© CA 2019
George Watt and Howard AbramsLean Entrepreneurshiphttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3942-1_1

1. Their Own Worst Enemy

Why Innovation Fails in Established Organizations
George Watt1  and Howard Abrams2
(1)
Kanata, ON, Canada
(2)
San Mateo, CA, USA
 

“Life’s real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.”

—Anonymous

Bringing new ideas from “eureka!” to a point where they are bringing value to people every day is hard. Doing so in established organizations, especially large ones, can be even harder. But why? Why is it not easier for people working in these large organizations—with scores of talented people, massive resources, and hundreds of years of experience—to breathe life into great new ideas? That ...

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