WHAT'S STIFLING THE CREATIVITY AT COOLBURST?

The Harvard Business Review case article of September-October 1997: What's Stifling the Creativity at CoolBurst portrays an Miami-based fruit-juice company established in schools and restaurants around the states of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Unfortunately, the obstacle and challenge for the company to overcome was the inability of the CEO of CoolBurst Mr. Garth LaRoue to embrace change and innovation. Mr. LaRoue was vulnerable to the concept of change and had a "if aint broke, don't fix it" as is mentality. However, this atmosphere at CoolBurst led Sam Jenkins, a former employee at CoolBurst, to deviate from CoolBurst and form his own company and also create a rival product called Thirst Smasher. Jenkin's thrist for innovation and risk led to a successful counter product against CoolBurst. The employees of CoolBurst would also always be discouraged from innovating even though many had inspirational ideas. They just viewed themselves as a simple fruit juice company and nothing more. In summary, if the CEO of CoolBurst attempted to embrace risk and innovation then his company would not be at a crossroads with a creation of a rival product such as Thirst Smasher developed by Sam Jenkins. Overall, if change had been accepted by Mr. LaRoue then there might have been a possibility that Sam Jenkins would have not left CoolBurst.