INNOVATION GETTING REAL
The innovation theatre trap Innovation isn’t about putting on a good show. Leaders need to refocus on the ultimate goal of creating value Writing Tendayi Viki
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ately, a few thinkers and practitioners have lamented that ‘innovation’ has become a buzzword, stripped of all meaning. It’s used so often that people are now unsure exactly what it refers to. And no wonder. Part of the reason for this confusion is the sheer number of activities that are referred to as innovation – from pizza nights to hackathons, technology scouting, idea competitions, design sprints, corporate-startup collaborations and full-blown accelerator programmes. Spend any time working with such initiatives and what you start to notice is that a lot of what is referred to as innovation is actually ‘innovation theatre’ (a term coined by Steve Blank in a 2019 Harvard Business Review piece). Yet it remains the case that many of the innovation practices espoused in lean start-up and design thinking can create real value when they are applied properly. As corporate leaders have become more and more interested in building innovation capabilities in their organizations, they now face the challenge of
Innovation theatre looks like innovation but ultimately creates no value for companies and society
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differentiating between value-creating innovation activities and innovation theatre. How can leaders distinguish the real innovators from the thespians?
Authentic innovation In order to make the distinction clear, we have to go back to basics and ask a more fundamental question: what is the role of innovative ideas within a company? The goal is to create value; either through optimizing the current business or by creating new revenue streams and profits. This singular goal of creating value is what all innovation efforts inside a company should be pointed towards. Such clarity of purpose gives leaders the ability to ask more pointed questions of innovation teams. It makes clear why just having breakthrough ideas and technologies is not enough. Successful innovation requires that companies take their breakthrough ideas and transform them into value propositions that resonate with customers, and business models that are profitable and scalable.