We have seen in the first post From Submarines to Flywheels, how traditional companies and corporations operated…then came the Disruption Tsunami described in The Disruptive Innovation: From Flywheels to Boring-Wheels. This is why I have created the IMAGINE Mindset model which is overviewed Here.

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The Triple Boring-Wheel Machine

The competitor Flywheel in combination with your company's submarine innovation model is creating the Boring-Wheel, a self-destructive spiral digging the grave of your business. In the context of innovation, it's often a Triple Wheel Boring Machine:

• The wheel of delivery
• The wheel of the cost
• The wheel of talents

Let's explore each of these vicious circles in more detail.

1. The Boring-Wheel of Delivery

When disruption begins for the company operating with the “Tide Model”, the water level starts to drop, and submarines can no longer operate below the surface. Many of them end up at the bottom of the sea.

The company starts losing money or isn't earning enough to satisfy shareholders. Officially, there's no innovation budget to speak of, and any request for one is met with a resounding "Sorry, no money." Consequently, innovation becomes constrained, and those seeking to save the company are forced into submarine mode.

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This, in turn, leads to delays in roadmaps, unfocused teams, and delays in time-to-market, all of which impact market success and, consequently, margins.
The loop of the Boring Wheel of Delivery is closed:

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2. The Boring-Wheel of Cost

As a second consequence, the submarine innovation model leads to a lack of coordination within companies organized into silos (that are competing for innovation budgets). Submarines navigating within one business unit remain invisible to the rest of the organization. As a result, the same innovation idea may crop up in multiple places, resulting in duplicating costs.

This is the same phenomena that leads every Nobel prize to be attributed to several researchers that have worked on  the same idea at the same time. In contrast to academic researchers, Business Units are not publicly saying what they are working on. As a consequence, very different implementations are chosen.

These different solutions need to be integrated later, increasing costs further. This situation often leads to political battles within the organization.

No Brainer that the lack of synergies directly affects prices and margins, further hampering the ability to allocate an official innovation budget. The loop is closed again!

3. The Boring-Wheel of Talent

A company that's losing money is less attractive than a winning one. Innovators who have their ideas rejected, or who can't engage in submarine innovation, become frustrated. Innovators are typically high performers, deriving pleasure from their work. Take their creative outlet away for a while, and it puts the company's performance at risk.  Take it away for longer and they have no reason to stay.

Your competitors, who are still innovative, appear more appealing. Over time, you might be left with underperforming employees who can't help you design competitive products. You know the rest.

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The Innovation Boring-Wheel Paradox

These three Boring-Wheels are interconnected and amplify each other, leading to a diagram that resembles a tornado destroying any company in its path. 

It's hard to believe that team leaders and managers would willingly participate in these destructive cycles without taking action. This paradox of the Boring-Wheel innovation exists because middle management, who has the most to lose, often resists new systems and change. This level of management is also the least likely to secure an ‘official’ innovation budget for their teams.

Even when top management is having an ambitious change management vision, it is stopped at the execution level by the key people who are the link between theory and practice.
 

An Inevitable Impact

Many companies have failed due to these issues, and I've witnessed this phenomenon in several cases during my career, such as at Lucent Technologies, Alcatel, Atos, DragonWave, and some SMEs. I've also seen a few success stories of firms that managed to reinvent themselves through a pivot, like IBM moving from product to services business and Blackberry surviving, albeit with less success.

Intel might become a reference for the “I’ll be back” business story or may just pivot to the silicium die manufacturing business which is more disruption-safe (very high entry ticket).

Most leaders attempt to escape this situation by acquiring competitors, but merging companies with different innovation cultures often results in a proliferation of submarine projects. Hence, companies must establish an innovation model that allows them to maintain their position as the uncontested leader.

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First Aid

If you are not sure whether your company works in that Boring-Wheel Model or you do recognize it but you do not know how to change it: Just book a free 15 min call HERE and we will help you in your next step.

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This blog post is part of a series “IMAGINE: I for Identify”

PART 0: The IMAGINE Innovation Mindset
‍PART 1: From Submarines to Flywheels.
PART 2: The Disruptive Innovation: From Flywheels to Boring-Wheels.
PART 3: The Innovation Boring-Wheel Paradox
PART 4: Breaking free from Boring-wheels… USE CASE.