Love your tidbits – they’re just amazing. I was a consultant for many years and I understand exactly what you are saying. I was working for a $700 million a year men’s apparel giant, and they acquired a women’s brand company, and hired me to do research on merchandising and marketing positioning. I spent three months studying who the customer was and how she wanted to dress. But the merchandiser and designers decided they wanted to go contemporary styling and marketing with this 75 year old man’s brand with the new product and it totally bombed out. They ended up selling the women’s business which had eight brands to the former president of the women’s apparel company.

I just don’t understand why they act like they want change and then listen to people inside their business. It’s like today apparel companies say they want to be consumer centric but they’re really not interested in the ideas that would make them consumer centric because they ask the advice of their managers.

More testament to the fact, that change and innovation rarely comes from inside of an industry, or a corporation, because of the risk adversity and the reliance on underling opinions.