Be Your Own Person - Like Everyone Else!

Wednesdays are for Bits and Pieces. This post was prepared 5/9/15 for publication 5/13/15.

Osborne, Larry. Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret: Why Serial Innovators Succeed Where Others Fail. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013. Kindle Electronic Edition.
Chapter 12, “Groupthink: Why You Shouldn’t Care What Everybody Else Thinks” (Loc. 1198-1305)

Osborne considers that extensive collaboration is a bad thing. It can slow the process of innovation and interfere with creativity (Loc. 122). “Innovators need to be allowed to lead, paying close attention to the feedback of others and the real-world response to their ideas without ceding control of the process, final product or decision to groupthink” (Loc. 1217). The idea of collaboration is good but it can lead to a herd mentality (Loc. 1230). For this reason Osborne rejects planning committees and focus groups. “They tend to reject outright anything that doesn’t fit their standard paradigm or hasn’t been done before” (Loc. 1252). The desire for harmony found in committees is also problematic to Osborne (Loc. 1270). The group which requires consensus will rarely be innovative.