“It was the best of times it was the worst of times. . .it was the season of light it was the season of darkness. . . it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair. . .”

Leave it to Charles Dickens, in the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, to capture the anxiety of so many executives and innovators I’ve met lately. We’re in the fifth year of a bull market—the best of times.Yet we’re contemplating the worst of times. Is the sub-prime mortgage fiasco winding down or ramping up? Will the decline of the dollar boost exports from the US, or shake the confidence of foreign investors in the US? Is the economy merely slowing down, or headed for deep recession?

The question for executives and entrepreneurs is how these uncertain times affect the timing of their plans for innovation. My answer: The worst of times are often the best of times in which to launch a product or start a company.

It all goes back to changing the game. The companies and products that make it big don’t succeed because their champions “time the market” well. They make it big because their champions believe so deeply in what they are doing that they plunge ahead, regardless of macroeconomic conditions—often in face of the worst possible macroeconomic conditions.

Henry Luce launched his glossy, oversized, outrageously expensive ($1 per issue) Fortune magazine in February 1930, four months after the Crash of ’29. Did he do it because consultants told him the time was right? Of course not. He did it because he believed in what Fortune stood for and would not let bad times stand in the way of a great idea.

In the course of researching Mavericks at Work, we had long talks with Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen (about whom I wrote in an earlier post). Here’s what he said about timing innovation: “Big, established companies are really good at executing on the ideas that make a lot of sense. So if you’re going to start a company, you better have an idea so radical that most people think it’s crazy. Dell sounded crazy—a personal-computer company started in the teeth of an enormous recession in the industry. Google sounded like a crazy idea—another search engine, started in 1998, growing right through the dotcom meltdown. It seemed like complete lunacy.”

I’m not arguing in favor of lunacy, but I am arguing in favor of originality. If you start a company when everyone else thinks it’s a great time to start a company, how is that an advantage? If you launch a product in a category into which everyone else is launching products, how does that help you stand out?

Indeed, if you have a genuinely good idea, bad times are often a big plus. The battle for talent is less ferocious. Potential investors aren’t wading through a sea of rival business plans. All sorts of costs, from office spacer to ad space, are lower.

So don’t let tough times shake your commitment to innovation and change. Use tough times to toughen your resolve—and improve your chances of success.

Read more of Bill Taylor's "Game Changer" posts

MORE ON INNOVATION AND MANAGING DURING UNCERTAINTY:
HarvardBusiness.org's Downturn Survival Guide
The Right Kind of Failure (HMU Article)
Moving Upward in a Downturn (HBR Article)
Picking the Best New Business Opportunities (HMU Article)
Five Missteps to Avoid in Volatile Times (HMU Article)