‘Innovate or die’ has become something of a truism in most realms of human endeavour. The big problem with truisms in the world of innovation is they have a horrible knack of sending organisations running after things that make very little sense. So is it really true? Does every organisation really have to innovate? And if they don’t, how does a leadership team know what they should be doing instead?

I’m in the very fortunate position these days of having the opportunity to talk to and work with a broad spectrum of leaders and leadership teams. Here’s a general version of the conversation I’m most likely to have with a CEO, CFO or COO:

CEO: I’m glad you’re here. We need your help. We need more innovation. We need an innovation culture.

Darrell: Great that you invited me. Thanks for the opportunity. I’m not sure we’ll be able to help, but I’m very happy to explore options with you. Probably best to start with, what yo mean when you say ‘innovation’.

CEO: Err. Better ideas I think. We never seem to be able to come up with the next big thing.

Darrell: Really? Why do you need more ideas?

CEO: To create new value. Get the shareholders engaged. You just have to look at our track record to see we haven’t created anything new for years now.

Darrell: Is it lack of ideas though? I almost never go to organisations and find that lack of ideas is the problem. For me innovation is all about successful deployment of ideas. The real challenges seem to be giving people the time to try stuff. To get things wrong. To learn from failure. To explore different options. To do things that challenge the staus quo. Break rules.

CEO: Oh.

Darrell: Challenging the prevailing common-sense.

CEO: (shaking head) I’m not sure that’s what I want.

Darrell: So what do you want?

CEO: New ideas. New thinking.

Darrell: Without breaking the rules.

CEO: Exactly.

By the end of these conversations things usually boil down to a leadership team that wants change without having to change anything. And certainly not anything they do themselves.  A tough nut to crack, but at the end of the day, it’s merely another contradiction, and any contradiction can be solved. The bigger question at this point, however, is do we need to solve it at all? Does the CEO really need to be putting the organisation through the inevitable trials and tribulations of delivering successful step change?

Here’s a simple flow chart designed to help C-Suite leaders to decide if they need innovation or not:

I’ve found it’s saved me and the leaders I’m privileged enough to get to talk to a lot of time in the months since I started using it. I’m not always convinced I get the whole truth and nothing but the truth when I hear CEOs walking through the process, but I think I get to know enough to know whether we’ll be seeing any innovation any time soon. In most cases we won’t.