![\"outlierinnovators\"](\"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/outlierinnovators.jpg\")
<\/a>front of new technologies, developing the next generation of new products, and thinking \u201ca mile above the box\u201d is drawn into working on projects that are incremental to the product and to the existing business.\u00a0 Often he or she will approach you and state that the work has become more boring, and that there is no time left for creative thinking or next generation experimentation and development.<\/p>\n[Email readers, continue here…]<\/em><\/span> \u00a0That\u2019s one scenario. In many companies, there are people who are quiet geniuses, wanting to work on projects outside of the daily focus of the department or company.\u00a0 Managers sometimes view this behavior as non-strategic or wasteful, and even sometimes will isolate or reject these outside thinkers outright.<\/p>\n Or finally, you may want to start a project using the next generation of tools to produce an entirely new product \u2013 but your development resources are all tied up with projects to enhance existing products.\u00a0 Whichever of the three scenarios may apply to you, it is a red flag for your future if you condone the status quo<\/span>, and allow the company to devote all of its resources to existing products and simple enhancements.\u00a0 Your best creative thinkers will leave you, looking for more challenges than you can offer.\u00a0 Your competitors may already be working on the next generation of product, as you remain stuck in the mud, even if focused upon serving the customer base with outstanding service and rapid feature rollout.<\/p>\n It is up to you to decide if research and development for advanced or next generation products is a strategic priority for you and your company.\u00a0 If so, you have a duty to protect these future-focused developers or architects, removing or reducing the pressure of reactionary development work, and isolating them in a space that prevents constant interruption by others focused upon day-to-day work.<\/p>\n Technology companies are prime targets for this problem.\u00a0 Every six to ten years, there is an entirely new platform to focus upon for the next generation of products.\u00a0 Just think of the computer and software fields.\u00a0 First there were mainframes, followed by minicomputers, then client-server systems, then peer-to-peer networks, then the Internet, mobile devices, cloud computing, and now mesh networks.\u00a0 Each generation required new tools, rewrites of software, creation of new user interfaces.<\/p>\n And in each generation, there are dominant players from the past generation that fade as new companies not inhibited by the demands of their user base leap beyond the last generation\u2019s leaders with new systems for the new age.\u00a0 Leaders of significant size are sometimes made irrelevant over time, or pivot into service organizations, or absorbed into growing next generation companies.<\/p>\n What happened to Wang, Sperry-Univac, Burroughs-Unisys, DEC, RCA, and hundreds of early generation leaders?\u00a0 Their CEOs did not provide enough of a safe environment and enough resources to their creative geniuses to make the leap into that next generation.<\/p>\n It is a cost of doing business that you cannot ignore.\u00a0 Not only providing resources for next generation development, but protecting the people performing those development tasks should be one of your strategic priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here\u2019s one for executives of technology companies, or any company with next generation products in mind.\u00a0 As your business grows more complex and there are more employees to manage and more customers to care for, slowly you will notice that … Continue reading