HBR's 10 Must Reads 2022: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review (with bonus article "Begin with Trust" by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss)

Cultural Innovation

by Douglas Holt

BUILDING THE NEXT billion-dollar innovation is an irresistible goal. To get a leg up, many companies now emulate the innovation model perfected in the tech sector. Procter & Gamble, for example, pursues what it calls constructive disruption. The company has designed its innovation process like a start-up’s, with a venture lab that pulls in tech entrepreneurs and a lean probe-and-learn prototyping process.

That approach is not working. The reality is that in most consumer markets, innovation is a slow, incremental grind—extending master brands, adding a new bell or whistle, tweaking a formula. P&G’s star innovations—such as a smart Pampers diaper that signals when a change is needed—aren’t exactly threatening ...