Why Companies Kill Their Smartest People and Ideas

How organizational habits, incentives, and hidden fears shut down progress long before markets ever have the chance.t path to stagnation and death

If you work in innovation, you’ve seen this pattern unfold repeatedly. Smart people generate promising ideas. Teams explore opportunities. Leaders nod, agree, encourage. And then, slowly and quietly, the idea dies. Not because it lacked potential. Not because customers rejected it. But because the organization suffocated it before reality could give a v…