There is a saying that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. There are also times when imitation feels annoying or even like cheating (if you are on the receiving end) and like faking it (if you are the instigator).
There is a fine line between replicating someone else’s work and leveraging their idea to build upon. The key is to know the difference because when it comes to innovating, sometimes being the second person in the market is a smart way to proceed.
So, rather than seeing the only path to progress as ‘be first, be bold, build something entirely new’, there are times when the smarter move is to follow well rather than lead first, and knowing how to make progress with what others have already built is a skill in itself
Professor of Strategy Felipe Csaszar and colleagues suggest1 that leaders should be deliberate about when to innovate and when to imitate across organisations, teams and careers.
The point isn’t to copy; it’s to make a strategic choice about where originality creates durable advantage, and where adopting what already works will progress you further, faster.
They suggest that a valuable way to make that call is to consider the stage your market is in and the nature of the value you can retain. Early, fluid markets reward originality because firms are still shaping the terrain. As a dominant design emerges, advantage often shifts to those who refine, scale and execute better than anyone else.
This shift from fluid experimentation to standardised execution is a well-documented pattern in industrial evolution2. It helps explain why fast second competitors routinely overtake the pioneering innovators once standards settle and the race becomes one of cost, quality and reach rather than novelty alone.
Equally important is whether you can retain the value you create.
Decades of research3 on appropriability show that when ideas are easy to copy or customers can switch with little friction, originating may not pay off in the long run. In situations such as these, the wiser move can be to adopt or adapt quickly and differentiate your offering in execution, service or business model.
This approach is not anti-innovation; it is being savvy and knowing where your efforts will compound and yield the greatest return on investment.
The framework in practice: Adopt, Adapt, Advance
Progress requires balancing harvesting and exploring.
You want to harvest existing opportunities even as you place selective bets on what’s next. There are three options to consider. You can adopt, adapt or advance.
Option 1 – Adopt
Adopt means taking up proven solutions where standards already exist and the returns to originality are low.
When a market has converged on a dominant design, being the best at the standard beats being late to a fad.
Consider Zara. It rarely seeks to originate runway trends. Instead, it has built a sensing-to-store system that spots what resonates and moves with speed and discipline.
By adopting what the market has already validated and embedding it in a distinctive operating model, Zara trades invention risk for execution edge. Its model compresses cycle time from sensing to shelf, rides what customers already want and turns speed and scale into a differentiator. That is adoption with intent, not passivity.
Option 2 – Adapt
Adapt is where you take someone else’s good idea and make it unmistakably yours.
Toyota’s Just-in-Time system is the canonical example. The inspiration for restocking on demand was borrowed from American supermarkets. The breakthrough came from adapting that idea into an integrated production philosophy (i.e. Kanban, Andon, and relentless waste elimination) that competitors struggled to copy, even when Toyota openly shared it.
Borrowing an idea about replenishment is easy; building a socio-technical system that empowers people to stop the line, solve problems in real time and remove waste day after day is hard. Competitors saw the visible tools; they struggled to replicate the invisible routines.
Toyota’s approach was imitation elevated to capability building.
Option 3 – Advance
Advance is where you originate, but do so with precision. You choose the environments where novelty can be defended. It might be through IP, complementary assets, data flywheels or ecosystem control.
You also want to consider where timing is on your side.
Research on first-mover advantage is mixed for good reason: pioneers often pay to educate customers and make the visible mistakes; fast seconds frequently enter the market as the design stabilises and the ability to scale production becomes operational.
The leaders who advance wisely choose the moments when their originality will compound rather than dissipate quickly.
How leaders decide where to place originality
So how do you decide which of those options to select? There are four key elements to consider.
Firstly, start with the market.
If your category is fluid and unsettled, you are more likely to benefit from advancing the frontier and breaking new ground, because the space is still being defined and switching costs are forming.
In contrast, if your category has established standards, adopt them swiftly and adapt them to your context, rather than forcing novelty where customers and clients won’t pay for it.
Once a dominant design emerges or standards are established, competition shifts to scale, cost, and process control, where skilled, methodical adopters usually prevail.
Secondly, examine your edge, that is, your core strengths at both organisational and team levels.
If your strengths lie in generating insights, rapid learning, and creativity at pace, you have a stronger case for advancing on selected fronts.
On the other hand, if your edge is more focused on operational excellence, reliability, or service, adoption and adaptation will likely yield better and faster progress.
Remember, you can develop new strengths, so your position is not set in stone. However, you want to have an honest assessment of the capabilities you already possess and those you can reasonably develop.
Thirdly, interrogate value capture.
Before you green-light an original bet, examine whether you can keep enough of the value you create. You want to understand how quickly a competitor can copy your creation and what (if anything) slows them down. For example, are there patents, trade secrets, exclusive data or switching costs that will protect the value of your investment?
Lastly, balance the portfolio.
Treat innovation and imitation as interdependent modes of progress. Organisations thrive when they can shift gracefully between harvesting and exploring, rather than idolising one at the expense of the other.
Once industries converge on a standard, the returns to originality compress, and the fast second often takes the lead. Conversely, when the field is still being drawn, advancing the frontier can lock in customers, complements and capabilities that others must later match.
The art is reading where your market sits on that curve and aligning your bets accordingly.
What this means for you and your team
You can begin by mapping your initiatives to the lens.
For every major project, state in a sentence whether you intend to adopt, adapt or advance, and why that choice fits the market, your strengths and your ability to capture value.
If you can’t make the case in a sentence, you can pause the work to do further examination to clarify the best way forward.
Next, identify two areas where you will adopt proven practices that will release time, budget, and resources. For example, shared service processes, standard tooling, or reference architectures. You can then use the saved capacity to advance on one carefully chosen front where originality is defendable and meaningful to your customers or clients.
Finally, for one practice you have adopted, record what you have done, what you changed and how you will measure improvement. It is also essential to document your work so that you have a reference for future improvements.
When you take the time to codify the learning, you turn imitation into institutional capability rather than a one-off shortcut.
Progress has two primary pathways: creation and improvement. Leaders who place their originality precisely, while adopting and adapting everywhere else, will progress further. That is how you step ahead with confidence and make the most of your effort and energy.
Remember, your customers and clients pay for value, not originality for its own sake. So, determine whether value accrues to you or to the fast follower behind you. Equally, avoid lazy imitation. Copying and pasting without local insight or improvement is a race to mediocrity, not a route to performance.
You want to strive for disciplined progress, and that requires thoughtful adoption, adaptation and advancement.
Getting you ready for tomorrow, today®
Award-winning author and global workplace expert, Dr Michelle Gibbings, helps leaders, teams and organisations unlock strategic influence to accelerate progress.
References
- Csaszar, F. A., Karp, R., & Roche, M. (2025, August 1). When to innovate and when to imitate. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2025/08/when-to-innovate-and-when-to-imitate
- Abernathy, W. J., & Utterback, J. M. (1978, June/July). Patterns of industrial innovation. Technology Review, 80(7), 40–47.
- Teece, D. J. (1986). Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing, and public policy. Research Policy, 15(6), 285–305. https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-7333(86)90027-2