The Stereotypy Trap

Ron Johnson, former CEO of JC Penney, was ousted after 17 months of his tenure due to the use of stereotypy. Johnson tried to implement the same actions that worked for him while he was at Apple, including a bazaar-like feel to the shopping experience, but ignored JC Penney's core customers. Stereotypy is a repetitive managerial bias that can lead to errors in judgement by forcing the manager to believe that what worked in the past will work again. Therefore, systematic innovation is necessary to create new business models that reflect the situation at hand for managers to avoid this bias.