Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Where ideas go to die

It has long been said that a camel is a horse designed by committee. That does not do justice to the camel, which is incredibly well designed and adapted to its desert environment.

Committees are notoriously bad at creation, invention and judging creative ideas, which should come as no surprise to anyone who's served on a steering, product or marketing committee. Why?

Simple, committees are about consensus, consensus requires compromise and compromise kills truly new and unique ideas.

Facebook didn't capture the imagination of 750 million users as a result of compromise.

Academy awards are not given out for compromise.

J.K. Rowling didn't revitalize an entire industry because she compromised.

Great innovation takes a strong point of view and an iron will. Committees have neither.

That's why nothing great was every created by committee.

2 comments:

  1. I thought for certain, based on the title of this post, it'd be about Washington DC.

    ReplyDelete