Corporate innovation is a discipline that could easily take a turn for the worse with improper, overdue, or undersized investments. Unfortunately, many organizations fall prey to the theatrics of innovation, which often amount to nothing more than an exercise in futility with little or no value generated for the business or society. Here are the seven deadly sins in corporate innovation, and what practices you should adopt to repent for each one your organization has committed.

lust

1. Lust

Chasing After the Next Big Thing

A classic sin for organizations that chase after the next big thing too soon and too fast without proper planning — and then get hit hard by reality.

Path to redemption: Breakthrough innovation does not come fast or easy. Here, baby steps are the way to go; playing the long game means devoting a significant amount of time to discovering the right problems to solve and identifying possible solutions for said problems early on. This approach requires commitment and leeway, so don’t be afraid to go slow and steady. Running a problem discovery session is an effective way to find new game-changing opportunities, an approach that consists of assessing what the future has in store and the impact it will have on your organization.

gluttony

2. Gluttony

Losing Sight of What Lies Around the Corner

Organizations guilty of this sin are those that lose sight of what lies around the corner because they remain too preoccupied with the core business.  

Path to redemption: Regularly consider challenging the status quo and plan concrete campaigns that question conventional thinking. Look for alternative approaches and models to what may be considered as settled. Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation is still in its infancy, but it holds great potential according to Gartner’s latest market guide on innovation management tools. A realistic first step in this direction would mean leveraging AI to scan internal and external data sources to alert innovators of emerging technologies or weak signals. In this case, efforts would be focused on what truly matters: transforming raw data into tangible insights that can be used to discover new opportunities, solve challenges, or deliver on working concepts. 

greed

3. Greed

Extracting Maximum Value from Existing Solutions

Like gluttony, an inordinate amount of attention misplaced and focused on extracting maximum value from existing solutions can come at the detriment of continuous improvements and sustainability investments required to modernize archaic approaches that have now fallen out of favor. Core business innovation shouldn’t be shunned as unnecessary or limited to broad strokes that only produce an eye candy effect with small incremental design changes.

Path to redemption: Look to evolve the processes and experiences that surround how business gets done today and see what novel and creative ideas emerge to create the kind of change you need to implement to achieve those results. Business model innovation is a great practice to incorporate that allows you to consider new data points (the Business Model Canvas is an example of a common approach). Leverage technology that empowers crowd collaboration within digital whiteboard spaces to rebuild your go-to-market strategies or make your business more sustainable (with a Flourishing Business Canvas) for example.

sloth4. Sloth

Turning a Blind Eye to Disruptive Forces

When it comes to innovation, sloth is the silent killer. Turning a blind eye to disruptive forces and future evolutions means almost certain death in today’s hyper competitive world. This sin is more prevalent among established businesses in which change-seekers and makers are often at the mercy of regulatory compliance.

Path to redemption: Today, there are clear mandates on what a business should look like and how it should operate by 2030 and 2050, which is why you should begin addressing your business’ future immediately. Organizations looking to meet their Corporate Social Responsibility need to have a clear vision and defined outcomes by identifying technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that can help meet the sustainability goals put forth by the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — and such a challenge should include both your employees and the greater stakeholder economy in which businesses now operate. This means leveraging the collective brainpower of your community of customers, partners, suppliers, startups, academia, and governments to cocreate solutions that will lead to a more sustainable future for all.

wrath5. Wrath

Punishing Failure

When actions don’t follow words, innovation will stop dead in its tracks. Wrath occurs when innovation investments go awry, experiments flop, or promising concepts fail to bear fruit. Organizations talk a good game but often punish failure — and they do so with a heavy hand. This creates a toxic workplace where innovation is feared, and growth consequently stagnates. 

Path to redemption: Gamifying innovation is often misunderstood. Tying innovation to employee performance objectives and evaluation criteria is paramount in fostering a culture of openness, creativity, and learning. Celebrating both accomplishments and lessons learned from failure means developing a psychologically safe environment that welcomes radical new thinking which in turn creates future dividends for the organization.

envy6. Envy

Emphasizing the “I” in Innovation

A culture of innovation is all about getting people to work together towards a common goal. There is no “me” in crowdsourced innovation because this practice, by its very definition, harnesses the collective knowledge and creativity of diverse crowds to realize mutually beneficial outcomes. The final solution will be truly impactful and far more likely to succeed if envy is kept in check, however — and how the organization rewards and recognizes those responsible for creating value is ultimately where this sin can rear its ugly head.  

Path to redemption: Crowds, especially truly diverse ones, deliver much more value and actionable ideas when working in a collaborative setting. Innovation campaigns that bring people together also tend to drive higher levels of engagement and form new value creation relationships that would otherwise not easily actualize through other approaches. Business competitions such as Shark Tanks/Dragon’s Den and Pitchfest type of events are perfect examples of campaigns that can help to eliminate silos and make innovation inclusive and fair for everyone involved. Additionally, allowing an idea to bounce around is critical to improving its value. As the Deloitte Ten Types of Innovation framework illustrates, developing an idea with others allows for new perspectives, experiences, and approaches to emerge. This creates the much sought-after snowball effect that allows organizations to unlock the true potential of a crowd, and by extension, the ideas that spawn from it.

pride7. Pride

Believing You’re Too Big to Fail

Known as the original sin, pride is the primary reason innovators don’t achieve what they set out to accomplish. Organizations that believe they are too big to fail, too wise to learn, too experienced to experiment, too entrenched to be creative, too agile to adapt, and too powerful to be resilient ultimately end up having to swallow their pride. Sooner or later, a pivot will be in order, but the maneuver will be excruciatingly difficult, or worse, impossible. This is a point of no return where the organization falls behind the competition as it is left to pick up the pieces.

Path to redemption: Embrace your inner child by establishing healthy business practices that encourage curiosity without fear of retribution. A Center of Excellence (CoE) for Innovation is a practical way to materialize your commitment to innovation. A purpose-built CoE creates a safe space that promotes the people, resources, activities, and success stories surrounding innovation. This level of transparency instills a sustainable culture of innovation, as it allows innovation champions to autonomously lead their innovation efforts without putting undue pressure on a central unit. If you want to make innovation the collaborative work of everyone in your organization, then a CoE for Innovation is your answer.

The Biggest Sin of All

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone: when it comes down to it, no organization is perfect, but small steps can and should be taken to forge a path of redemption, because ultimately the biggest sin of all is to not even try. Innovation is not a one and done practice and often fails to produce the desired outcomes, but despite all that can go wrong, future-fit organizations keep at it because innovation is a cycle of betterment. As one of the principles of the Future-Fit Manifesto goes: “At all times, the organization reflects on how to become more Future-Fit, then tunes and adjusts its behavior and systems accordingly.” A growth mindset is the cornerstone of innovation: the vision, the culture, and the tools are what make it possible and repeatable.


Ludwig Melik
CEO at Planbox and author of the Future-Fit Manifesto. I help organizations build a sustainable culture of innovation. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.