How Innovation Happens — Lesson #1: Make Big Bets, Not Small Hedges

I’ve been covering the link between future trends and innovation strategies for 30+ years. I went back through my blog posts, stretching to 2002, to dig out the nuggets of innovation insight I’ve discovered along the way. This series revisits those stories, tests what still holds up, and turns them into practical lessons for what comes next.

“Innovative organizations make big bets.”

I’ve had the privilege, over the years, of watching what separates genuinely innovative organizations from the ones just going through the motions: clients like National Australia Bank, Diners Club, H.J. Heinz, Nestlé. The pattern isn’t subtle: the innovative ones commit at scale. They don’t nibble at the edges of a trend, they make a big bet on its scope and size, then innovate at a furious pace to keep up.

One financial services client saw mobile banking coming and didn’t pilot it quietly in a corner. They made an across-the-board bet on it, knowing it would mean serious business-model disruption along the way. Another realized how much social networking was reshaping their brand exposure and boosted total marketing spend by 20% on the strength of that one insight, redirecting existing budget on top of it.

Small hedges feel safe. They also guarantee you arrive at the future late, and underpowered, right behind everyone who bet big and got there first.

So what can you learn from this? Don’t think small. Make the bet big enough to matter. Here are three questions to put on the table.

Action Items:

• Pick one trend your organization has been “monitoring” for over a year without committing real budget to it. Make the bet this quarter.
• Audit your last three innovation investments. Were they sized to actually matter, or sized to be easily defensible if they failed?
• Ask your leadership team directly: what’s the biggest bet we’re afraid to make right now, and what’s actually stopping us?

Explore the full How Innovation Happens series.