The math nobody explains about your mandate
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Click to watch (10:30) or scroll down to read more β Not long ago, I got on a call with a VP at a SaaS company. He hadn't reached out about a keynote. He'd reached out because his CEO had handed him a job with no map attached: make this company more innovative. The CEO wasn't wrong to want it. She's a natural innovator herself β the kind of leader who sees a problem and instinctively starts experimenting with it. And like a lot of natural innovators, she had a hard time seeing that what came easily to her didn't come easily to everyone else. She needed her whole company to move the way she does. So she handed the job to a VP who's a people leader, and he called me. The Math Underneath the MandateHere's what I told him, and what I want to tell you if you're the one holding a mandate like this right now. Your team is not afraid of failing. They're doing simple math. In most work environments, taking a risk has two possible outcomes. Succeed, and good things happen β recognition, momentum, maybe a promotion. Fail, and bad things happen β a hit to your reputation, a harder conversation with your manager, sometimes worse. Run that math enough times, and the rational move is obvious: don't take the risk. This isn't a mindset problem. It isn't a motivation problem. It's a structural one. And it means that "be more innovative" β however sincerely meant β is asking people to act against their own self-interest, without changing anything about what actually happens to them when they do. What Builds Up When Nobody Fixes the MathI call this Innovation Debt. Like technical debt, it doesn't show up all at once. It accumulates quietly β every time someone takes a smart risk and gets quietly punished for it anyway, every time a "fail fast" value gets contradicted by what actually happens in the next performance review. Nobody notices Innovation Debt building. They just notice, eventually, that nobody's trying anything new β and they call that a culture problem, when it was a math problem the whole time. The good news: unlike technical debt, you can see it forming before it wrecks anything. You just have to ask the right questions. The Innovation Debt DiagnosticThree questions to ask your team β or yourself, honestly:
If those answers make you wince a little, you're not alone. Most leaders I talk to have never asked them out loud. What Actually Changes the MathYou can't inspire your way around bad incentives. You have to change what happens after the risk β visibly, consistently, in ways your team can point to. That's the whole premise behind my Create the Impossibleβ’ framework: Play Hard β Make Crap β Learn Fast: it's not a values poster. It's a structure that makes trying something new the safer choice, one small experiment at a time, until the math actually works in your team's favor. That VP and I are now working together. If you're holding a mandate like his and staring at your own version of this math, I'd love to hear about it. Build Your Innovation Muscle!Want more ready-made experiments to help your team build their innovation muscle? Grab the book! πClick here for more info πClick here for a free preview PDF πClick here to buy now on Amazon πClick here for a special Leadership Edition β available only on my website β which includes an exclusive 5-part βInnovation Leaderβs Edgeβ video series. Everything you need to run your first micro-experiment, get leadership buy-in, and build lasting innovation culture. Creatively yours, P.S. Three ways to go deeper this week: π― Not sure where your Innovation Debt is building? Take the FREE Innovation Bottleneck Finder β CLICK HEREβ π Grab Innovation at Work β 52 micro-experiments that change the math one meeting at a time β CLICK HEREβ π Holding a mandate and staring at your own version of this math? Book a free 30-minute Innovation Strategy Session β CLICK HERE β Did someone forward this email to you? If you'd like more articles like this right in your own inbox, click here to subscribe!ββ |