The Power of Teams
Innovation
“Thank you for your findings, your team defined an interesting growth market and yes, offers unconventional ideas, however …,” says the President of a corporate business unit while in meeting with high-ranking Committee members. “What we see in your assumptions is still a big risk in the trend, so let us not fool ourselves, these ideas are risky and won’t work! So, we better stop the project now, any comments?”
There was no objection – the project was closed.
6 months of hard teamwork, across the globe, all units and corporate think tanks: GONE!
Months of experimenting with different ideas, hypotheses and predicted scenarios: GONE!
Our trust to be able to really contribute something meaningful in a CO2-reducing footprint project: GONE!
What happens every day in any large organization happened to our global team a few years ago. The team had been given the brief to:
- Develop “out-of-the-box ideas”,
- Create solutions beyond given departmental and regional product lines,
- Challenge hierarchical thinking.
The intrapreneurs in our team had pushed us far, so we came up with portfolio additions – either cheaper versions for existing “jobs to be done” or completely new solutions.
Out-of-the-Box vs. In-the-Box Decisions
We had created out-of-the-corporate-box ideas. But how out-of-the-box was our top management's decision-making? Had we misjudged our freedom and their trust? How could they not sense our good intention?
Their inertia to look beyond existing “boxes” made no sense – innovations emerge where new connections get woven. The company had lost in an even bigger way, because our motivation to contribute was gone.
Our trust in our power to realize ideas and ignite our entrepreneurial force was extinct. Others tried – and succeeded. Coincidentally, years later, a Belgian start-up had turned “our” ideas into fruition.
The Innovator’s Dilemma, which Claydon Christensen describes, had struck again.
