There’s a maxim among pub pool players that the consumption of beer will improve your game, until you reach a tipping point whereby the alcohol flooding your bloodstream diminishes your mastery of the cue.
Funnily enough, it’s not just an urban myth. While The Watsonia Bugle cheekily reports an empirically generated (but alas, fictional) bell curve, the effect of ethanol-induced relaxation and confidence on the players of time-rich sports has some actual science underpinning it.
I recognise a similar pattern in the field of corporate innovation. Not with lager (lol!) but with another variable: responsibility.
In a nutshell, I feel that anyone who’s expected to innovate needs to own a portfolio in which to do it. Armed with both the opportunity and the authority to make design decisions inside a ringfence, new ideas can be tried and tested quickly and efficiently without the myriad barriers that arise when you don’t have that power.
Tags: Authority • beer • innovation • pool • Portfolio • Responsibility