Balanced somewhere between creative optimism and programmatic pessimism is an ethereal, magical place where innovation concepts meet real revenue. Tip the scale just slightly in either direction and that magical meeting of the two is torn apart and the innovation program fails.

From tiny startups to giant mega conglomerates, I’ve personally seen how a single person in a management team can destroy innovation projects by swinging the organizational balance one way or the other.

At the extremes of optimism, I’ve seen “visionary leaders” sell complete vaporware, promising unicorns and rainbows that simply didn’t exist, setting the innovation program up to fail no matter the investment received or the effort expended by their team.

At the extremes of pessimism, I’ve seen corporate managers brought in that acted so cowardly they starved viable innovation projects until they failed (even ones that had already started generating revenue!), hiding behind the excuse of “making their quarterly numbers.” In reality they just didn’t want any risk attached to their careers by supporting new or unproven projects.

Either extreme is toxic to the long-term profitability of an organization.

Throughout my career it has been shocking to learn that indeed, innovation really is so delicate: Years of passionate work by innovation project teams, startups or R&D groups can be swiftly derailed or outright destroyed by the change of a single manager who is more focused on climbing the corporate ladder than building long term success. In being either overly grandiose or ruthlessly conservative in their promises.

Innovation demands a dynamic balance of organizational optimism and pessimism to endure the fundamental process of de-risking ideas to deliver the best of those ideas to paying customers. And it is brutally difficult to maintain that equilibrium in an organizational setting where personal incentives relating to perceived career risk can swing so wildly.