The Monday Rethink: The 3 biggest obstacles to innovation
How have your efforts to adapt to disruption been going lately?
Seriously though, take a look at the chart below: does it surprise you?
Here’s where my mind is going with it:
It’s not that large companies don’t manage to catch critical signals in time — it’s that they fail to act on them.
The root cause - as evidenced by the two biggest blockers, turf wars and culture - is the complexity of human behaviour, magnified when it plays out at scale .
Innovation challenges fundamentally hinge on the human element. We can’t tackle them by simply throwing more money, technology or technical expertise at them.
(It’s what system thinkers call ‘adaptive’ vs. ‘technical’ challenges)
So here are three questions I’m asking leaders when their innovation efforts are failing to gain traction:
Are you clear on which of your blockers are ‘technical’ e.g. inadequate tech infrastructure, inefficient processes, insufficient funding; and which are ‘adaptive’ e.g. turf wars, risk-averse mindsets, resistance to upskilling?
In what ways are you enabling your people to confront uncomfortable realities and experiment with new ways of thinking and working?
How are you creating a holding environment that allows your teams to navigate the tensions and conflicts inherent in innovation?
The more accurate we are in diagnosing the challenge we’re facing, the more skilful the action we end up taking.
Stay fierce & curious!
Alina