(Apologies for mangling this quote by Inigo Montoya, character in The Princess Bride, still one of the greatest movies.)
A mentor recently warned me about a new fad among corporate innovation folks:
I was talking with him about "innovation" teams. But apparently, cool kids don't call what we do "innovation" anymore. "Growth" is now the word du jour.
I appreciated the heads-up. Nobody wants to seem out of date and uncool. Plus, I'm not even sure I love the label of "innovation" myself.
But as for the broader, fad-y trend of just sticking a new label on our type of team, that left me shaking my head.
If "innovation" was a bad name, then I worry that "growth" may be an actively terrible replacement, unless we use it very carefully!
To be clear, there are always specific exceptions where it makes perfectly-good sense, a few of which I call out below. This is a general point for a broad "fashion" trend. And even then, debate me.
