Innovation Should not be Painful

Just today I read a post from an Innovator in LinkedIN that Innovation is painful and that we should just accept that it will be so. Companies will resist and will fight those 'doing' innovation inside corporations and this is a fact that we must accept.

As one that has endured the struggles and negativity of innovating in deficient environments I have to say: I categorically disagree.

The danger with 'accepting' is that we may forget that a piece of the mission is to endeavor to make the world a better place and as such we have to always try to change the ecosystem around us to be more supportive of innovation initiatives.

The World does not need more naysayers and corporate organizations that are against Innovators. We need the opposite.

  • We need more new ideas making it into production faster for the benefit of all. 
  • We need more innovators with minds that can blend new trends into new ideas. 
  • We need organizations to actively support, encourage, inspire innovation communities.  (Innovators are special kind of people with an intrinsic need to create new things and these are skills that are rare and must be guarded) 
  • We need CEO's with open and collaborative mindsets that understand innovation ecosystems and preferably that have executed innovation strategies. 
  • We need corporate boards to hold CEO's accountable for instituting and monitoring their company's evolving innovation DNA. Further, boards need to demand that the CEO develop an innovation coefficient benchmarked against competitors. 
  • We need formalized innovation frameworks with the sole purpose of showing the entire organization that this time management is serious and that is for real. 
  • We need ' innovation ombudsman'  and 'innovation peer review' groups inside organizations to protect innovators that are executing their mission but are torpedoed by short minded individuals and immature leaders.


We simply cannot just walk away and accept the status quo.

We need to have the non-innovation focused change and accept that change is a natural occurrence and given that we are still part of nature then it is incumbent on them to accept innovators as the old/new normal. The transformation needs to occur to all levels but most importantly with the non-believers.

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