Yet somehow when people bring a new idea to their manager, they forget the fallibility of prediction. It’s easy to assume that the manager has a better perspective on the viability of an idea, perhaps from her superior experience and knowledge of the industry. But these are exactly the factors that also work against innovation: high experience and confidence make people the greatest resistors to new ideas as they have the most to lose (see “The innovator’s dilemma explained” in Chapter 4). The managers of propeller aircraft design were the last to adopt jet engines. Same for graphic user interfaces vs. command lines, telephones vs. telegraphs, and — as hard as it is to admit — for whatever we’re using now vs. whatever is coming next.
Experience can be a double-edged sword. It might help you prevent pitfalls and obstacles that you might have faced before, but it will naturally also constrict your thinking as you already “think” you know what is possible. The key is to always be open-minded, as the ever changing trends might prove your experience wrong. Thus this myth was mentioned by the author, “that your boss knows more than you about innovation”.
