When we innovate, we set bold visions. Once people buy in to them, they want results. But sadly, innovation isn't about quick wins.

Leaders and teams must embrace the learning curve and the unglamorous work that builds credibility. Try to skip it and you just get crap work and frustrated teams

With great promise comes great pressure to excel

Innovation teams get lobbed from one topic to the next and one technology to the next all–the–time. In other words, we're always new at something and learning.

But we get put onto these efforts because of the promise associated with them.

At first, few people care. They don't believe we can pull it off or that it'll add the value we foresee.

But at some point, assuming that things go well enough, leaders get it. And then, very quickly, things go from "this makes sense" to "why don't we have it launched and scaled yet?"

That's when the problems start.

You can't skip the learning curve

You know this intuitively. You (and I) still want expert-level results right now. But the universe still won't budge. Accept it!

Take AI agents as an example. I want to be great at building and deploying them for running companies. Non-technical operations leaders have TONS to gain from them.

But (as of early 2025), I'm not remotely there yet—and no amount of wishing will change that fundamental truth. And it's so frustrating!

In this case, the problem is mostly technical. Agents just aren't ready for prime-time use by non-technical users yet. But in other cases, it's about skills, or habits, or interaction with the wider world. The problems change with the discipline. But what stays common is that you simply can't skip all the hard lessons of failing and failing and falling short of your own expectations again.

There's value in the hard pards

The bright spot in all this? You get tons of benefit by going from no skill to "level 1 beginner." Before you try, you won't even know what you don't know. But even after early practice, you learn things like:

  • Common mindsets in this space
  • What it takes to succeed
  • What's hard
  • And more

So try stuff. Just put your expectations on hold!

Money is where things get hard

So far, many people agree, per my experience. But then it gets nasty:

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Money is the last of the lagging indicators. You must create value before capturing it.

And this is where things get hard: Bosses need to deliver money; profit. And money just happens to be a lagging indicator in most work because you need to deliver value before you can capture it. And while you are learning, you aren't creating much value yet.

Yes, you can also sell things you haven't built yet. But increasingly, people see through that and have gotten cynical. So in many spaces, that early Lean Startup practice of fake landing pages and the like just doesn't work anymore, if it ever did. And even when it works, there may still be a long road ahead actually to deliver value.

So you still end up with the problem of needing money but being nowhere close to it. (Also see the law of the frying pan and the fire.)

What to do about it

Ok, so a few of you may not even want to get good at the nuts & bolts of building businesses? In that case, you're in luck: Just call me. That's my jam. 😃

But for those most of you, ready to advance your own team's credible innovation capabilities, here are three key actions:

  • Even getting started makes you tons better than just reading about it. The gap between zero experience and beginner-level experience is vast. Take action, even imperfect action! It creates momentum that reading another innovation book never will.
  • Pick your efforts to line up to long-term goals, so even small progress is worth it. When your innovation initiatives match stable priorities, even incremental wins move you ahead. A steady drumbeat shows that innovation isn't a side show—it's central to your organization's future and can deliver results.
  • Get better at meta-skills of learning and at integrating learning into your team's work. I see surprisingly many teams struggle with this. But the most valuable innovation skill isn't any specific methodology—it's the ability to learn quickly and apply those lessons systematically. Create structures that help your team capture insights, adapt approaches, and build on successes and failures alike.

Breaking through the "buzzword-bingo" of innovation requires more than trendy approaches—it takes credibility built through meaningful struggle. 

There's no silver bullet, but there is a path forward for those willing to embrace the learning curve and do the important work that others might consider "uncool."

YOU can be the ones to make it up the learning curve!

T.I.S.C.

Disclaimer

Post created by me with AI assistance