At a recent team meeting, an engaging business professor, author and speaker was talking to us about innovation, disruption and change management. We heard about how humans just aren't emotionally keeping up with the pace of technological advancement happening in the world. It's difficult to adapt to change that is happening so quickly, yet often seems not to be happening to us.

The idea, the professor argued, is that the constant wheels in motion at any business, no matter how successful, can be thrown off course with the slightest disruption. With nothing new being fed into the loop, forward momentum can stall. Physics doesn't apply to business operations quite like it does to the laws of motion. Rather, it's relevancy that rules.

Let's think about the axioms and tales we've heard over and over. Blockbuster and Kodak were wildly relevant until they weren't. Apple has ensured it is the one to make all of its most popular products obsolete, moving on to the next thing its consumers can't live without. Then you have Henry Ford, who said his customers would have asked for faster horses before they could ever have envisioned a car.