I saw this phrase on Twitter today - it was a quote from Sheetal Jaitly, CEO of TribalScale, an innovation consulting firm in Toronto. I think he was referring to most companies’ innovation labs and hackathons - which are simply theatrics that serve no real purpose other than to make leaders feel like they’re innovating.

My hypothesis is that innovation teams should aim to not exist. Essentially, they should aim to lose the “innovation” prefix. In order for an innovation team to succeed, they have to graduate to being a part of the business. True innovation teams become business lines that create new customers and value networks.

After all, innovation teams inherently have a limited life span - if they cannot prove their value within the cadence of a strategic planning cycle, they will often cease to exist anyways - but for the wrong reason.

True innovation teams create real business value. Everything else is just innovation theater.