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Incumbents don't like it, but political competition is a good thing. Incumbents usually outspend challengers by better than 3 to 1. Super PACs, which tend to support challengers, have nullified some of this advantage.

In a competitive industry, only paranoid incumbents - those constantly striving for betterment - have any hope of surviving.

Sometimes, we need an obstacle to challenge us and push us further than we would if things were always status quo. I'd say one example is the market crashing. It's like, just when we started to get into a rhythm, everything changed! But, it taught us a great deal about how we do business and how we can improve.

As they grow, companies saturate their markets, become more complex and difficult to manage, and face larger and more entrenched competitors.

In times of crisis, the incumbent suffers. And the bigger the crisis, the greater the punishment inflicted on those in power unless they do something that makes a change.

The way customers relate to brands and how profit is generated has changed so dramatically almost every professional is being challenged to reconsider what they do in order to stay relevant.

Many people, companies, and organizations are trying to protect the past at any cost. We see this regularly in business as the incumbent vs. innovator fight, but I think it's more profound than that. It's literally a difference in point of view.

We become distracted from productive labors by our perceived opponents; we become focused on them and not on our larger calling to advance our nation; our debate becomes more about scoring points against an adversary and less about advancing our common cause.

When businesses go through hard times, through down markets, what do they do is they challenge every basic assumption of how they operate. They innovate. They create disruption for a while that leads them to even greater heights when the economy turns around.

No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you're perceived to be doing, your job is never done. Every day, you get up and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.