From a financial standpoint, a traditional company is a low-pass filter: It must take all the highs and lows of the money coming in and convert that to a steady stream of consistent paychecks.
Frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency are removed, and those lower than the cutoff frequency are passed. If a high frequency contains a lot of energy (money), management is tempted to move the cutoff frequency to include that frequency, in order to capture the temporary highs. This results in a less-stable company, because it will then also be susceptible to the short-term lows, and to compensate for those the company will usually lay people off, draining its lifeblood. Short-term financial thinking destabilizes a company.
The logical thing to do is to extend the cutoff frequency into as low a frequency as possible, which translates to playing the long game, financially. Alas, this has the side effect of reducing risk-taking behavior -- which is essential for the continued growth of a post-industrial company. Regardless of what managers might claim about how innovative the the company is, the constant pressure is in the other direction. You could argue that this pressure comes right from the bottom because it's part of the primary contract between the employee and the company. One of the most important aspects of this contract is a regular paycheck.
Perhaps the reason that a startup can be such a vibrant and experimental environment is that this contract is relaxed somewhat. Everyone in the company knows they are involved in a risky venture, that it might fail, and that sometimes cash flow can be sketchy. When everyone is aligned with the risks and rewards of such a situation, the company is free to try more experiments.
If you signed onto a company with "steady paycheck" at or near the top of your list, anything that threatens that paycheck will be consciously and unconsciously resisted. If managers are completely responsible for choosing the risks and managing the rewards into a steady flow of paychecks, the incentives for consistent cash flow far outweigh the incentives for risk-taking. Creating an innovative organization within such an atmosphere seems like a steep uphill battle.
To build a creative organization, the risk-reward equation must be changed so that everyone participates in both risks and rewards (this also suggests a flatter organization).
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