# Why Your Company's Innovation Process is Broken (And How I Learnt This the Hard Way) **Related Reading:** [More insight](https://skillcoaching.bigcartel.com/blog) | [Further reading](https://www.alkhazana.net/2025/07/16/why-firms-ought-to-invest-in-professional-development-courses-for-employees/) | [Other recommendations](https://diekfzgutachterwestfalen.de/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) Three months ago, I watched a brilliant idea die in a conference room in Melbourne. Not from lack of merit, mind you, but from a process so convoluted it would make Kafka weep. The idea? A simple customer feedback loop that could've saved the company $2.3 million annually. The killer? A 47-step "innovation framework" that took longer to navigate than actually building the bloody thing. I've been consulting on workplace innovation for 14 years now, and I'm here to tell you something that'll ruffle feathers: your innovation process isn't just broken – it's actively murdering good ideas before they can breathe. ## The Theatre of Innovation Most companies today run what I call "innovation theatre." You know the type – glossy innovation labs with bean bags and whiteboards covered in Post-it notes that haven't moved in months. [More information here](https://ethiofarmers.com/what-to-anticipate-from-a-communication-skills-training-course/) about how these surface-level approaches miss the mark entirely. I once worked with a major Australian retailer (won't name names, but their stores are everywhere) who spent $400,000 on an "innovation space" complete with a slide and espresso machine. Know how many implementable ideas came out of it in 18 months? Zero. Actual zero. The problem isn't the space. It's the suffocating bureaucracy that surrounds it. ## The Seven Deadly Sins of Corporate Innovation **Sin #1: Committee-itis** When you need approval from seven different departments just to test a new email signature, you've lost the plot. Innovation moves at the speed of trust, not the speed of consensus. **Sin #2: The Perfectionism Trap** I've seen companies spend 18 months "refining" an idea that could've been tested in 18 days. Perfectionism isn't pursuit of excellence – it's fear wearing a fancy suit. **Sin #3: Innovation by PowerPoint** Real innovation happens in the field, not in conference rooms. Yet somehow we've convinced ourselves that the best way to understand customer problems is through a 47-slide presentation. Here's where I'll admit my own mistake. Early in my career, I fell into this trap completely. Spent three months creating the most beautiful innovation framework you've ever seen. Colour-coded, cross-referenced, absolutely stunning. Know what it produced? Nothing but admiring glances and wasted time. **Sin #4: The "Build It and They Will Come" Mentality** Just because your nephew's girlfriend's roommate thinks it's a good idea doesn't mean your customers will. [Here is the source](https://www.foodrunner.de/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) for understanding why customer validation matters more than internal enthusiasm. **Sin #5: Innovation Ownership Confusion** Who owns innovation in your company? If the answer is "everyone," the real answer is "no one." Innovation without clear ownership is like a ship without a captain – it'll drift in circles until it hits something. **Sin #6: The Sunk Cost Fallacy on Steroids** "We've already invested six months in this project" is not a reason to continue. It's a reason to evaluate whether those six months taught you anything useful. Most of the time, they didn't. **Sin #7: Measuring Everything Except What Matters** Companies love measuring innovation inputs – number of ideas submitted, hours spent brainstorming, workshops attended. But they're terrible at measuring outcomes. How many customer problems did you actually solve? How much revenue did new ideas generate? ## What Actually Works (From the Trenches) After working with over 200 companies, from tiny Perth startups to ASX-listed giants, here's what I've learned about innovation that actually delivers: **Start with Real Problems, Not Solutions Looking for Problems** The best innovations I've seen started with someone saying, "This process is driving me mental" or "Our customers are constantly complaining about X." Not with someone saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if we had an app that..." Google didn't start by saying "Let's revolutionise search engines." They started by saying "Finding information on the internet is bloody impossible." That's the difference. **Embrace the 70-20-10 Rule** Seventy per cent of your innovation effort should go to improving what you already do well. Twenty per cent to adjacent possibilities. Ten per cent to moonshot ideas. Most companies get this backwards, chasing shiny objects while their core business suffocates. **Kill Fast, Celebrate Often** The goal isn't to never fail. It's to fail cheaply and quickly. I worked with a Brisbane-based logistics company that tests new service ideas with just five customers for two weeks. If it doesn't show promise by day 14, it's dead. [Personal recommendations](https://mauiwear.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) often emphasise this rapid iteration approach. **Innovation Needs Rebels, Not Diplomats** Your innovation team shouldn't be filled with people who play nicely with others. You need constructive troublemakers who ask uncomfortable questions and push boundaries. Diplomatic consensus-builders are excellent for many things. Innovation isn't one of them. ## The Hidden Killer: Death by Documentation This one deserves its own section because it's the most insidious innovation killer I encounter. Companies have become obsessed with documenting every step of the innovation process. Innovation passports, idea scorecards, feasibility matrices, impact assessments. By the time you've filled out all the paperwork, the market opportunity has moved on. I once watched a pharmaceutical company take 14 months to approve a simple process improvement that a frontline worker suggested. The improvement? Reorganising a supply cupboard to reduce waste. Fourteen months. For a cupboard. The documentation industrial complex has convinced us that thorough process equals good outcomes. It doesn't. [Further information here](https://minecraft-builder.com/why-professional-development-courses-are-essential-for-career-growth/) about why excessive process can actually hinder progress. ## The Cultural Shift That Changes Everything Real innovation requires a fundamental cultural shift that most companies aren't prepared for. You can't innovate your way out of a risk-averse culture any more than you can diet your way out of a McDonald's addiction while still eating there daily. **Permission to Experiment** In genuinely innovative cultures, employees don't need permission to try small experiments. They need permission to stop them when they're not working. **Failure Literacy** We talk about "failing fast" but most organisations have no idea how to fail intelligently. They either punish failure completely or celebrate it mindlessly. Neither approach works. Smart failure requires understanding why something didn't work and what you learned that's valuable for next time. Most "failures" in corporate environments teach us nothing because no one takes time to extract the lessons. **Customer Proximity** Innovation happens closest to customers, not closest to executives. Yet somehow the people with the least customer contact often make the innovation decisions. This is like having your accountant choose your marketing strategy. ## The Three Questions That Fix Everything Want to diagnose your innovation process? Ask these three questions: 1. **How long does it take to get approval for a $100 experiment?** If the answer is more than a week, your process is broken. 2. **When did someone last tell leadership that their favourite idea was rubbish?** If you can't remember, you don't have honest feedback loops. 3. **What percentage of your innovation budget goes to improving things customers actually care about?** If you don't know the answer, that's your problem right there. ## Why This Matters More Than Ever The pace of change isn't slowing down. Customer expectations aren't getting lower. Your competitors aren't getting dumber. In this environment, innovation isn't a nice-to-have capability – it's a survival skill. Companies that can't innovate effectively will find themselves in the same position as video rental stores, taxi medallion owners, and newspaper classifieds departments. The good news? Fixing innovation doesn't require massive technology investments or Harvard MBAs. It requires honest assessment of what's not working and the courage to change it. Most companies won't do this. They'll continue running innovation theatre, measuring inputs instead of outcomes, and wondering why their best people leave for startups that actually let them build things. But some will figure it out. They'll strip away the bureaucracy, empower their people, and focus on solving real problems for real customers. Those are the companies that'll still be here in ten years. **The choice is yours.** The rest of us will just keep watching good ideas die in conference rooms, shaking our heads at another brilliant opportunity lost to process. --- *After 14 years in this game, I've learned that the biggest innovation might just be having the courage to stop innovating the innovation process and start actually innovating.*