The biggest challenge facing organisations is not so much coercing people into being more innovative as getting themselves out of the way when people try to innovate.
Innovation almost always comes out of frustration with the status quo and is almost inevitably disruptive. If you don’t let people find fault with how you do things currently or begin to disrupt your perfect systems then you are unlikely to experience innovation.
Yes I’m a big fan of getting out of the way. When organisations talk about driving innovation I wonder if a better conversation would be about recognising it.
