This HBR article is about championing innovation: Get the corporate antibodies on your side.
I think it highlights the paradox organisations face when they try to organise innovation – they’re trying to manage disruption. On the face of it this piece is about championing innovation and getting the top people to back it. The trouble is I think this ends up reinforcing the status of the “senior leaders” (hate that phrase) with the innovators given the status of American Idol contestants – which feels very patronising to me.
It doesn’t help that the author has accepted the job title of “Innovation Leader” and runs an “Innovation Office”. I also notice the obsession with bigness the “big gun” leader and the emphasis on big budgets.
I think innovation often eludes big organisations because they’re just too fat-fingered to pick it up.
I wasn’t there and can’t judge the difference all this made but I am struck by how easy it is to reinforce hierarchy in the name of constraining it.
Hat tip: Richard Wise
