Dangerous Teamthink

Failure always seems to be an own-goal situation.

“Innovation often dies in the quiet comfort of mutual delusion.” - Futurist Jim Carroll

Let’s talk about innovation.

I was on a Zoom with a potential client yesterday, looking into an innovation-themed leadership event they were pulling together. One thing that became obvious was that they didn’t really want the session to focus on the real big issues the organization is faced with.

Sadly, this often seems to be the case - people refusing to ignore the very things that are holding them back from moving forward. And in an era of relentless disruption, that means the greatest threat to their future isn’t a competitor, slow product innovation, or internal collaboration failure.

It’s the team’s collective agreement to ignore reality.

When a team or an entire industry chooses comfort over truth, they enter a state of “mutual delusion.“

Here is how this concept manifests in the context of innovation: