Page 106 - Free the Idea Monkey
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9. The Lemming Effect. “The Many people believe America is the
competition has just introduced an most inventive country. Ironically, it
X, so we need to have an X, too.” If all turns out that we may have invented
you are offering is a me-too product, fear of failure. According to Scott
you can only gain market share by A. Sandage, a professor of history
cutting price, and who wants to go at Carnegie Mellon University, only
that route? Find an unmet need and recently have we used failure as
go after it. something that defines one’s identity.
Could this be why we have so much
8. “Team ACME.” See if this trouble embracing failure?
sounds familiar. Someone comes
up with an idea and it gets imple- Scott argues that people being
mented by an ad hoc team with branded by their failure is tied
money found in a slush fund. It’s directly to entrepreneurial capital-
a daring approach. It’s innovative. ism in 19th century America. Prior to
And it almost never works because it 1820, there were no police reports,
isn’t sufficiently thought out. If you credit reports or report cards to fol-
have ever watched a Wile E. Coyote low you around. For the first time in
history, the story of your life—and
cartoon, you under- your associated failures — could
stand the problem. actually hurt you.
The Coyote’s ad
hoc solutions to the Whether you believe that success
problem of catching the Road Runner and failure as personal as brand
seem on the surface to make sense, attributes is a recent development
but they always contain a fatal flaw or not, this much is true: in America,
that causes them to blow up in the everything we do is now put in the
end. If you substitute your company success or failure box. After twenty
for Wile E. and “a nagging consumer years of working with the biggest
challenge” for the Road Runner, companies and best thinkers, I can
you’ll see why there are better ways assure you that the fear of failure is
to go. Meep Meep. killing innovation.
7. It’s Scary Out There. There
are thousands of reasons not to be 91C H A P T E R 6
bold. The economy is weak; the mar-
ket is unsettled. Somebody needs a
hug. Fine, go get yourself one. Then
buck up and get aggressive.
