New research from King’s Business School has suggested too much success can be a problem, at least when it comes to innovation.
The study, carried out alongside colleagues at University of Liverpool Management School, University of Hohenheim and Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and published in Research Policy, found that employees who experience exceptionally high levels of success are less likely to see their next ideas implemented.
Researchers suggest the reason is that extreme success can inflate self-confidence and perceived social status and reduce collaboration and the willingness to develop ideas as part of a team.
Two additional experiments backed up the findings, showing that people who had achieved outstanding success were more inclined to work alone and perceived themselves as having higher social status.
The researchers conclude that organisations which rely on employee innovation platforms or idea programmes should recognise and reward success but also take care not to let top achievers become isolated from their colleagues. Sustaining innovation, they argue, depends on keeping high performers embedded in teams, open to collaboration and aware of how inflated self-perceived status or a focus on maintaining status can quietly stall creativity.
