Title: Shattering the Innovation Illusion: How Businesses Can Embrace Risk for Success
Ioana Dragomir, the founder of Tulipr, is a forward-thinking leader with expertise in leading global teams on tech-driven transformation projects. Many organizations fall into the trap of "innovation theatre," running accelerators, hosting hackathons, and celebrating failed experiments while leaving unchanged power structures and business lines. However, Dragomir believes that true transformation requires dismantling established power structures and intentionally cannibalizing profitable business lines—something that often necessitates courage that many companies may lack.
In this article, this innovative leader presents five contrarian principles that challenge conventional wisdom:
- Terminate your most valuable asset before someone else does: Success can create a blind spot to emerging threats, providing an opportunity for competitors to disrupt the market. Devote a portion of your innovation budget to projects that could potentially render your most profitable product lines obsolete, which allows for innovation on your terms rather than reacting to external forces.
To implement this strategy effectively, engage in regular market research and scenario planning, testing how your core products might become obsolete. Develop pilot programs for disruptive products and look for any signs of slowing growth in your core business or emerging competitors gaining traction.
- Innovation lacking authority is no innovation at all: Innovation teams with limited authority can only create PowerPoint presentations rather than generate profits. To avoid this, grant your innovation leaders direct control over resource allocation, enabling them to take resources from any department and establish separate P&L statements for transformation initiatives.
- Avoid the toxicity of consensus: Consensus-driven innovation can lead to mediocrity, as true transformation calls for making unpopular decisions. To foster a culture of transformational competition, throw the same problem at multiple teams, fostering internal rivalry through clear objectives, transparency, and reward structures.
- Take asymmetrical risks: Concentrate the majority of your innovation resources on high-risk initiatives that have the potential to multiply your business. Identify potential threats that could drive your business to extinction, then make substantial bets to neutralize these threats while starving safe projects of resources.
- Disregard customer feedback at times: While customer feedback assists in identifying pain points, focusing solely on customer needs can prevent you from envisioning tomorrow's possibilities. Create alternative products that may alienate existing customers while attracting new ones, harnessing the power of collective intelligence to concentrate resources on high-potential projects.
In summary, authentic transformation demands courage to accept destructing significant value before creating new value. Organizations drunk on fear of backlash from stakeholders, customers, and employees may find it difficult to embrace transformation, but asking oneself "what no long serves my future?" can open the door to innovation and growth.
Ioana Dragomir, the innovative leader behind Tulipr, emphasizes the importance of engaging her innovation team in regular market research and scenario planning, as they could potentially identify emerging threats that could make their most valuable products obsolete. This proactive approach allows them to innovate on their terms instead of reacting to external forces.
In her article, Ioana Dragomir suggests granting her innovation leaders direct control over resource allocation, ensuring they have the authority to make transformative decisions by taking resources from any department and establishing separate P&L statements for transformation initiatives.
