[Open question] Does the world need innovation teams?

TL; DR

I've asked whether all orgs must to innovate. (Short answer: Some don't.)

But a recent Wall Street Journal article took it one step further. It specifically asks: "Do corporations need innovation labs (and, by implication, innovation professionals)?"

In other words, do people like us matter?

The knee-jerk reaction would be to dismiss the question outright.

But as people who are supposed to be great at considering changes to organizations and "what would need to be true" for those changes to make sense, we should give it at least consider it.

My take: The article diagnoses the problems correctly. But the solutions that the interviewed innovation leaders suggest will just swing the pendulum toward a different problem.

They propose simplistic solutions that don't work either, or, more precisely, produce only one kind of outcome that typically isn't the purpose of innovation teams anyway.