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.
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.
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.
Whether a company shows signs of innovation trauma or not, however, one thing is very certain. Generally, employees will not believe that innovation can create decent returns predictably unless they are shown how to do so.
Innovation Trauma can be missed using the tools of Innovation Management. James Gardner’s free online innovation book has advice that will help you miss this and other pitfalls in your innovation effort.
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