🚀 The Promise
You launched a bold initiative.
AI, automation, circular design, remote-first…
Whatever the buzzword, it came with big expectations and internal slides full of rocket emojis.
But three months in:
- The approvals take forever
- The “legal gate” blocks every prototype
- The leadership insists on ROI in 90 days
- Teams are told to “be innovative” but “don’t break anything”
What you’re experiencing isn’t just resistance.
It’s innovation debt.
🧨 What is Innovation Debt?
Just like technical debt accumulates when old code gets patched instead of rewritten, innovation debt builds up when new ideas are forced to live inside old mental models.
It happens when:
- Bold ideas are trapped in legacy processes
- “Agile” means sticking a sticky note on a waterfall
- “Test and learn” is just code for “Don’t really launch it”
- Leadership supports “transformation” but behaves like yesterday
It’s the cost of pretending to change without changing how we decide.
📉 A Case from the Real World
A large retail company rolled out a “Digital Accelerator Lab” with full press releases and internal fanfare.
They hired young talent, hosted hackathons, and even launched a podcast.
But within 6 months:
- The new teams couldn’t ship anything without going through 12 compliance checkpoints
- Procurement insisted on 18-month contracts for 3-week experiments
- The lab’s ideas were reviewed by the same steering committee as all legacy projects
Guess what happened?
The best talent left.
The lab became a slide.
And the exec team blamed “lack of impact”.
🔗 Metaphor: The Anchored Rocket
Imagine building a sleek rocket, designed to fly.
But every time it’s ready to launch,
someone ties one more chain to it:
- A budget rule from 2008
- A “best practice” from a different era
- A mindset of fear masked as caution
Eventually, that rocket doesn’t fly.
It rusts on the launchpad.
Not because it was badly built—
but because it was never allowed to lift off.
🚨 Signs You’re Carrying Innovation Debt
- Everything “new” must go through the old system
You’re innovating with yesterday’s playbook. - You pilot endlessly but never commit
Pilots without a runway are just theatre. - You celebrate ideas but punish mistakes
Innovation without tolerance for failure is a façade. - Your governance model never changed
If the same people make the same decisions, nothing is really new.
🧯 What to Do About It
- Burn one sacred rule
Each quarter, kill one legacy policy that blocks speed or creativity. - Fund teams, not projects
Empower people with purpose and freedom—not task lists. - Tie KPIs to learning, not just delivery
Celebrate validated learning even when the idea “fails”. - Design decision paths as if you wanted speed
You can’t scale agility with a 12-step approval process. - Audit your mindset, not just your strategy
Ask: What beliefs are we holding onto that no longer serve us?
✨ Closing Thought
Innovation doesn’t fail because people aren’t creative.
It fails because we don’t unchain the system they work in.
Stop pretending your rocket can fly
while holding it down with your own hands.
