Why innovation labs fail
If intelligence is, as the Webster dictionary defines it, “the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations,” machines have surely made magnificent strides over the past few years, at least in narrow and well-defined fields. But what about our organizations? How intelligent are our businesses and our governments—or, for that matter, the teams we work on or lead? After all, organizations are made up of humans, who as individuals possess a broad and flexible intelligence that far outstrips anything yet created artificially.
On paper, the possibilities for intelligent businesses seem rather good. We believe the task of building intelligent organizations—ones that can learn from their environments, successfully adapt to them, and create new futures for themselves— is a much larger and more pressing challenge than our present infatuation with artificial intelligence. The forces of globalization and technology are intensifying the “new or trying situations” that companies of all ages and from all industries face.
A new generation of consumer citizens is demanding and expecting more, and it has little tolerance for brands that fail to keep up with the times. Product life-cycles continue to shorten. Digital technologies are introducing new consumer value propositions, new consumption habits, and new business models. Where do we find businesses built to sustain this environment? Not yet amongst large, old companies, despite many noble efforts to incubate labs, innovation practices, and assorted “transformation” initiatives. Some of these efforts have burned brightly for a time. But none has yet grown into an enduring and pervasive organizational change.
Neither can we find them amongst internet companies which—having struck oil during the most recent dotcom boom—have been growing fatter, happier and more complacent ever since. Nor even can we find learning cultures amongst startups—at least, not consistently. Curiously, the core of the Valley’s business culture, with its overbearing founder-geniuses and young-but-deeply-siloed business structures, can be more barren of learning and creativity than the old industrial rust belts. We believe that local solutions like innovation labs fail because the underlying problem is both foundational and systemic.
