Hey there, innovation champions!
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Here's irony for you: there were years when I was making my living as a professional artist, when I made very little art.
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Oh, I sold a lot of art, but most of it was prints of art I'd created in previous years. I spent most of my time fulfilling orders, customizing designs on the computer, then printing them out, packing and shipping.
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Believe me, it was not what I'd signed up for when I envisioned the artist's life!
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I was performing the role of artist without actually creating art.
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And here's what really stung: from the outside, my business looked successful. Revenue was good. The workflow was smooth. But I knew the truth—I was going through all the motions of being an artist while the actual creative discovery had completely stopped.
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Sound familiar?
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The Performance vs. The Practice

I just got back from leading my annual 5-day creativity retreat—an immersive experience where participants (including me) get to focus entirely on whatever creative project calls to them. It's heaven! We get so much done!
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But here's what I learned years ago: the magic of those five days evaporates fast when you return to "reality"—work, family, the routine of regular life.
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That's when I challenged myself to simply play for fifteen minutes a day.
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The goal: whatever I did had to be pure play, pure experimentation, completely unrelated to making money!
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And, because I know I'm "pressure prompted," I also committed to sharing whatever I created in those studio sessions—the good, the bad, the ugly, the incomplete—in a daily newsletter I called "The Artspark." Just a snapshot of whatever I was working on.
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Honestly, I didn't expect this "tiny and daily" practice to amount to much, but it surely had to be better than nothing.
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What I discovered blew my mind: I created more art that year (actually, in the 11 months from February through December) than I had in the previous decade!
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That permission to play—and critically, to make crap—was utterly transformative. I went from paralyzed by perfectionism to prolific, buzzing with creative ideas (creativity breeds creativity, it turns out!) and having fun, to boot!
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When "Innovation" Becomes Performance Art

Now, let me ask you something.
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How much of your team's "innovation work" looks like my print-fulfilling days?
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Lots of activity. Polished deliverables. Smooth workflows. But no actual creating happening?
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Just like I was PERFORMING the role of artist while not CREATING art, many teams are PERFORMING innovation while not actually INNOVATING.
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The symptoms look different, but the pattern is identical:

• Teams invest months in innovation consultants and frameworks, but behavior doesn't change
• Brainstorming sessions produce predictable ideas dressed up in new language
• Leadership gets frustrated that "innovation initiatives" aren't translating to business results
• Everyone's going through the motions, but nobody's actually experimenting
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I call this Innovation Theater. And it's costing you more than you think.
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The Diagnostic: Three Warning Signs You're Stuck in Innovation Theater

Warning Sign #1: Your Team Perfects Presentations Instead of Testing Prototypes
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When I was fulfilling print orders instead of making art, I was busy. I was even profitable! But I wasn't growing. I wasn't discovering. I wasn't creating.
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Same thing happens with innovation theater. Your teams spend weeks polishing slide decks about potential ideas instead of spending days testing rough prototypes with real users.
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The work looks impressive. The deliverables are beautiful. But it's performance, not practice.
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Your smartest people are perfecting presentations while competitors are shipping rough prototypes and learning what actually works.
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Warning Sign #2: "Innovation Time" Requires Pulling People Away from "Real Work"

Here's the objection I hear most from leaders: "We can't afford to take people away from their desks for a series of workshops."
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And you know what? That objection is valid... if innovation requires months-long programs separate from actual work.
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But here's the thing: when innovation is truly embedded, it doesn't look like "time away." It looks like a 15-minute experiment at the start of your Tuesday standup that shifts how your team approaches problems all week.
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Think about my art practice: I wasn't taking sabbaticals. I was taking 15 minutes a day. And those micro-moments compounded into transformation.
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Warning Sign #3: Your Team Waits for Permission to Experiment

Earlier this year, I worked with 125 project managers at a PMI professional development day. Forty-five minutes. Three structured experiments. No slides.
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One participant wrote afterward: "I could see the breakthroughs happening. It was ELECTRIC!"
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Know what made it electric? Not my permission-giving. It was watching themselves discover they could handle uncertainty, build on "bad" ideas, and turn constraints into creative fuel.
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But here's what I noticed: many of those analytical professionals—people whose entire job is managing complex projects—had never been given structured permission to play with possibility. They'd been to plenty of innovation training. But nobody had given them tools to do innovation as part of their actual work.
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What This Actually Looks Like in Practice

Let me tell you about a research manager at Facebook who reached out during the pandemic.
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Her team had a problem: brilliant insights that weren't landing. They buried key findings in mountains of data, used incomprehensible research jargon, and took an adversarial tone that turned colleagues off. Their valuable work wasn't having the impact it deserved.
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Plus, morale was in the tank. Everyone needed a boost.
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I designed a program called "Communicating for Influence" using play-based methods—structured experiments drawn from improv that helped the team practice new communication patterns in low-stakes ways.
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The manager was skeptical. "These activities seem awfully... playful for a team of researchers," she said.
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When I clarified the specific behavioral outcomes each activity was designed to deliver, she grudgingly gave approval.
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The results?
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Within weeks, engagement with their communications skyrocketed. Team morale improved dramatically. And critically, behaviors actually changed—participants were applying the tools in their day-to-day work.
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But here's what really mattered: within six months, five other Facebook managers reached out asking for the same program. Word had spread fast because participants didn't just see better outcomes—they reported these were "the most fun meetings I've attended all year!"
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That's the difference between innovation theater and actual innovation practice. Theater looks good in the moment but fades fast. Practice creates behavioral change that spreads organically.
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The Real Cost of Innovation Theater

Innovation Theater doesn't just waste time and budget.
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It trains your smartest people to perfect slides instead of test ideas.
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It creates cynicism. Your team stops believing innovation is possible. They see it as corporate theater they have to perform in.
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Most importantly, it misses the fundamental truth: Innovation isn't something you do separately from work. It's how you approach work.
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What Actually Works: The Immersive + Daily Combination

Remember how I said the 5-day retreat magic evaporates without daily practice? And that daily practice is powerful, but occasional immersive experiences supercharge growth?
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The real power is combining both.
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Your team needs:

The Immersive Experience: Those periodic offsites, intensives, or focused workshops where people step away, see new possibilities, practice new behaviors in a concentrated way, build relationships, and return energized.
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The Daily Practice: Micro-experiments woven into actual work. Five to twenty minutes during regular meetings. Small-stakes chances to practice the behaviors that drive real innovation: welcoming "bad" ideas, building instead of critiquing, testing quickly instead of analyzing endlessly.
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When you just do the immersive work, the learning fades. People return to their desks and old habits take over within weeks (or days).
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When you just do the micro-experiments without deeper skill-building, you miss the relationship development and strategic framing that make change stick.
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Together? You get systematic capability building that transforms how teams work.
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From Theater to Practice: Your Next Step

Here's a simple diagnostic you can run this week:

Look at your last three "innovation initiatives." For each one, ask:

1. Did it produce new behaviors or just new vocabulary?

Are people actually experimenting differently, or just using innovation buzzwords? If your team talks about "failing fast" but still won't share work-in-progress, that's theater.
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2. Was it ONLY big time investments, or did it include ongoing practice?

Immersive experiences are powerful—they create breakthroughs, build relationships, and develop skills fast. But if the learning stops when people return to their desks, that's theater. Real innovation practice embeds what was learned into regular team rhythms with micro-experiments that keep the momentum going. If your initiative didn't include both the intensive AND the ongoing practice, that's the red flag.
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3. Did it give people tools to experiment themselves, or just frameworks to talk about experimentation?

Can your team run their own quick tests, or do they need consultants to facilitate every session? If they can't experiment without external support, the capability hasn't transferred.
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If you're seeing patterns that worry you, you're not alone. Most innovation initiatives fail because they're designed as performance, not practice.
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The good news? Small, systematic experiments—the kind that feel like creative play but function like business strategy—can shift this fast.
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Your Innovation Toolkit Awaits

Want to move from innovation theater to innovation practice?
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My new book, Innovation at Work: 52 Micro-Experiments for Brave Leaders Who Want to Unstick Teams, Spark Ideas, and Build What's Next (coming early 2026), gives you the complete playbook.
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Inside, you'll find:

• 52 micro-experiments you can run in 5-20 minutes during regular meetings
• Crisis protocols for teams stuck RIGHT NOW
• Strategic implementation guides showing exactly how to embed innovation practice into your workflow
• Remote and in-person adaptations for every experiment
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Get a free preview with sample experiments at innovationatworkbook.com/preview and discover the specific tools that can transform your team from performing innovation to actually doing it.

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For event planners: Tired of innovation keynotes that inspire for 60 minutes then fade? My sessions give your attendees tools they'll use the next day—and your leadership team will see the difference in weeks, not months. That's the kind of ROI that makes you look brilliant for booking the speaker.
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For leaders ready for comprehensive transformation: If you're a Director, VP, or Chief Innovation Officer who knows your team needs more than a book—you need strategic partnership to diagnose what's really happening and design the right intervention—let's talk.
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Book a complimentary Innovation Strategy Session where we'll dig into your specific challenges and explore whether systematic micro-experiments, a strategic immersive program, or a combination makes sense for your team.
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Because here's what I learned from those 15-minute art sessions and what those Facebook research teams discovered: transformation doesn't require massive organizational change.
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It requires permission to play, tools to experiment, and systematic daily practice.
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Your team already has the creative capacity. They just need the structure to access it.
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And the choice is yours: continue the theater, or start the practice.

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Next week: "Why Technical Teams Innovate Better Than 'Creative Types' (When Given the Right Framework)" — Think analytical minds can't be creative? Turns out, technical professionals have a hidden advantage when it comes to innovation—they just need the right container. I'll show you why your engineers might be your secret innovation weapon.​
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📘 Join the experiment behind the experiments!

Since Innovation at Work is built on micro-experiments, the launch should be one too.
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I’m inviting a small circle of early supporters to test things in real time: read the ARC in early January, try a couple of the experiments, and post an honest Amazon review when the Kindle version soft launches on January 16.
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If that sounds fun (and it is), you can join the Launch Team here.

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Creatively yours,
Melissa

​P.S. When you’re ready to build a culture of thriving innovation, so your team can Create the Impossible™, here are three ways I can help:

1) Download my FREE Innovation Culture Assessment to evaluate where your team stands

2) Download the first 50 pages of my book, The Creative Sandbox Way™, to reconnect with your creativity

3) Click here to schedule a complimentary Innovation Strategy Session

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