If Innovation Was Easy...

Everyone would do it, and do it well. It's not. Successfully launching products, and driving a digital transformation, with game-changing potential, is every bit as difficult as launching a venture-backable tech startup. Unfortunately, just like most founders, it doesn't matter how many times you read the common pitfalls, most innovation leaders still need to learn (and re-learn) the hard way.

Having said that, it's still good to be reminded of some of the common mistakes. There is no shortage of advice on the topic, but here are 5 top-of-mind mistakes that I have either made or seen hamper innovation efforts.

1. An innovative culture is a nice to have. If we build some momentum with one-off projects, that'll lead to a more innovative culture and attract the right people.

Antidote: culture/behavior change may be the most important first investment; without it, nothing you launch has a chance of actually creating lasting value because you won't be able to attract and retain the right people to lead those products. How do you get there? Get the right leaders on the bus first with a proven track record.

2. Focused on quick ROI: Short-term focus on small projects that create some "quick wins" so we can show a return on our innovation efforts. "If we do that well, it will unlock more funding." While this makes sense in theory, the problems are: a) you'll never get out of playing small ball if that's the game you sell to leadership early on because there is no shortage for incremental ideas and b) if management isn't committed to taking big swings already, a base hit win won't get them there.

Antidote: Think 10x not 10%. How can we take this hill in the next 12 months, not the next 10 years? What upcoming technologies or trends, outside of our industry, might be game-changing? You need a team dedicated to dreaming big and taking moonshots; if no one has permission to think big and fail, you'll never have room for breakthrough innovation. Focus on getting buy-in for 10x thinking first and resort to "quick wins" only if truly necessary.

3. Underfunding initiatives. Often times opportunities are treated as short-term projects that just need to launch, so budgets are set accordingly. People confuse MVP (minimum viable product) with build something small, fast. Similar to the challenges that underfunding a startup can cause, this leads to short-term thinking and a mediocre solution that has no chance of getting the additional budget it needs to thrive. We expect to build it and just "put it out there" to see what happens. Spoiler alert: if you launch a digital product without a long-term roadmap and dedicated team running after it, it dies.

Antidote: Fund Products with a big vision for solving a problem that will drive lasting value, and keep investing in these (vs. launch and move on to the next thing). No one expects a startup to raise a seed round of capital and never have to go back to the well, so don't expect it of your digital products. Like most things, there's a balance here; overfunding can be a problem too (and create waste), which is why startups are funded in phases over time. Think about funding your innovation project like a startup.

4. We got this. "Our amazing people and have a history of solving big problems, we can figure out this one too." Lack of humility (or too much pride) cause people to believe that they don't need outside help (even if they're way outside of their wheelhouse). This is similar to the classic startup mistake of trying to go it alone for too long. No founder is amazing at everything, but many are too worried about sharing the pie and trusting others to bring partners in early on.

Antidote: Swallow your pride and look to others who are better than you. Partner, collaborate, hire outside experts and, you know, actually let them be experts. As they say, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, bring a team. The key is finding that right balance of a nimble/small team and necessary experience/expertise.

5. Pretending to have a customer-centered approach to innovation without actually committing to it. This tends to work well early on, but then gets handed off to folks who don't have context about the who and why and just focus entirely on the what (product).

Antidote: Have Product Owners, not project managers. Stop handing products off to a project manager who isn't schooled in human-centered design, hasn't been involved since the beginning, and only really cares about shipping more features faster. Product owners should be engaged early and should continuously use design-thinking practices to keep the customer at the center, throughout the lifecycle.