Many bosses say they want innovation, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kantor observes, but “operate by a set of hidden principles designed to prevent innovations from surfacing or succeeding.” You can find her nine ways to kill innovation using the link below, but three struck me as particularly pertinent.
Rule 2: “Invoke history. If a new idea comes up for discussion, find a precedent in an earlier idea that didn’t work and remind everyone of that bad experience.”
Rule 7: “Act as though punishing failure motivates success.”
Rule 9: “Never forget that we got to the top because we already know everything there is to know about this business.”
A tenth rule might be the exact opposite of Kantor’s rule 9. Especially when considering an idea that might diversify the business, too many companies lack self-confidence and justify inaction by saying if it’s such a good idea why hasn’t x or y already done it? At this moment of indecision, companies need to remember the words of Apple’s Think Different advertising campaign: “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”