What Nokia, Kodak, and Blockbuster All Missed: The Groupthink Factor

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney - A Show About Ideas Creativity And Innovation

It was a quiet moment in a Nokia conference room that would eventually cost $100 billion. An engineer stood nervously, holding a prototype of a full touchscreen phone. The response from management? “Interesting, but that's not how phones work.” This dismissal highlighted the absence of the groupthink factor—a unified vision that could have driven innovation. One year later, Apple launched the iPhone, and Nokia‘s dominance began to crumble.

Around the same time, in a Blockbuster boardroom, executives were dismissing Netflix as a “very small niche business,” turning down a $50 million acquisition offer. Today, Netflix is worth over $100 billion, while Blockbuster is a cautionary tale.

And let's not forget Kodak, who actually invented the first digital camera but convinced themselves it would never replace film – right up until they filed for bankruptcy after a century of market dominance.

Three industry titans. Three catastrophic falls. Most people think these were just bad decisions – moments where smart leaders somehow got it wrong. But what if there was something deeper at work? What if these weren't just isolated mistakes, but symptoms of a hidden pattern that's probably affecting your organization right now?

Here's the scary part: the faster your market is moving, the more susceptible you become to this pattern. Even more troubling? The organizations that succumb to it never see it coming. In fact, they're usually convinced they're making the right decisions right up until reality proves them catastrophically wrong.

In this episode, we'll reveal the subtle force that brought down these giants and may be killing innovation in your organization right now. More importantly, we'll show you how to spot it before it's too late.

Join us to discover what these fallen giants missed – and how you can avoid being next.

To learn about the groupthink factor, listen to this week's show: What Nokia, Kodak, and Blockbuster All Missed: The Groupthink Factor.

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