The vast majority of business leaders are looking for innovation in all the wrong places.
In the 20th century, a CEO could command his employees to, ‘produce 10 times as many widgets as you did last month,’ in the same way that a general might have told a soldier to, ‘Take that hill.’ You could measure such progress easily.
But today’s organizational goals—engagement, innovation, collaboration—cannot be achieved via dictate or commandment. Imagine asking two employees to go into a room and not to come out until they have learned to communicate with each other effectively, or telling one employee, ‘I’ll give you an extra $5,000 if you come up with our industry’s next great idea by Friday.’
