I’ve recently had the good fortune of working with three Global 50 companies – two U.S. based and one European. I’ll refer to them here as Company A, B and C. Despite being in different industries (high-tech, financial services and industrial), one common theme emerged: senior leaders in each of the companies articulated a strong desire and an equally strong level of frustration with their innovation efforts. After a little digging, I think I uncovered the source of the frustration — there was no real evidence that the desire for innovation was being met with meaningful adoption or implementation. In fact, I found the opposite: a lack of urgency, misinterpretations or downright resistance to the basic ethos of innovation.
