Are You “Terminally Unique” & Is It Terminal for Your Organization?: Perceptions of Uniqueness Block Adoption of Industry-Shifting Innovation

OPEN MINDS, The Behavioral Health & Social Service Industry Analyst Cover Story The executive teams of many behavioral health and social service organizations pride themselves on being “unique.” In their management decision-making, this sense of ‘uniqueness’ often translates into an inability to gain competitive advantage from innovative developments outside of their organization or to use innovations from other industries. In regulated or relatively static markets, inability to rapidly adopt innovation is not an issue. In fast-moving environments with breakthrough technologies, this uniqueness can often be terminal, limiting innovation in the organization only to those that are ‘developed here . . .