04-10-2010, 04:17 PM
The idea that innovation is speculative and risky is usually a sign that a company has experienced significant innovation trauma in the past.Signs of innovation trauma include unwillingness to invest outside existing business lines, disbelief that a company can be innovative, and skepticism that delivery capability is up to the task of doing new things.
Innovation trauma happens in the situation when an organization has tried to do something unique and unusual and failed badly at it. Employees decide that they are not able to do new things successfully, and that the only course possible is to return to the safety of business-as-usual. The result is their organizations stagnate because everyone is so scared they'll have another costly mistake.
Sun Microsystems are an excellent example of what happens to companies when they experience innovation trauma. The company released a device called "SunRay", which was a network computer quite ahead of its time. The device's promise was to reduce dramatically the amount of money IT departments would need to make their technology work. It would be simpler, easier to use, and much more flexible.
When the product finally arrived, it did very few of these things. Customers who had planned their operations around the product turned on the company's salespeople. Feeling the pain in their wallets, the sales force directed their ire towards many of the other products the company was trying to sell, and insisted on decent evidence of performance before they would risk embarrassment in front of their customers again. Sun had troubles with its innovation efforts for years afterward.
Innovation trauma happens in the situation when an organization has tried to do something unique and unusual and failed badly at it. Employees decide that they are not able to do new things successfully, and that the only course possible is to return to the safety of business-as-usual. The result is their organizations stagnate because everyone is so scared they'll have another costly mistake.
Sun Microsystems are an excellent example of what happens to companies when they experience innovation trauma. The company released a device called "SunRay", which was a network computer quite ahead of its time. The device's promise was to reduce dramatically the amount of money IT departments would need to make their technology work. It would be simpler, easier to use, and much more flexible.
When the product finally arrived, it did very few of these things. Customers who had planned their operations around the product turned on the company's salespeople. Feeling the pain in their wallets, the sales force directed their ire towards many of the other products the company was trying to sell, and insisted on decent evidence of performance before they would risk embarrassment in front of their customers again. Sun had troubles with its innovation efforts for years afterward.