A Tip for All Bosses
A recent article by Jack Neff from Ad Age talked about a study conducted by the Nielson Co. According to Neff, the study found the more that senior-level execs from package-goods companies get involved in the new-product development process, the less successful those products are.
New product launches are often very risky, and the majority of them end up failing. When coming up with new products or design concepts, bosses have a higher tendency to push their personal opinions into the process. Their opinions may have nothing to do with what the end consumer desires, but because their employees are too afraid to disagree, they go along with the ideas anyway. Unfortunately for those companies with too much top-level involvement, this kind of mindset limits them on what they are able to achieve.
Execs need to understand that ideas can generate from many different places. The important thing is to take a step back and let employees develop those ideas and shape them into something great. When this happens, new products have a much better chance of succeeding.
Mark Mitchell
