rate, its highest-ever admissions competition ratio, and the top ranking among universities for educational excellence. These miraculous outcomes were changes that occurred when members became not "tools of innovation" but "owners of innovation."
We are now in the midst of a massive whirlwind of change. Digital transformation and the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, industrial restructuring, ultra-low birthrates and super-aging, and shifts in the international order. Unstoppable currents have already begun. Change is no longer a choice but a matter of survival. We must decide. Will we laboriously chase change, or will we read it first, set the direction, and create the future? Those who chase waver, but those who go ahead create the path.
Leading innovation can sometimes be frightening, because it requires navigating through the fog of uncertainty. But the difference is clear. Change that drags you along leaves fatigue, while innovation you lead leaves meaning.
The starting point that determines the success or failure of innovation always lies in "my state of mind." When someone looks at the same change and sneers, "Why change it again?" another is excited, asking, "What if I try this first?" The small difference in courage to take the first step into the fog ultimately determines the fate of an organization and changes the future of an individual. Now we must ask ourselves: Am I following change, or am I creating it?
This is an era in which we cannot survive without innovation. But the moment we say, "Innovation again?" we have already begun to fall behind. Conversely, the moment we say, "Let's try it first," innovation becomes not a sacrifice for the organization but the best opportunity for our own growth.
Innovation is not pain. It is painful only when you are dragged along. The moment you lead it yourself, innovation becomes the most active choice to reclaim the initiative of your life and enhance the resilience of your organization—and the most exhilarating joy in the world. At the end of that joy, the future we have dreamed of is finally waiting.
