Everyone agrees that innovation is the magical key to the future, a strategic activity that cannot be ignored.
A major topic of CEOs and MBA programs world-wide.
The biggest obstacle to innovation in any organization has absolutely nothing to do with innovation.
The biggest obstacle is that very few organizations create the strategic group culture needed to nurture innovation.
You may find a Senior VP for other “strategic” areas (think finance, marketing, operations, and even human resources), but you rarely have a SVP for innovation (or for that matter, leadership).
If the CEO does not take a personal hand in proactively promoting an environment for innovation, it just becomes an annoying buzz word that will be addressed “sometime in the future.”
K.W. Wrede 