Innovation Is Dangerous

If Your Innovation Group Doesn’t Feel Dangerous, Maybe It Needs To Step Up.

One of the interesting things about corporate innovation departments is that if they are doing their jobs correctly, they should feel dangerous to the rest of the company. An innovation group that does not have a goal of actively disrupting the company’s main business is likely not doing its job.

However, please make no mistake, this group is NOT a threat to the rest of the business, but as the womb that can birth new businesses, which can grow into its place, it’s more like its salvation.

Actually, that’s a pretty good metaphor: innovation groups birth new businesses to replace the parent business eventually. They become the parent business, and the cycle starts all over again. So yes, the innovation group is a threat to the main business, but in a good way.

If we understand that businesses, like human beings, have a finite slice of time in which to be born, live, and die, a business without an innovation group or program is like royalty with no heir: it’s the end of the line.