What do The Blues Brothers, Don Quixote, and the First Crusade have in common? Each had a clear sense of mission, a “mandate from above” that drove them forward with conviction and legitimacy.

Now replace “mission from God” with your company’s call to innovate. Do you have a real mandate that defines purpose, scope, and leadership expectations? Or are you just going through the motions?

If you’re leading innovation in a large organization, chances are you’re doing so without a clear mandate. You’ve likely experienced bold talk about transformation, flashy hackathons that go nowhere, and budget cuts at the first sign of uncertainty. And you may be working in a culture that discourages risk but still expects results.

In a recent Innov8rs Learning Lab session, Stephen Parkins, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Culturedge, shared why innovation often stalls in corporate settings, and how a well-crafted mandate can change that.

Stephen Parkins

Founder & Chief Innovation Officer at Culturedge

Why Corporate Innovation Feels Broken

If you’re reading this, you know that leading innovation is tough—even in an organization that claims it wants transformation. Stephen highlights that the real barriers aren’t bad people; they’re broken systems.

“I’ve never really come across genuinely disingenuous, bad people who just want to ruin the opportunities of their company to innovate and succeed,” he says. “But a lot of these structures simply don’t support innovation.”

Most corporate environments reward playing it safe rather than creating new value. You’re incentivized to avoid mistakes, stay in your lane, and not take risks.

“If you’re a corporate animal today, you’re not incentivized to innovate. You’re incentivized to not be wrong, to not look foolish,” says Stephen.

Stephen adds, “As innovators, we need to try lots of things and learn from what doesn’t work, but the system actually encourages us to disassociate ourselves from things that don’t work.”

He highlights the common pitfalls that organizations face when pursuing innovation. One major issue is “innovation theater”. These flashy initiatives create the illusion of progress but lack real outcomes, wasting resources without driving growth or improving customer experiences.

Another problem is “zombie projects” that drain resources. They persist because admitting failure seems riskier than continuing, even when they’re clearly ineffective. Stephen also warns of “corporate fairy tales,” where bold claims, such as “We’re the most digital company!” appear in reports but don’t lead to real action.

These examples show that real innovation takes more than surface-level efforts. Innovators need the freedom to fail and the authority to make bold decisions, because that’s what drives meaningful progress. The solution isn’t more brainstorming or another innovation week. It starts with a shared understanding of what innovation actually means and looks like in your company’s context.

Ambiguity and Asymmetry: The Innovation Killers

Innovation efforts often stumble over two major obstacles: ambiguity and asymmetry. “Two challenges really lie at the heart of this, and we simply need to overcome them if we’re going to have any hope at systematic innovation,” Stephen says.

Ambiguity makes hard work even harder. “Innovation is hard enough,” Stephen says. “We don’t need extra layers of ambiguity inside our companies.” Yet too often, innovation teams are unclear on the basics.

Consider these questions:

  • What exactly does “success” look like for innovation in your company?
  • What’s the real risk appetite? How much failure is tolerable?
  • On what basis is an innovation project continued, killed, or scaled?
  • Who gets to decide, and by what authority?

“Chances are if you ask five different people, you’ll probably get six different definitions on how success is defined for innovation in a large company,” Stephen explains. Without clear roles, rules, and results, innovation becomes a guessing game. He stresses that these things absolutely must be clarified if there’s any hope of a more systematic approach.

The problem gets worse with asymmetry. Big goals often come with small budgets and little willingness to take risks. “We get these sky-high expectations,” Stephen says, “versus very modest resources that are allocated to innovation.”

Ambition without resources sounds like this: “Change the game, but here are two FTEs and a $50k budget.” Or: “Take big risks, but don’t endanger your boss’s bonus.” Or: “Secure the long-term future, but report ROI quarterly.”

Few companies have fully solved these challenges, but acknowledging them is the first step. And building a clear, signed-off innovation mandate is how you start overcoming them.

So, what is an innovation mandate, and what should it cover?

What Is an Innovation Mandate?

An innovation mandate isn’t just a job description, a budget, or a board-approved PowerPoint. Stephen clarifies, “A true mandate needs to be explicit and unambiguous. Otherwise, we end up with misaligned projects, superficial activities, innovation theatre, not to mention ‘safe’ rather than bold innovation.”

At its core, an innovation mandate is:

  • An explicit contract between executive leadership and those leading innovation
  • A delegation of authority (and responsibility) to innovate within defined parameters
  • A strategic link between company goals and the work of the innovation team
  • A framework for accountability, not just ambition

Stephen draws on his earlier career in finance. “Back when I was a trader, I had this document called a trading mandate, which was simply an authorization to say when I could buy or sell certain assets within a range of guidelines. So, for example, if you’re a foreign currency trader, your mandate might say you’re allowed to trade US dollars, Euros, and Swiss francs, but no other currencies.”

An innovation mandate serves a similar purpose to a trading mandate in that it “outlines the what, the how much—but not the how,” Stephen explains.

Just as a trader knows the scope of their authority, risk limits, and objectives, the innovation leader should be operating with clarity on:

  • Objectives: What is innovation here to do
  • Boundaries: Where can we play? What’s out of scope?
  • Resources: What’s allocated, and for how long?
  • Risk limits: How much failure can we absorb?
  • Success criteria: What does good look like (for both failures and wins)?

Without clear definitions of these key elements, innovation efforts risk misalignment, wasted effort, and superficial results.

The 7 Elements Every Innovation Mandate Needs

Stephen proposes a practical solution of what an ideal innovation mandate should include:

1. High-Level Strategic Context

Innovation should be closely tied to the company’s overall strategy, answering the question, “Why does innovation matter here?” Importantly, innovation is not a standalone strategy. It should be fully integrated into the company’s broader future plans. A company’s innovation efforts (and the learnings they generate) must directly support and refine its long-term strategic direction, not operate in isolation.

A successful approach to innovation also involves building a well-balanced portfolio that spans short, mid, and long-term horizons, ensuring sustained growth and adaptability over time.

2. Objectives and Scope

It’s essential to establish clear and measurable objectives, such as generating new revenue streams or implementing process improvements. Focus areas and themes should be clearly defined to guide efforts. Additionally, it’s crucial to outline what is excluded from the scope, clarifying what doesn’t qualify as innovation and what areas are off-limits.

3. Resources and Investments

Explicit budgets should be established, not just as one-off commitments on a good day, but as reliable, multi-year plans. This ensures stability and allows for better talent allocation. Additionally, the way funding is distributed and reviewed needs to be carefully structured to maximize efficiency and accountability.

4. Risk Appetite and Tolerance

What level of failure is acceptable? How many failures can we stomach before a strategic review? Establishing clear guidelines for risk-taking within the portfolio is essential. This includes determining the appropriate balance between ambitious “moonshot” projects and more incremental, lower-risk initiatives.

5. Decision Rights and Governance

Who has the final say on new investments, kill decisions, or pivots? It’s essential to clearly define roles and responsibilities at every level, including the organization, portfolio, and individual projects. Additionally, there should be a straightforward process for managing escalation and handling exceptions to ensure smooth decision-making.

6. Boundaries and Constraints

The use of brand and intellectual property (IP) must be outlined carefully in the mandate to adhere to established regulatory and legal guardrails. Additionally, data stewardship plays a critical role in ensuring responsible and ethical management of data.

7. Measurement and Feedback Loops

A strong innovation mandate outlines how outcomes will be tracked, reported, and used not just to adjust the innovation portfolio, but to inform broader company strategy. Innovation work is often the company’s earliest window into new markets, technologies, and customer behaviors. Those insights should shape future strategic choices.

Reviews and updates to the mandate should be conducted at regular intervals, ensuring that strategies remain aligned with objectives and that learnings from the innovation portfolio are systematically captured and used to refine the company’s long-term direction.

Once all of the above have been clarified and written down in the mandate document, the next step is for the CEO to sign off. “When the CEO signs and hands over authority to the Head of Innovation, it’s a true expression of skin in the game,” says Stephen.

Think You Already Have a Mandate? Think Again

Many innovators assume they have a mandate simply because they were hired for an innovation role, launched a strategy document, or received some initial budget approval. But Stephen cautions that appearances can be deceiving.

“At one point, I thought I had a mandate to innovate. It turned out I really didn’t,” he shares.

Just because you have a job title or a three-year-old PowerPoint doesn’t mean you have proper authority, protection, and alignment. Without an explicit, signed-off mandate, innovation efforts remain vulnerable to shifting priorities, leadership turnover, and internal politics.

Why an Innovation Mandate Changes Everything

For Stephen, a clear innovation mandate creates a win-win scenario. It empowers teams, strengthens leadership, and improves the overall culture of the organization.

For innovation teams, it provides clarity and cover. People know where they stand and what risks they’re allowed to take, without constantly looking over their shoulders. It also grants explicit permission to fail and learn. “It’s your explicit permission to take more risks. It’s your explicit permission to be wrong, to have projects that fail, so long as you learn from those,” Stephen highlights. With that protection in place, innovators can spend less time managing politics and more time creating value.

“The beauty of a mandate,” he explains, “if it’s clear and has been fully signed off, is that you can just focus on the job that you’ve been hired to do.”

Leaders benefit too. A mandate ensures that innovation efforts are strategically aligned with business goals, making it easier to track progress and course-correct when needed. It also strengthens accountability. Authority is matched with responsibility, and teams are expected to report on outcomes. It also builds leadership credibility.

When senior leaders visibly back innovation with clear mandates, it encourages honest conversations about priorities and trade-offs. “It’s an invitation to have very grown-up discussions about strategy,” says Stephen.

Finally, a strong mandate improves organizational culture. It reduces friction and subjective decision-making, since clear rules make it less likely that final calls will default to the “HiPPO”—the highest-paid person’s opinion. It enables transparency, ensuring that innovation work is exposed to scrutiny and learning rather than hidden behind vague metrics. Most importantly, it legitimizes the work of innovators. Stephen notes, “If we don’t give legitimacy to innovation, crucially, ideas are always going to get stifled.”

Common Challenges the Mandate Helps Solve

1. Strategic Misalignment

Without a mandate, innovation teams drift, chasing trends or distractions far from what matters. The mandate forces a robust link between innovation and actual business outcomes.

“Unless we can address misalignment, then we’re always going to suffer. Projects won’t support the goals, they can’t scale, and then we fall back into innovation theater,” Stephen warns.

2. Unpredictable Funding

Stop/start funding destroys trust and kills momentum. An explicit mandate protects budgets and empowers teams to plan thoughtfully. “People stop taking things seriously if they don’t think the budget is serious,” explains Stephen.

3. Cultural Resistance

A mandate signals to the whole organization that innovation isn’t an afterthought. It challenges risk aversion and old patterns, making room for new ways of working. Employees often view innovation as disruptive to their established roles. Stephen points out, “Innovators are often seen as a threat to people’s positions that they have earned over many decades of hard work.”

To illustrate this, he introduces fictional personas that capture common corporate archetypes:

  • Barry Buzzword: Knows all the theory but lacks hands-on innovation experience.
  • Bianca Beige: Masters the art of playing it safe, building a career without ever taking real risks.
  • Colin Core: Brilliant at optimizing the core business but struggles to deliver results when tasked with innovation.

Through these characters, Stephen highlights an uncomfortable truth that most employees are operating under systems and incentives that reward caution over creation. A strong innovation mandate helps break through these invisible barriers by legitimizing innovators’ efforts and encouraging true collaboration across the organization.

4. Responsibility with Authority

The mandate corrects the chronic mismatch between the weight put on the shoulders of innovators versus the power or cover they’re given to act.

5. Innovation Theater and Zombie Projects

By making it clear what belongs (and what doesn’t), the mandate helps starve so-called zombie projects and moves the organization beyond activities that look innovative but deliver nothing. “Unless companies implement a clear mandate or a better substitute, these things will never go away,” emphasizes Stephen.

How to Craft a Mandate That Works and Lasts

  1. Be Explicit and Transparent: Make the mandate visible, not buried. “Everyone benefits from clarity. Shareholders, not least.” Communicate across the organization, not just to innovation teams.
  2. Start with Leadership Skin in the Game: Both the CEO (or equivalent) and the innovation lead sign the mandate.
  3. Tailor, Then Standardize: One mandate is usually preferable (you can specify parameters to cover multiple horizons or innovation types within the document).
  4. Refresh, But Don’t Tinker Constantly: Stephen suggests 3-year cycles to give teams stability, reviewing on an annual basis unless there’s a major strategic shift.
  5. Expect (and Invite) Accountability: The mandate isn’t a “get out of jail free” card. It’s a two-way street holding both teams and leaders responsible.
  6. Celebrate Quick Wins and Learn from Fails: Use transparent reporting and feedback to show how following the mandate delivers results (or valuable learning).

Building a Culture Where Innovation Is Authorized and Accountable

Work in corporate innovation isn’t easy, especially without a clear mandate that empowers you to make a meaningful impact. That’s why it’s worth asking:

Do you truly have an innovation mandate, or just the appearance of one?

A job title, a dusty slide deck, or a line item in the budget isn’t enough. A real mandate is explicit, endorsed by leadership, and backed by resources, governance, and clear success criteria.

If a mandate isn’t in place, it’s time to change that. As Stephen puts it, “If we’re not in the business of doing meaningful, impactful innovation, then I think we’re all just a bunch of clowns.”

So, start the conversation. Define what innovation means in your context, set the rules of engagement, and make the delegation of authority visible and real. When boundaries are clear, goals are aligned, and leadership stands behind the work, innovation stops being performative—and becomes a powerful lever for transformation.