Avoiding Innovation Theatre
"Innovation theatre" is the visible performance of innovation without the substance - the activities that make an organisation look innovative while producing little real strategic advance. It is seductive because it is easy, fun, and generates good photos and press. It is dangerous because it consumes resources, builds false confidence, and crowds out the harder work that actually moves the business.[3]
Theatre vs. substance
- →Hackathons with no path to implementation
- →An "innovation lab" disconnected from the business
- →Buzzword-filled strategy decks
- →Field trips and posters about "thinking different"
- →Efforts tied to explicit strategic goals
- →A path from idea to adopted value
- →Funding, accountability, and metrics
- →Measurable advance for the business
The tell-tale sign of theatre is that the activity is the point. A hackathon is theatre when finishing the hackathon is the goal; it is real innovation when it feeds a pipeline that carries the best ideas to adoption. The activities themselves are not the problem - disconnecting them from strategic outcomes is.
Your CEO wants to 'show the board we're innovative' and asks you to run a big innovation week with demos and press. How do you respond?
Be honest: where does innovation theatre show up in your organisation? What would it take to convert one theatrical activity into something with real strategic substance?
Sources
- Global Innovation Institute (GInI), Foundations of Innovation body of knowledge.
- Birkinshaw, J., research & commentary on innovation theatre.
- Blank, S., "Why Companies Do 'Innovation Theater' Instead of Actual Innovation", HBR, 2019.