Off with His Head! Alice in Wonderland and Corporate Culture Transformation

"Off with his head!" — the iconic line from the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. Every time I read it, I think about innovation and transformation in corporate culture. And yes, I’m one of those people who re-reads Alice in Wonderland endlessly because it’s more than a unusual story; it’s a masterclass on embracing your true self while navigating a totally ambiguous environment. Similar like companies facing when trying to innovate without losing their heads (pun intended).

Let’s be honest, running a company within a known business model is already a juggling act. But when you try to add disruption into the mix, aiming to not just improve your current model but invent entirely new growth engines at the same time, things get messy fast.

Here’s where most companies pull a Tweedledee move (The character with they think one person—or one team—can excel at both exploitation (making the existing business succeed) and exploration (dreaming up the future). Spoiler alert: they usually can’t. What ends up happening? They fall into the classic trap of assigning a traditional CEO the impossible task of creating something disruptive while still demanding short-term profits. It’s like asking the White Rabbit to stop being late while managing the Mad Hatter’s tea party—good luck with that!

Traditional CEOs are great at growing and running businesses within the confines of what’s already known. After all, they’ve built their careers delivering results under the current model. But they’re not magicians (or Cheshire Cats), and you can’t expect them to balance the urgency of today with the uncertainty of tomorrow.

That’s why I believe companies need a new role: the Chief Entrepreneur (CE). This isn’t your typical Chief Innovation Officer or a glorified D&D or R&D head. Nope, the CE should be as powerful as the CEO, focused entirely on exploring and inventing the future. They oath act as equals—one managing exploitation, the other leading exploration—both reporting directly to the board of directors.

The CE protects transformative innovation from being swallowed up by the status quo while the CEO keeps the lights on (and finances those wild experiments). It’s a two-headed approach (pun definitely intended) that lets both areas thrive without stepping on each other’s toes—or chopping off each other’s heads.

So, if you’re thinking about diving into disruptive innovation, don’t fall into the trap of mismatched roles and misaligned goals. Assign the right people to the right missions, or you’ll risk losing not only progress but also the heads of your most talented people. And nobody wants to end up like the Queen of Hearts, yelling, “Off with their heads!” every time something goes wrong.