Start Date
6-6-2017 12:00 AM
Description
Short Abstract:
Companies and engineers create dreams during new product development when they envision future worlds that use their, and when they mobilize resources to pursue those dreams. Dreams die when programs are cancelled; often without personal or institutional frameworks to address the resulting silent grief. Implications are discussed.
Full Abstract:
New product development is a context where engineering companies create dreams. They ask their engineers to envision future worlds where their products are used, and they mobilize resources to pursue those dreams. It is a context where engineers create dreams. Relationships are formed (inside and outside of work), families grow (inside and outside of work), and employees mobilize resources (inside and outside of work) to pursue those dreams. These companies form contexts that also see dreams die. Some of these losses are silent griefs which have limited personal or institutional frameworks that acknowledge them. This presentation explores parallels drawn from personal experience with pregnancy loss and ethnographic research on cancelled programs in the energy and aerospace industries. Specific discussion is on the relationship between unrecognized silent grief and employee productivity; whether recognizing parallel experiences of grief can help employees provide care for each other; the challenge of providing care when responses to silent grief vary from denial through differing degrees of acknowledgment; and the institutional practices, both formal and ad hoc, that either provide care for or exacerbate the silent grief of those experiencing loss.
When Dreams Die: Cancelled Programs, Associated Grief, and Implications for Managing Innovation
Short Abstract:
Companies and engineers create dreams during new product development when they envision future worlds that use their, and when they mobilize resources to pursue those dreams. Dreams die when programs are cancelled; often without personal or institutional frameworks to address the resulting silent grief. Implications are discussed.
Full Abstract:
New product development is a context where engineering companies create dreams. They ask their engineers to envision future worlds where their products are used, and they mobilize resources to pursue those dreams. It is a context where engineers create dreams. Relationships are formed (inside and outside of work), families grow (inside and outside of work), and employees mobilize resources (inside and outside of work) to pursue those dreams. These companies form contexts that also see dreams die. Some of these losses are silent griefs which have limited personal or institutional frameworks that acknowledge them. This presentation explores parallels drawn from personal experience with pregnancy loss and ethnographic research on cancelled programs in the energy and aerospace industries. Specific discussion is on the relationship between unrecognized silent grief and employee productivity; whether recognizing parallel experiences of grief can help employees provide care for each other; the challenge of providing care when responses to silent grief vary from denial through differing degrees of acknowledgment; and the institutional practices, both formal and ad hoc, that either provide care for or exacerbate the silent grief of those experiencing loss.