Myths Of Innovation Essay

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They Myths of Innovation: Ch.7-10 Chapter Seven: How does Management/Managers Help or Hurt Innovation? Management and managers have the power to either hurt or help innovation by virtue of the very definition of management and of what managers do. Managers aren’t really the one in charge of leading change: instead they’re the ones making sure that all activities stay well controlled in order to meet specific changes. As Berkun explains, “Professional management was born from the desire to optimize and control, not to lead waves of change… The goal was to minimize chance, optimize performance, and take control away from individuals” (Berkun, 2010, p.100). Essentially, what this describes is a management process which focuses on safety and control towards well timed, well-administered goal. In such cases managers ensure that staff members stay on task and that all actions help move towards both group and individualized objectives. This sort of protocol is not what breeds originality or uniqueness of thought; rather, it creates a scenario where things are safe and actions are repetitive. For example, management is often in place to ensure that workers are productive on the assembly-line, but such productivity doesn’t breed the invention and sense of daring that great ideas are born from. Thus, management can help to guide workers to keep certain numbers up when it comes to automobile assembly, but it often won’t be able to encourage workers to think about how to bolster fuel efficiency or how to create rechargeable cars. This isn’t such a great tragedy; most management is geared at sustaining a good business and for good reason: it can be incredibly difficult to keep a profitable team of people working together in successful and e... ... middle of paper ... ...rkun, 2010, p.188). It’s in this unexpected level of complexity that things become unpredictable. Dealing with these unexpected challenges often forces people to think out of the box and that out-of-the-box thinking generally gives host to a range of ideas that many people might never have expected. Companies like eBay, Amazon and Uber were all out of responses to problem in society, selling and services that had to be fixed: the invention of these companies created more problems and with them, innovative solutions that no one could have ever predicted. Some of the most innovative ideas are the most imaginative, and it can be almost impossible to predict or to anticipate what someone’s imagination is going to come up with. For instance, the “cupcake ATM” in Beverly Hills, CA is a manifestation of such originality and inventiveness, and few could have predicted it.

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