Background and introduction

TL; DR

This is Steffen Meyer's effort to help people overcome "innovation theater" and do more credible innovation work.

The case for why we desperately need that credibility is in this essay (#long_read).

You can find the highly-compressed essence of my argument at this quote and its accompanying explanation. Doesn't cover every last detail. But, you know, it's also much faster to read. 😄

Even faster: Innovation doesn't work yet. If it did, innovation teams wouldn't keep getting laid off after producing way fewer results than initially envisioned.

Full background

Topic

The blog focuses on innovation in existing organizations. We'll talk about it as "corporate innovation" for convenience. But many parts also apply to non-profits, governments, education institutions, etc.

Some aspects are even useful for startups and investors. I typically call out those aspects explicitly.

Within corporate innovation, I mainly focus on business ("viability") and leadership topics, e.g., creating business cases for innovative products and services, designing new businesses, leading innovation teams in a corporate settings, and governance of innovation work.

Underlying insights

I base my work on two unorthodox (even anti-orthodox?) realizations.

They have hit me over the head over and over again over years of hands-on work across a dozen industries. Eventually, I finally was ready to acknowledge them, despite their inconvenient implications.

A: Innovation doesn't work yet

Nobody lays off Finance or Human Resources, even though they don't produce profits. They have earned their keep. Innovation hasn't. Innovation teams get laid off constantly, no matter how awesome and critical we claim to be:

Innovation is still a very young discipline. It is not mature yet. Our current job as innovators is to prove its value to organizations.
– Steffen Meyer

B: No wonder it doesn't work yet. We're ignoring its most basic nature

We treat innovation work as if it was a function, like engineering. But it's not. It's an effort at system-level change:

Innovation is ultimately an attempt to change human systems, not a craft, let alone some process brimming with canvases, tickets, MVPs, and product-market fit. It's a system-level outcome, not a process.
– Steffen Meyer

Elephant in the room

In the age of AI, why still bother creating any content, let alone something for a highly-nerdy topic like innovation in existing organizations?

Some stark realities make Credible Innovation a must-do:

1: Innovation must succeed. The world must become much better. We should know how to achieve that

2: Innovation must succeed in existing organizations. We can't and shouldn't outsource it all to startups, venture studios, and other outsiders.

3: We haven't figured out how to innovate well yet. Innovation theater is still a massive problem (even in startups). We have serious work left!

4: There are no silver bullets. All the tools in the world won't make you succeed because it's not a methodology problem. It's a system-level human problem.

5: The problems that wreak the most havoc get little attention, even among teams that practice great innovation craft. So many topics are barely on teams' attention "radar." And even if they are, there appear to be precious few tools and methods for dealing with those issues.

6: AI can't solve this. Much of what's written about the drivers of innovation theater is incomplete, disjointed, contradictory, and often bland. That's the source content from which AI can draw for recommending ways to overcome innovation theater. And so, even with AI creativity, it often creates decidedly mediocre results too. Specifically, it's my experience that AI is decent at describing the state of the innovation discipline and its problems. But the solutions that it offers tend to fall down (at least in every test I have run, which, trust me, I do at every chance I get). Yes, you could select your own content, upload it to an AI, and then have the AI regurgitate it. But that of course assumes that you already have curated content. So, again, it still takes humans.

Problem

Even innovation teams who are technically "good" at their craft see low rates of success. Many are disbanded by their company within 3 - 7 years; again, that's even if they are arguably "good" teams.

Among the causes is that many innovation teams only/ mainly consider their work from the inside, meaning by the technical standards of their craft. But they ignore or do not sufficiently prioritize the outside-in perspective of their stakeholders, partners, and teams that will implement their approved work, at a system level.

Sometimes, that problem results from human or change leadership issues. Others have better advice than I would on those topics. But other times, perception and change leadership won't solve the problems.

Instead, there is actual work missing. Or the work itself is fine but the way the team is led or governed is not, often because executives or direct leaders mistakenly apply approaches that work in operational contexts to innovation contexts, where they cause trouble.

I address those last two issues, i.e., "technically good" teams struggling because (1) the formal "canon" of our innovation craft leaves key gaps or (2) leaders and governing executives apply well-meant but unhelpful approaches to innovation work.

Solution

My solution is surely just one piece among many. Others need to fill in what I miss.

That said, I have found success to take three components (at minimum):

• Great work – for which many people offer functional tools
• Good luck – which, yes, you can engineer, but which is not my expertise
• Credibility – about which we'll talk a lot more

In other words, one way to do better is to seek the same outside-in perspective that we apply to learning from users to our own organizations as well, by asking:

I know you are awesome. But ... are you credible? For what? To what degree? To whom?

I call the framework and set of solutions that emerge from it "Credible Innovation." (You never saw that coming, right? 😁)

You need credibility on top of your technical competence.

Credible Innovation functions like a fractal. Just knowing this headline topic and the questions above is enough to get started: "Are you credible?"

But of course, it's nice to have more specifics. And so I will cover them across a range of topics for leaders and teams, including credible innovation purpose, leadership, governance, craft, outcomes, and teams.

Goal

Or, to put in "HMW" form: How might innovation leaders earn secure, valued roles and impact for their teams in their organization? (We sure aren’t there yet.)

I chase for answers along three dimensions:

• Excellence: HMW make sure that teams do their craft work at a really-truly excellent level, worthy of anyone's respect?
• Realism: HMW make innovation succeed in the real world, focusing on what it truly takes, rather than just what's "cool?”
• Leadership: HMW set leaders up to help their teams succeed, closing the gaping void in context-appropriate guidance for innovation team leaders?

But you can already see where I'm heading with this at this blog's "read me" page, where you'll find the core Credible Innovation framework and links to posts that make for good introductions to the topic.

Or, if you really want to nerd out on this topic, see my high-level research agenda.

Solution specifics (in short)

Credible Innovation is a method and toolkit for doing better innovation work, mainly in existing organizations, but also in startups and beyond.

Of course the entire site is about achieving Credible Innovation. So much more is yet to come. There are also different considerations for the specific needs of leaders, doers, and startups.

But a basic framework sits at the core of it all.

In short, achieving credibility in innovation work takes the following components, at minimum:

• Must-do purpose: Critical, urgently-needed, and set up for success
• Usable outputs: Complete, understandable, and usable beyond ventures
• Impressive craft: Selectively-awesome, fast, efficient
• Unpretentious team: Open-eyed, skilled, humble

Yeah, this will surely evolve. After all, even this is version 4.10 (as of March 11, 2023). But it's “right” until I realize that–and how–it needs to change yet again.

More about the framework and its individual components in this post.

I have also collected the running list basic assumptions (axioms) on which this argument rests, as far as I can tell. This, too, will of course evolve.

Topics that I haven't solved (yet) are in my research agenda. See something that overlaps with your own work? Say hi, and let's see how we might collaborate!

Content author

"Me," that's Steffen Meyer. I create all of this content for now. Over time, others may join in on the mayhem. (Want to contribute? Let's talk!)

But even if it's "my" content, it would never have been possible without these wonderful people. Big THANKS to them all!

The site's content reflects lessons from my work as an independent consultant and startup executive, as well as from my research.

Contact

Got questions? The best way to reach me is by email at hi[at]customlightning.com.

Getting access

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T.I.S.C.

You'll see this acronym at the end of all posts that include my own ideas (vs. others' ideas in quotes, simple case studies, etc.).

T.I.S.C. is an intentionally ambiguous term that you might variously expand to "this is so cool" or, maybe more likely, to "this is such crap."

All my posts vacillate between these extremes. Like science, I don't claim to be "right." I can only share the best that I can come up with so far. But it may need to get better yet.

In other words: I may need your informed, well-intentioned help to make things better ... or your patience as I make things better myself over time.

So please consider this an invitation to share feedback: Help me make this better, if you are so inclined!

T.I.S.C.