Tips for Improving Innovation Support Processes

Yesterday I talked about the innovation standoff in multifamily. Today, this one's for the operators. You're not anti-innovation. You're anti-disaster. After watching pilots fail and "game-changing solutions" create more work than they solved - your caution isn't resistance. It's wisdom. But the operators who crack the code on piloting effectively won't just adopt innovation. They'll shape it. Here's the playbook: 1. Create a dedicated innovation budget that survives budget season. Not "we'll find money if something comes up." A protected line item. When you have to beg for pilot funding, you've already lost momentum. 2. Rethink the roles you need. The operators winning in 2026 are investing in: → AI/Automation leadership → Innovation program management → Change management specialists → Data & intelligence resources You can't bolt innovation onto people already drowning in their day jobs. 3. Fix your site selection strategy. Stop giving pilots your most broken properties. That property has staffing problems, deferred maintenance, and a team barely keeping their heads above water. The PropTech company walks into a hurricane and is expected to prove sunshine. Give pilots a property with a stable team, an on-site champion who wants to participate, and leadership that's bought in - not burned out. 4. Build your data lake. This doesn't eliminate integrations - you'll still need them. But when you control your data centrally: → You're not waiting on a PMS to prioritize your needs → Clean data makes new integrations faster → You validate solutions with YOUR data before committing → You negotiate from strength, not dependency That's sovereignty. Sovereignty accelerates innovation. 5. Align success metrics BEFORE the pilot starts. What does "success" look like? What KPIs? Who's measuring? Get this in writing. Both sides. Skip this step, and you'll end the pilot with PropTech claiming victory while your team says "it didn't work" - and you'll both be right. 6. Build in executive sponsorship. Pilots without C-suite air cover die. Not because leadership kills them - but because no one protects them from budget cuts and competing priorities. 7. Incentivize innovation at every level. Build it into performance reviews. Build it into promotion criteria. Celebrate pilots - even failed ones - because you learned something. 8. Design the exit strategy upfront. When there's no graceful off-ramp, people avoid getting on the road entirely. Make "this didn't work and here's what we learned" an acceptable outcome. The infrastructure for innovation is just as important as the innovation itself. Build the playbook. Then run the plays. Tomorrow: What PropTech companies need to do differently to earn the pilot. What would you add to this playbook? What's worked at your organization?

I am constantly thinking about how to foster innovation in my product organization. Building teams that are experts at execution is the easy part—when there’s a clear problem, product orgs are great at coming up with smart solutions. But it’s impossible to optimize your way into innovation. You can’t only rely on incremental improvement to keep growing. You need to come up with new problem spaces, rather than just finding better solutions to the same old problems. So, how do we come up with those new spaces? Here are a few things I’m trying at Duolingo: 1. Innovation needs a high-energy environment, and a slow process will kill a great idea. So I always ask myself: Can we remove some of the organizational barriers here? Do managers from seven different teams really need to say yes on every project? Seeking consensus across the company—rather than just keeping everyone informed—can be a major deterrent to innovation. 2. Similarly, beware of defaulting to “following up.” If product meetings are on a weekly cadence, every time you do this, you are allocating seven days to a task that might only need two. We try to avoid this and promote a sense of urgency, which is essential for innovative ideas to turn into successes. 3. Figure out the right incentive. Most product orgs reward team members whose ideas have measurable business impact, which works in most contexts. But once you’ve found product-market fit, it is often easiest to generate impact through smaller wins. So, naturally, if your org tends to only reward impact, you have effectively incentivized constant optimization of existing features instead of innovation. In the short term things will look great, but over time your product becomes stale. I try to show my teams that we value and reward bigger ideas. If someone sticks their neck out on a new concept, we should highlight that—even if it didn’t pan out. Big swings should be celebrated, even if we didn’t win, because there are valuable learnings there. 4. Look for innovative thinkers with a history of zero-to-one feature work. There are lots of amazing product managers out there, but not many focus on new problem domains. If a PM has created something new from scratch and done it well, that’s a good sign. An even better sign: if they show excitement about and gravitate toward that kind of work. If that sounds like you—if you’re a product manager who wants to think big picture and try out big ideas in a fast-paced environment with a stellar mission—we want you on our team. We’re hiring a Director of Product Management: https://lnkd.in/dQnWqmDZ #productthoughts #innovation #productmanagement #zerotoone

How can you grow innovation in an organisation that is tired and overloaded? No! Not by launching yet another innovation programme. Tired teams don’t need more. They need different. Here are 5 things to do: 1. Kill before you create You can’t grow innovation on top of a full plate. Make a stop list before a to-do list: which meetings, reports, projects and rituals will you end to free up energy for new ideas? 2. Protect small islands of focus time Innovation dies in back-to-back calendars. Block fixed “no meeting” slots or a monthly sprint where teams can work on one opportunity without interruptions. Guard this time like you guard client deadlines. 3. Shrink the ambition, speed up the learning Overloaded people fear “big transformation”. Instead, ask for tiny experiments: 1 idea, 1 customer segment, 1 simple test within 2–4 weeks. The goal is learning, not a perfect business case. 4. Change leadership behaviour, not posters Culture follows what leaders do on Monday morning. Leaders should ask: “What did we learn?” more often than “Did we hit the numbers?” and publicly reward smart experiments, even when they don’t “win”. 5. Make progress visible and human Tired organisations often are moving… they just can’t see it. Create a simple “innovation wall” (physical or digital) showing ideas, tests, and outcomes. Celebrate small wins with names and faces, not just dashboards. Innovation culture doesn’t start with energy. It starts with permission, space and small, real progress – especially when everyone is tired. #innovation #innovationculture #leadership #change #futureofwork #organisationaldevelopment

One of the clearest signals of whether a transformation is working isn’t in the plan - it’s in the conversations happening in your teams. So pay close attention to the frequency of healthy debate, constructive challenge and openness to new and divergent ideas that takes place. If the frequency is low… …there is the risk of creating the illusion of performance because people readily ‘understand’ each other, agree on everything, collaboration seems to flow smoothly and there is a collective sensation of progress. However, the opportunity cost is teams gets trapped in their own paradigms, opportunities get overlooked, risks ignored - and ultimately their output becomes derivative not innovative, performance diminishes as opposed to improving and compounding. If the frequency is high… …there is a level of psychological safety that allows for team members to be more objective, to speak up with relevant ideas, to constructively challenge each other, and bring their diverse perspectives and experiences to the table - in the knowledge it won’t be held against them. This opens up the opportunity of reframing the paradigm, and connecting different perspectives and ideas. Ingredients for creativity, innovation, resilience and performance. You see homogeneous teams might feel easier, but easy doesn’t translate into Performance. Here are a few ideas to experiment with your teams… 1. Intentionally foster a team environment that replaces scepticism with intellectual curiosity, an open and learning mindset.   2. Consider how you can create a ways of working that allows all ideas and perspectives from everyone in the room to be heard. 3. Encourage dissenting perspectives. Surrounding yourself with people who are willing to disagree with you and challenge your perspectives and each other. 4. Consider whether you may need to invite others to that creative or idea generation meeting to ensure you get a broader perspective. 5. De-stigmatise failure through sharing past mistakes and celebrating lessons learnt. 6. Institutionalise a team culture of healthy candour. Candour is one of the key attributes to improving the quality of output, levelling up creativity and enabling effective collaboration. What would you add? #transformation #culture #psychologicalsafety

Many senior leaders I work with care deeply about innovation. And still, they experience a tension they don’t always state out loud. Control vs. curiosity. Alignment vs. disagreement. They know innovation doesn’t come from everyone just doing what they’re told. But they also believe that too much freedom, without enough structure, can quickly turn into chaos. What they often do not realize is that they do not need to pick a side. Instead, they need to learn how to hold both at the same time. In my work, I’ve seen that innovative teams don’t try to get rid of dissent. They embrace it and shape it. And they don’t just tell people to “be curious.” They use practices that make curiosity possible, every day. Here are a few principles that help leaders navigate this tension: 1. Keep dissent about ideas, not people. The best debates focus on the work: the data, the assumptions, the trade-offs. Not egos, titles, or who’s “right.” When leaders stay open (especially when they’re being challenged) it gives everyone else permission to do the same. 2. Give curiosity clear boundaries. Curiosity actually works better with structure. Be clear about where experimentation is encouraged, what constraints matter, and when decisions are final. Too much freedom without clarity is overwhelming. Clarity creates room to explore. 3. Don’t mix learning moments with performance moments. If every conversation feels like a test, people stop taking risks. Say out loud when the goal is learning, reflection, or trying things out. And protect those spaces. 4. Reward contribution, not agreement. If people get ahead by agreeing, that’s what they’ll do. If they get ahead by improving thinking, raising risks, and expanding options, you’ll get better decisions. 5. Remember: culture follows behavior, not demands or promises. Curiosity isn’t what leaders say they want. It’s what they notice, what they ask about, and what they act on, especially when things get tense. To me, innovation does not mean letting go of control. It’s about using control more thoughtfully, in ways that leave room for learning, challenge, and discovery. Leaders who get this right build teams and organizations that keep learning long after today’s problems are solved. #teams #collaboration #control #innovation #rules #practices #tension #learning #leadership

Far too often, I see leaders and companies move on from innovation, believing it's only necessary during the startup phase. In reality, it's what keeps companies alive and thriving. As companies grow, it's easy to fall into routine and let creativity fade. But innovation must continue-even as you scale. An older HBR article I came across this morning highlights how breakthroughs in management can create lasting advantages that are hard to replicate. Companies focused only on new products or efficiency often get quickly copied. To stay ahead, businesses must become "serial management innovators," always seeking new ways to transform how they operate. This idea remains as relevant now as it was back then. The benefits of sustained innovation are undeniable: •Competitive Edge •Increased Revenue •Customer Satisfaction •Attracting Talent •Organizational Growth and Employee Retention Embrace the innovation lifecycle-adapting creativity as your organization matures. Sustaining creativity means creating an environment where people feel safe to push boundaries. Encourage your teams to think big, take risks, and use the experience of your organization. Here are three strategies that I’ve seen work firsthand: Make Experimentation a Priority: Mistakes are part of the process—they help us learn, grow, and innovate. As leaders, share your own experiences with risk-taking, talk about what you've learned, and celebrate those who take bold steps, even when things don’t go as planned. It sends a powerful message: it's okay to take risks. Promote Intrapreneurship: Many of the best ideas come from those closest to the work. Encourage your people to think like entrepreneurs. Give them ownership, the tools they need, and the freedom to explore. Whether it’s through ‘innovation sprints’ or dedicated time for passion projects, showing your team that their creativity matters sustains momentum. Address big challenges, ask tough questions, and let your people feel empowered to tackle them head-on. Break Down Silos: True innovation happens when people connect across departments. Create opportunities for cross-functional interactions-through gatherings, open forums, or spontaneous connections. Diverse perspectives lead to game-changing solutions, and breaking down silos opens the door to that kind of synergy. Innovation doesn’t happen by accident. It requires dedication, a commitment to growth, and a willingness to challenge what’s always been done. To all the leaders out there: How are you ensuring your teams remain creative and engaged? What strategies have you found that create space for bold ideas within structured environments? —-- Harvard Business Review, "The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation" #Innovation #Leadership #ContinuousImprovement #Creativity #BusinessGrowth #Intrapreneurship #CrossFunctionalCollaboration #ImpactLab

AI doesn't wait for your yearly review. Neither should your strategy. Static roadmaps are being replaced by living, evolving systems. The shift isn't about more meetings or bigger decks. It's about embedding agility into the core of how strategy is created, tested, and refined in the age of AI. Here are 13 ways leaders are leveraging AI to shape their strategic planning: 1/ Real-Time Monitoring Systems ↳ AI-powered dashboard integration ↳ Automated trend detection 💡Pro tip: Set up 15-minute daily stand-ups focused solely on emerging AI trends. 2/ Rolling Quarter Framework ↳ 90-day action sprints ↳ Monthly strategy refinements 💡Pro tip: Keep 70% of resources committed, 30% flexible. 3/ Scenario Planning Networks ↳ Multiple future state mapping ↳ Risk-opportunity matrices 💡Pro tip: Create 3 scenarios for every major decision: baseline, accelerated AI adoption, and disruption. 4/ Digital Twin Strategies ↳ Virtual strategy modeling ↳ Quick iteration cycles 💡Pro tip: Test strategic changes in digital environments before real-world implementation. 5/ Adaptive Team Structures ↳ Fluid role assignments ↳ Skills-based reorganization 💡Pro tip: Rotate 20% of team members quarterly across departments for fresh perspectives. 6/ AI Intelligence Streams ↳ Automated competitor analysis ↳ Market sentiment tracking 💡Pro tip: Set up AI alerts for both direct competitors and adjacent industry innovations. 7/ Micro-Learning Systems ↳ Just-in-time training ↳ Adaptive learning paths 💡Pro tip: Schedule 20-minute weekly team sessions on new AI tools. 8/ Decision Velocity Framework ↳ Rapid testing protocols ↳ Fast-fail mechanisms 💡Pro tip: Define your "reversal cost threshold" - the point at which a decision needs more review. 9/ Stakeholder Feedback Loops ↳ Continuous alignment checks ↳ Dynamic priority adjustment 💡Pro tip: Create a weekly survey that takes less than 30 seconds to complete. 10/ Resource Fluidity Models ↳ Dynamic budget allocation ↳ Skill-based resourcing 💡Pro tip: Keep 25% of your innovation budget unallocated for emerging AI opportunities. 11/ Crisis-Ready Culture ↳ Rapid response protocols ↳ Distributed decision rights 💡Pro tip: Run monthly "AI disruption simulations" with different teams leading each time. 12/ Data-Driven Pivots ↳ Automated trend analysis ↳ Predictive modeling 💡Pro tip: Define specific metrics that automatically initiate strategy reviews. 13/ Continuous Communication ↳ Strategy visualization tools ↳ Real-time progress tracking 💡Pro tip: Use AI tools to create strategy briefings under 2 minutes. The most resilient teams aren’t the ones with the perfect plan. They’re the ones built to adapt in real time. Continuous strategy isn’t a trend; it’s the new baseline for staying competitive in an AI-driven market. Which of these shifts are you implementing? Share below 👇 _____ Follow Carolyn Healey for more AI and leadership content. Repost to your network if they will find this valuable.

You can't innovate without disrupting the status quo. You can't disrupt the status quo without a culture that supports dissent. And you can't have a lasting culture that supports dissent unless you impose discipline on the team. And so constructive dissent (the lifeblood of innovation) must be approached through a structured process. There's no other way to do it! After years of working with the most- and least innovative teams across the globe, here's the process that I would recommend: 1. Generation: How many ideas can we surface without judgment? 2. Clarification: What logic/ assumptions are at play here? 3. Friction: Can we improve or disqualify the ideas? 4. Selection: Which ideas are the most promising? Can you see how any other approach to dissent could quickly become destructive? Without the imposed discipline, valuable intellectual friction will be smothered by social friction—scathing remarks, superficial collegiality, or even silence. Leaders, will you test out this tool and tell me how it goes? Take an issue that you put on your meeting agenda and say, "Okay, we're going to go through a process of constructive dissent. Here are the four steps we're going to follow." Signpost the steps as you go along, lead your team through it, and see what happens. If you try it out, let me know in the comments ⤵️ Did the structured process unleash your team’s innovative capability? I'm almost certain it will. Oh, and one more thing: Today on The Leader Factor, I sat down with Junior Clark to talk through this 4-step process and my recent HBR article, How Constructive Dissent Can Unlock Your Team’s Innovation. Here's a taste of what we covered: ⭐ Constructive dissent is the lifeblood of innovation ⭐ Psychological safety makes dissent possible ⭐ Leaders set the tone  ⭐ Tools and norms help channel the chaos ⭐ The long-term payoffs are huge The conversation is a good one. I'll put a link to the podcast episode and HBR article in the comments.

The math is simple, but most leaders ignore it and put all their bets on one idea that they have fallen in love with. The more ideas you generate, the more you increase your chances of finding a great one. But it’s not just about quantity, it’s also about process. If you generate 100 ideas and your leader still just picks their favorite one, you are not innovating. Teams need to commit to an innovation process in order to reap the rewards – this looks like: ⭐ Generate high volume of ideas ⭐ Spend time interrogating those ideas ⭐ Narrow down to ones that are most promising ⭐ Develop the top 3-4 most promising ideas ⭐ Evaluate these, and pick the most promising one ⭐ Develop the most promising idea This process requires rigor in your team’s capabilities around measuring and evaluating success, and removing the impact of confirmation bias (looking for the reasons your idea works), and sunk cost fallacy from the equation (the bias to stick with your idea because you’ve already invested so much time and work into it). If we can cultivate more objective criteria into our process for evaluating the success of ideas, and make it SAFE in our organizations to fail—heck, even celebrate when we shut down a decent but not high-yield idea, we have a much greater chance of finding the solutions that will really make an impact. Building capability to measure and evaluate take a shift for most teams and organizations - designing metrics that matter, that we can measure, is hard. But if we can remove our biases from the equation, and leverage evaluation criteria to help guide our decision making, we can go farther and faster. The more ideas we generate, and feed into a data-driven process, the more our chances of success. #innovation #design #leadership #designthinking This is the 3rd post in my short 3-post series this week on innovation. Happy to connect and keep talking!

You can lead innovation from wherever you are. But you need to know how to setup an innovation capability. This is the innovation model I coached that produced 957% return on the initial investment of $2.47M. I envisioned and coached the process, model, and approach for a global and scalable innovation capability from what I learned leading innovation at Microsoft. Part of what makes innovation so tough is the lack of shared mental models. Here are some of the key components of leading innovation: INNOVATION BOARD An Innovation Board is people working together to manage innovation as a capability. An internal Innovation Board can help you prioritize, get funding, channel resources, and escalate as necessary. It's also a way to integrate innovation back to the core. INNOVATION HUBs An Innovation Hub is a center of gravity for innovation efforts. I like the "Hub" model because it's the idea of Hubs and Spokes. You can have a Hub of Hubs, and it's a way to embed and spread innovation around the world. It's a federated model for innovation. INNOVATION PORTFOLIO Creating a shared view of your innovation projects helps leaders see the dashboard. It gets people thinking in "portfolios" vs. "one offs". An Innovation Portfolio gives you the balcony view to invest better. BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION This is where you create new value. I learned a lot as head coach for Microsoft Satya Nadella's innovation team, but one of the most important things is to focus on business model innovation. As Satya put it to me: "Bring me new business models!" Just this one shift in focus can completely transform the success of innovation efforts. CULTURE OF INNOVATION You can inspire innovation at multiple levels. Satya asked me to share with him directly stories of innovation and trends & insights. When you share stories of success, smart people want to play, too. And, they have a fear of missing out. Every leader wants growth.  And innovation is the lever. EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES Innovation happens at the edge. It's the intersection of customer pains, needs, and desired outcomes and your solution. Innovation takes empathy. Swarming on customer challenges is where breakthroughs happen. Everyone can innovate, but they need the mindsets, skill sets, and toolsets. DREAM BIG, START SMALL Too many people play small, out of fear and risk. But that sets the stage for failure. Small things don't accrue to any big things unless there's a guiding vision. The vision is the scaffolding for success. And the vision is what will inspire the team and get support. When you dream big, you figure out better solutions. And these constrain your strategies, and that's a good thing. The right answer is Dream Big, Start Small. This way you can work forwards and work backwards. Dream big, start small.