The Four Innovation Traps
This is an excerpt from my new book, Organizational Psychology for Managers.
Practically speaking, innovation is about optimism, risk taking, and effective decision making. It is not the province of one wild-eyed kid in a garage or the iconic lone inventor. No matter how much movies make innovation out to be the result of some crazy inventor having a sudden brilliant insight, innovation comes from the organization; it is about building the environment which fosters creativity and which gives people room to explore. In order to make that happen, we have to avoid four traps and make sure we institute four key elements.
The four innovation traps are:
- Perfection trap – making our products and services more perfect always feels like a worthwhile goal. Make no mistake, to a great extent it is worthwhile. However, each generation has less “gosh wow!” than the previous one. My iPhone 4 was a lot better than an iPhone 3G, but the iPhone 5 wasn’t enough better to convince me to upgrade from the 4. The 5s was. Pursuing perfection can blind us to alternatives, and it’s the alternatives that defeat our “perfect” products. The perfect mousetrap is wonderful until someone shows up with a cat.
- To much to lose trap – we become focused on not hurting our existing products. Just remember, if you don’t turn your cash cow into hamburger, someone else will.
- Identity trap – the company defines itself in terms of its products: “we’re a database company” or “we’re a hardware company.” Specialization is great until your niche becomes irrelevant. IBM reinvented itself to have a life outside of mainframes and is doing quite well.
- The creeping box trap – it’s great to think outside the box. The problem is, once you move outside the box, it eventually grows to surround you again. Yahoo thought it was outside the box until Google came along. As already mentioned, Apple is in the box that Jobs built. Organizations get so focused on their own cleverness that they forget that other people are looking to think outside their box.
Balzac combines stories of jujitsu, wheat, gorillas, and the Lord of the Rings with very practical advice and hands-on exercises aimed at anyone who cares about management, leadership, and culture.
Todd Raphael
Editor-in-Chief
ERE Media
