“Within the company, there was widespread agreement that customers would always want hard copies of pictures, and key decision makers failed to question this assumption.”
“They favored the comfort of consensus over the discomfort of dissent, which was precisely the opposite of what they should have done.”
“Those who disagreed were quickly marginalized.”
“Instead, leaders fiddled while the company burned.”
Adam Grant, Originals, 2016
No, these quotes do not refer to Creative Memories or even to Kodak. Instead, they refer to Polaroid, a company ruled by Edwin Land, the strong-willed founder who could not see the world outside of his own narrow perspective. Because instant film had succeeded, he felt it always would. Instead instant film drove Polaroid to its demise, as the company ignored the coming wave of digital photography. After all, why earn 38% profit margin on digital product when you can earn 70% on film.
For more about Polaroid, see Chapter 7 on Rethinking Groupthink in Originals by Adam Grant, as well as Sell Stuff and Polaroid, Kodak, and a Complete Disregard of the Patent System.
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