Most leaders want what innovation delivers, but they aren’t prepared to do what it takes.

Innovation is essential for businesses to stay competitive and adapt to changing markets and technologies. Yet, despite the hype surrounding tools like Design Thinking and methodologies like Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), why do organizations continually struggle to transform bold innovation aspirations into tangible outcomes?

The answer may lie not in the tools and methodologies themselves, but in the leadership approach.

During a recent Innov8rs Learning Labs session, Cris Beswick, strategic advisor on innovation leadership, strategy, and culture, issued a wake-up call to executives grappling with the challenges of implementing meaningful innovation within their organizations.

Cris Beswick

Strategic Advisor on Innovation Strategy, Leadership & Culture

Innovation Isn’t a Toolkit Problem

Many organizations turn to innovation frameworks, believing that these tools alone will supercharge creativity and growth. Yet, as Cris explains, “Innovation is misunderstood. It’s not about tools, it’s about behaviors and culture.” That misunderstanding runs deep.

The real blockers to innovation aren’t a lack of ideas or frameworks, but leadership behaviors and systemic barriers.

“Over the last decade, we’ve obsessed over tools. But we haven’t built the cultures that let those tools actually work,” believes Cris. Tools and frameworks are only truly effective when the culture and leadership support them.

That’s the real challenge: leadership teams want the outcomes of innovation, such as growth, competitiveness, and market relevance, but they aren’t willing (or ready) to shift the systems and behaviors that make those outcomes possible.

This isn’t just a mindset issue; it’s structural. Many companies chase the latest frameworks without considering whether their organizational culture can support creative risk-taking or whether their leadership behaviors align with the principles behind those frameworks.

Cris emphasizes, “Over the past decade, the leadership and culture components of innovation have consistently been pushed to the bottom of the pile.” Methodologies are often dropped into environments that aren’t equipped to absorb them.

And who’s responsible for shaping that environment? “The people that shift culture, unfortunately or fortunately, are senior teams and executives,” Cris explains. “They’re the ones that can reshape behavior, change how value is measured, and influence the systems where innovation either flourishes or dies.”

In short, innovation isn’t a toolkit problem. It’s a leadership problem. Tools only matter when culture makes them usable.

The Aspiration-Behavior Gap

One of the biggest issues facing companies today is what Cris calls the aspiration-behavior gap. Many organizations proclaim innovation as a strategic priority, yet their day-to-day actions tell a different story.

“Culture is the soil in which innovation takes root. If the soil isn’t fertile, nothing meaningful grows,” Cris shares.

Innovation is still not taken seriously enough in most organizations. It’s ill-defined and often treated as just another risk. Instead, leaders must match their lofty innovation aspirations with tangible behaviors, systems, and processes that foster creativity and problem-solving.

“Stop asking for ideas and start posing problems to solve,” Cris advises. By focusing on defining and articulating the critical problems you want to solve, teams gain clarity and direction, empowering them to contribute in meaningful ways.

The ODC Framework

To close the aspiration-behavior gap, leaders must act at every level. That’s where the ODC (Own, Drive, Contribute) framework comes in.

Own: Set the Direction from the Top

Leaders at the top must own the innovation agenda. That doesn’t mean they need to be the innovators themselves. “We don’t need leaders to be innovators. What we need is to enable them to lead for innovation,” Cris explains this critical distinction.

Ownership is about prioritizing innovation as a strategic initiative and ensuring the organization’s culture and systems align with that priority. It includes setting a clear definition of innovation, modeling the behaviors that support experimentation, and creating space for informed risk-taking.

“If innovation is that important,” Cris asks, “what does that actually mean inside your organization? And how does it manifest in leadership behaviors?”

Drive: Empower the Middle

According to Cris, innovation is driven not from the top or bottom, but from the middle out. Middle managers play a unique role in “bringing innovation alive on a daily basis.”

Leaders must empower this layer of the organization to take ownership of driving initiatives forward. “You will have an expectation of what you want middle managers to do when it comes to innovation, and they will have a view on what they think they’ve committed to. If it’s not working, there will be a disconnect. Your job as a leader is to align expectations and commitments.”

To address this, he recommends the following exercise:

  • Have your senior leadership team define what they expect middle managers to do around innovation.
  • Then have your middle managers describe what they believe they’re being asked to do.
  • Compare the results. The gap between expectations and commitments can often be significant. Closing that gap is a critical leadership task.

Contribute: Activate the Broader Organization

For the innovation engine to run smoothly, every employee must feel empowered to contribute their ideas. Employees at all levels need to believe their ideas and actions matter.

“If people feel even their smallest ideas matter, they’ll be more willing to contribute bigger ones,” Cris says.

“All of that leadership behavior—the ownership at the top, the drive from the middle—is in pursuit of getting the mass of the organization to willingly contribute,” he explains. “Ideas, observations, and insights are your fuel.”

The goal isn’t to turn everyone into an innovator overnight. It’s to create the belief that innovation is part of how the organization works, and that everyone has a role in making it happen.

Building a Culture for Innovation

A culture for innovation is about creating conditions where innovation naturally emerges as the byproduct of how the organization operates. Rather than treating innovation as a separate activity or department, organizations must embed the conditions for innovation into their everyday systems, behaviors, and values.

So, what does a culture for innovation look like?
Cris highlights four essential ingredients:

1. Psychological Safety

“Most people aren’t playing to win,” he explains. “They’re playing not to lose.”

That mindset is rooted in fear of failure, looking foolish, or risking career damage, and can quietly sabotage innovation efforts.

Teams must feel safe taking informed risks without fear of punishment or political repercussions. “Our job as leaders is to create environments where people are comfortable taking informed risk (not cavalier risk) and be confident making those decisions,” Cris says. This means recognizing the subconscious fears that prevent people from acting creatively.

Leaders play a central role in building a culture that supports innovative experimentation, enabling people to make bold decisions with confidence and conviction.

Psychological safety isn’t about eliminating risk; it’s about ensuring that when people do take it, they know they won’t be punished for trying something new, even if it doesn’t work out.

2. Autonomy and Empowerment

Employees need the freedom to explore, experiment, and make decisions within a supportive framework. This is especially critical for the middle of the organization, which Cris sees as the engine of innovation execution.

Leaders should ask what autonomy looks like in practice and assess whether middle managers have the necessary budget, tools, and decision-making rights to move quickly.

3. Empathy and Human-Centered Thinking

Innovation should always start with understanding people, including customers, users, and colleagues. Cris emphasizes that empathy is an essential competency for building relevance and value.

But most companies are playing catch-up. “Organizations still aren’t brilliant at understanding problems,” Cris notes. “They think they know what customers want, but they often jump straight to solutions. We haven’t built the muscles to ask deep questions or truly understand the real job to be done.”

4. A Focus on Defining the Right Problems

Instead of rushing to solutions, organizations should invest time in defining the problem thoroughly using a JTBD lens. Cris emphasizes the need to stop chasing ideas and start framing challenges. Generic calls for ideas often yield generic suggestions. Instead, pose well-framed problem statements that reflect strategic priorities.

“When you just ask people for ideas, you get things like ‘we need more chicken in the canteen.’ You get what you ask for,” he says. “Instead, be really specific about what you want people to help solve.” This means clearly communicating strategic problem areas, aligning efforts around shared priorities, and encouraging depth over volume in idea generation.

Clarity and Follow-Through

Innovation maturity starts with clarity. One of the most common obstacles Cris sees is a lack of shared understanding about what innovation actually means inside an organization. Leaders must first align on a clear, shared definition of innovation—one that speaks the language of the business and provides a consistent benchmark for decision-making.

Most importantly, organizations must be ready to follow through. Once people are invited to contribute, there must be processes, support, and decision-making structures in place to act on their contributions. A lack of preparedness to act is a significant reason innovation efforts stall.

Cris recommends using a four-part framework (Actions, Pains, Gains, Outcomes) to help leadership teams craft a definition that’s specific to their organization and strategy:

  • Actions: What are people physically doing when they’re innovating?
  • Pains: What problems are we trying to solve?
  • Gains: What value do we expect innovation to create?
  • Outcomes: What are the strategic results we want to achieve?

“The definition should be in the language of the business, and it should be usable. You should be able to stop and test an idea against it at any point,” says Cris. Without that kind of clarity, innovation efforts often become scattered, superficial, or misaligned.

He encourages organizations to identify a small set of strategic challenge areas—what some call an “innovation thesis”—and focus idea generation around those.

“Be clear about the problem spaces that matter most in the next 12 months,” Cris advises. “And just as importantly, be explicit about which areas are not a current priority.” This shift improves the relevance of ideas and creates sharper alignment between innovation efforts and business strategy.

You must be ready to follow through. “You’re opening Pandora’s box,” he warns. “Once you ask people to help solve problems, you’ve got to be prepared to act on what they give you.” That means having governance structures, resources, and processes in place. At minimum, this should include:
– A method for evaluating and advancing ideas
– Budget for experimentation
– Cross-functional teams or “venture boards” to sponsor promising solutions
– A communication plan for sharing progress and outcomes

“The biggest issue I see isn’t a lack of willingness to act,” Cris says. “It’s a lack of preparedness to act.” When leaders solicit input but fail to support it, they hinder innovation and erode trust. That’s why follow-through is not optional. It’s an essential step in turning intent into impact.

Creating the Conditions for Courageous Innovation

Clarity, alignment, and follow-through are essential foundations. But even with those in place, innovation won’t thrive unless people feel truly able to act. That’s where courage comes in.

Innovation often involves risks, and humans are naturally wired to avoid them. That’s why psychological safety is just the starting point.

Leaders must also remove systemic barriers and provide practical enablers that make risk-taking doable, not just desirable.

Cris draws inspiration from Daniel Pink’s “Drive,” emphasizing that motivation stems from purpose, mastery, and autonomy, not just metrics. “What does the middle of the organization need to bring innovation alive every day?” Cris asks. “Strategic direction? Tools? Mindset? Budget? You’ve got to map that out.”

When leaders provide their teams with what they need to act and demonstrate that failure is part of progress, they unlock the potential for bold ideas to emerge. When teams are given not only permission but the resources and reassurance to experiment, they are far more likely to act. And when failure is understood as part of the learning process rather than a career risk, bold ideas begin to surface.

Storytelling as a Leadership Tool

Enabling innovation is not only about systems and structure. It is also about belief. One of the most effective ways leaders can shape belief is through storytelling.

Stories help connect strategy to culture and bring leadership intent to life. While frameworks and metrics speak to the head, stories speak to the heart. Cris explains, “Stories are not abstract principles. Real examples from your organization are what stick.”

Stories of past successes and challenges help create a shared narrative that reinforces innovation as a core value. Stories about learning from failure hold particular power.

These “learning episodes,” as Cris calls them, turn failure into a form of progress by normalizing risk-taking and framing setbacks as opportunities for growth.

Cris encourages leaders to share stories that include emotional components, such as persistence, growth, and triumph. “When you tell stories that include emotion, they resonate deeply,” he says. This builds belief in the organization and strengthens its innovation muscle.

Creating Momentum Through Small Wins

While stories create emotional resonance, what ultimately sustains belief in innovation is visible progress. That’s why momentum matters.

Innovation does not have to start with breakthroughs. It often begins with small wins that build confidence and capability.

“Momentum creates belief. Belief builds a culture that trusts innovation will get us where we need to go,” says Cris.

Leaders can create this momentum by surfacing and celebrating early contributions. Even modest experiments or process improvements signal that innovation is happening, and that it matters. Research by Harvard’s Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer supports this idea. Their work, known as The Progress Principle, shows that small steps forward can significantly boost motivation, creativity, and performance.

These early signals of progress help people feel that innovation is real, not just rhetoric. And over time, small wins build the muscle needed to pursue more ambitious, differentiated innovations—the kind that create real strategic impact.

These incremental wins lay the foundation for tackling larger, differentiated innovations that have strategic impact.

“We’re trying to increase our innovation capability and build that muscle to move away from incremental innovation and toward differentiated innovation. That’s what shifts the needle.”