I read this morning the board of Apple is facing a bit of a shareholder backlash. Investors want to see a succession plan for Steve Jobs, who’s taken medical leave for the third time in seven years. And the board don’t want to tell them what’s contained in the plan for fear of “revealing secret plans (that) would aid competitors and make it harder to retain executives.”
The real issue here – whether reality matches perception or not – is Apple has an “innovation hero” problem.
An innovation hero occurs whenever your innovation effort crucially relies on a single individual to get things done. The individual – probably someone pretty senior– uses his or her personal control of resource, hierarchical power, or charisma to make innovation happen, often with very little support from any structured system that fosters innovative outcomes. I’ve written before that most innovation programmes don’t work for this reason in the long term.
To read the full, original article click on this link: A new kind of innovation hero
Author: James Gardner
