“Everybody knows…..: : Why companies fail at innovation

I spend a LOT of time doing talks at corporate meetings; often, a CEO or CxO leadership event for a Fortune 1000 company.

Through 20 years of doing this, I’ve come to learn what it is that kills innovation in many an organization.
Here’s a post of 10 things that happen all too often:

• everybody knows something needs to be done
• there are an awful lot of ideas as to what to do
• no one knows where to start
• no one has the courage to take the first step
• and in fact, no one has been charged with the responsibility to take over and manage that first step
• there is a rampant fear that if we don’t do it, it just won’t end up well
• so a committee is established to figure out what the first step should be
• in frustration, a pioneer sets out to do something while the committee debates
• for many reasons, the efforts of the pioneer doesn’t go too well
• rather than learning from that experience, blame is assigned
• the result is that likely some other company – most likely a competitor — ends up doing exactly what should have been done in the first place!

World class innovators don’t fall into this trap.

They just do what needs to be done!