On a recent episode of the Knowledge Project podcast, Dr. Atul Gawande compared the relative importance “breakthrough” versus “follow through” innovation:

”We’ve been fantastic at breakthrough innovation, with no real understanding of follow-through innovation… Follow through can seem like it’s about nuts and bolts, and not about new ideas.”

What follows is a discussion about the importance of follow-through and rigor with advances in medicine. A redirection of attention away from the shininess of “breakthroughs” is an interesting idea. It’s not that follow-through doesn’t happen, it’s that it gets backgrounded or treated...