Innovation and the Walls of the City
The achiever brain naturally wants to safeguard its domain so that success can continue indefinitely. As a result, we’ve created a heavily guarded virtual wall around the city of business.
Inside those walls, companies often treat innovation as something to manage. A division is carved out, R&D is siloed, and the rest of the enterprise continues with business as usual. It creates a pocket that feels “outside the city,” yet it remains within the same rules and safeguards. The allure of freedom is there, and the flow is still controlled.
The whole point of being outside the city is to move free of those constraints — to explore, to imagine, to follow signals at the edge. When innovation is contained in a silo, or worse, when decision-making is handed over to algorithms (AI) that amplify disruption without coherence, the flow between outside and inside begins to break down.
Much of today’s talk about “cultures of innovation” gets the cart before the horse. Innovation isn’t something you can create by mandate. It’s emergent. Sometimes it comes from re-combining what already exists in novel ways. Other times it’s unprecedented, something that breaks entirely new ground. In both cases, awareness greatly enhances the possibility of innovation.
In a time of interdependent, entangled systems, linear approaches to innovation fall short. Our wicked problems are not solved by formula. They require presence to what is emerging behind the obvious.
Innovation, then, is less about building higher walls or tighter silos. It is about cultivating the awareness that allows what wants to happen to flow.If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy microcollection #3: Inside and Outside the Walls of the City
Published WorkMore Relevant Reading
When “File Not Found” Becomes a Leadership Asset
Across industries, executives are naming the same experience: the playbooks they once relied on no longer fit. AI and automation are moving quickly, financial pressures remain volatile, and risks seem to arrive in clusters rather than one at a time. Many leaders describe a quiet sense of “file not found”—that moment when the system searches […]
Scaling With Meaning
The pressure to grow is everywhere. Leaders are told to scale faster, expand further, and multiply what they already have—or risk being left behind. The narrative is often about numbers: 10x growth, market share, valuations. Yet scaling for its own sake can be fragile. A strategy that looks promising today may unravel tomorrow when the […]
Seeing Patterns We’ve Never Seen Before
When faced with challenge, most of us instinctively search for patterns. How did this happen? Where have I seen this before? Our brains are wired to connect new experiences to old ones. For thousands of years, that worked—because life didn’t change much. Today, it’s different. The patterns emerging now are often unprecedented. The pandemic and […]