Why companies miss the future not because it's unpredictable, but it's unpalatable. On QWERTY, Tom Osborn's brick, and the cost of being expert or a success.
A really excellent distillation on innovation within organizations, and why can it feel so frustrating. In a startup phase, incentives are aligned to experiment, with leadership that has split off because it believes in the promise of a different method. In established organizations, leaders lose that incentive. So the question for me is how you reintroduce and balance that desire to try something new in a mature system.
This is the prime quote in the work: "Being right was the easy part. They solved it by surviving long enough inside the system for the system to change its mind."
Thank you Saba, I really did think about that final line, I was going to add that most don't survive long enough, but that is the dark ending, like a movie where the villain wins.
It’s an excellent line and a very valid analysis. I’ve seen both sides of this and I’m always curious how the survivors stay true to their thesis and being right while working within an organization that’s chopping down the very tree they’re perched on. Look forward to the rest of the series you’re working through.
A really excellent distillation on innovation within organizations, and why can it feel so frustrating. In a startup phase, incentives are aligned to experiment, with leadership that has split off because it believes in the promise of a different method. In established organizations, leaders lose that incentive. So the question for me is how you reintroduce and balance that desire to try something new in a mature system.
This is the prime quote in the work: "Being right was the easy part. They solved it by surviving long enough inside the system for the system to change its mind."
Thank you Saba, I really did think about that final line, I was going to add that most don't survive long enough, but that is the dark ending, like a movie where the villain wins.
It’s an excellent line and a very valid analysis. I’ve seen both sides of this and I’m always curious how the survivors stay true to their thesis and being right while working within an organization that’s chopping down the very tree they’re perched on. Look forward to the rest of the series you’re working through.