It is no surprise then that research from Paul Geroski and Markides found that companies that were skilled at innovation were usually not that skilled when it came to commercialisation and vice versa. Their book, Fast Second, divides businesses into ‘colonists’ and ‘consolidators’. Small and nimble, colonists are adept at creating market niches but are terrible institution builders. Consolidators, with their strong cultures of discipline and cost control, know how to take clever ideas from other firms and turn them into mass market items. Microsoft is a prime instance of this.
Researchers argue that business processes actually prevent helpful missteps from occurring. According to their catalogue of accidents, not all false steps and mishaps are equal. Accidents, they say, come from unlikely mental associations such as memories and vague connections, looking for something and finding it in an unexpected way, looking for one thing and finding something else, and not looking for anything but finding something valuable.