Innovation is hard (and exciting and fun and strategic) because there's a fundamental paradox at its heart.
On the one hand, businesses want innovation to deliver growth and to get that growth they have to do something or offer something or be something that they have not done before...they have to venture into the unknown.
But on the other hand, they want certainty, predictability, a clear, managed and stable picture of all the inputs & outputs that make up the P&L quarter to quarter...they have to make sure it adds up.
Harrrrumph. That's annoying. If you get too adventurous you risk blowing a load of time, effort and money on white-elephants that ultimately fail to get you the growth you want. But if you manage things too tightly and insist on too many facts about the future, you won't even get to leave the relative safety of your existing offering - the adventure's over before it's even begun.
So the answer is to try - despite their conflicting nature - to do both. Which leads to the question, how do you balance the equation, what's your attitude to risk?
60% Adventure: 40% Certainty?
80% Adventure: 20% Certainty?
Humans are a problem here, because we all have inherently different attitudes to risk, often linked to our job title or function...stereotyping slightly, but the Head of Innovation is likely to be 80% Adventure, whilst the Head of Compliance is more likely to be 80% (99%?) Certainty. And rightly so, checks & balances and all that.
But it can lead to a lot of sighing, eye-rolling and an innovation impasse - brilliant ideas that can't be brought to market as originally conceived. Albeit some do sneak through, occasionally successfully.
Yes, and, viewing the Innovation Paradox as a System, rather than a set of conflicting Functions, is hugely revealing. Rather than looking for someone to blame ("With these imposed constraints, there's nothing we can do"; "They killed my brilliant idea") you ask, what's the System, and has it succeeded, not in its stated purpose, but its actual purpose as revealed by behaviour over time?
So many businesses are operating with a fundamental innovation blindspot: they state that they want Breakthrough Innovation, but are systemically set up (Stages & Gates, misaligned incentives, or similar) to manage out all risk, and therefore all potential for an actual breakthrough.
They're letting the innovation paradox control them, rather than understanding the innovation paradox and then navigating through it.