Businesses are terrible at innovating. Sure, recruiters promise innovative jobs, companies claim to sell innovative merchandise, and shareholders rave about innovation. But most of these promises are hollow. (And deep down, we all know it.)
That spells trouble for anyone competing in a well-established market space. You can’t be a little bit different or a little bit better. You have to stand head-and-shoulders above the crowd. And that requires a metric ton of creative thinking – everywhere from the development of your product or service to marketing to customer relations.
It’s not that we business leaders don’t try. We just can’t seem to get out of our own way. To go from being innovation blockers to innovation facilitators we need to change the way we think about people, places, and paraphernalia.