Political Recipe for Innovation
Big 4 Consultancy Innovation: The same Tired Solutions to Different Problems
As a director of product, I’ve had opportunities to intimately get to know client-led innovation strategies. These clients were mostly tier 1 banks, credit card companies, and big retailers. While organizing my 2023/4 presentation files, I came across a couple of ‘decks’ done by McKinsey, and I was taken aback by just how similar they all were for that client avatar! While looking at digital strategies for one of the banks, I discovered there were multiple artifacts that looked strikingly like one from an commerce platform halfway across the globe. Both strategies, developed by McKinsey, revolved around the same core concepts—like customer growth and revenue enhancement—only dressed up for different audiences.
But far more jarring is that it’s not just the artifacts that are standardized, reused and recycled, it's the whole practice: workshops, innovation metrics, leadership training, etc.
This formulaic, plucked-straight-from-a-business-journal approach of consultants is a persistent issue specifically when it comes to instilling innovation into an organization. An issue that can easily be ignored. No VP faces backlash for hiring consulting firms, and they rarely get fired for it. But, there is a clear and growing lack of customization to address the unique innovation challenges these companies are facing.
Biggest barrier: Politics. Biggest player: ‘The Corporate Alpha’
True innovation is astonishingly an internal practice, and so the main barrier the organizations will face is very much internal.
When companies are doing well, different teams might feel they've already got innovation covered in their area. They might see new innovation programs as stepping on their toes or competing for the same budget. Sometimes they might quietly hope that the CEO's latest initiative, like bringing in a new Innovation or Digital Officer, will eventually fade away if they just keep their heads down.
To frame politics correctly:
Political actions usually stem from individuals acting in their logical self-interest
Viewing politics as predictable self-interest rather than malice allows for more strategic and constructive responses.
Rob Haines, partner, and co-founder of Founders Intelligence came up with five archetypes of anti-innovation stakeholders: the Alpha, the Defensive, the Complacent, the Risk-Averse, and the Unimaginative.
Rob has correctly profiled the sorts of stakeholders who may serve as blockers on corporate innovation.
However, drawing from experience, let me assert two different views:
The first archetype, the alpha: those obsessive leaders aspiring to become the next CEO, is disproportionately the biggest barrier.
The remedy to the alpha barrier problem requires a full on, head-to-head prescription (see recipe).
Lets go beyond naivety and enter corporate reality: Boardroom "Alphas," driven by CEO aspirations, champion innovation—but only if it boosts their own klout and prestige. They'll readily, where possible, sabotage projects outside their control to deny credit to rivals, despite generally supporting growth.
The main Ingredients for Strategizing around Politics
Innovation goes beyond talent. It also goes beyond the ability to take the refined ore of a new idea and shape it into a commercially viable and sustainable business. To remedy the alpha problem, political power-players will need to brew up to become soldies. Then they need to be supported by resilient talent around them. There are 3 main archetypes to consider in your innovation soup:
Alpha Sailors
Sailors are those who equipped with reality of Alphas and with the ultimate goal of winning the innovation battle, can:
Acknowledge that individual self-interests must be addressed before implementing data-driven innovations.
Form coalitions carefully. They selectively address self-interests, ideally addressing more than they ignore.
Prioritize immediate access to budget and power to pursue ambitious growth initiatives. They seek this immediate access either directly or via C-suite/VP support to drive core-business growth.
Happy Rebels
The rebels' drive comes from the core nature of innovation: explorative and challenge-seeking. This group finds new possibilities in tech, market trends, and business approaches. Their work may challenge existing practices with fresh innovations. They will have many failed attempts and measure success by how many ideas they try. They don't let immediate goals constrain their exploration.
Kickbackees
The status quo maintainers. These employees prefer stability and routine, working standard hours and avoiding risks. They excel at preserving existing (un)successful business practices but struggle to envision or embrace innovation. Even breakthrough ideas with strong revenue potential fail to overcome their resistance to change. These individuals can be found across all departments essential to innovation initiatives, including HR, development, design, and customer success, finance, etc. To gain their support, direct incentives are required either through:
Simple rewards like higher pay, improved equipment, or company equity are more effective than complex strategic discussions, or
Up-down directive. Kickbackees’ risk avoidance and routine seeking drivers will gladly yield into their bosses new directions toward innovation. Convince their bosses and you have them immediately on your boat.
The Old Recipe for Innovation
Most CIOs and/or external consultants’ recommendation will fall under one or many of the following paths:
Replace individuals that serve as blockers to innovation.
Structure things to encourage innovation as opposed to self-interest from the get-go.
Create a different governance structure for approving investments in innovation.
Keep an open line of communication with the CEO and help prepare and brief them for political concerns that may rear their head.
Stand by your innovation and make it clear that your ability to do your job and continue with the team is contingent on it being supported by the leadership team.
These recycling recommendations are showing cracks fast. Without securing powerful allies in the C-suite or boardroom, your initiative is doomed to fail! Every critical move - from defending your project's existence to establishing vital communication channels and governance structures, even to making necessary personnel changes - will hit an impenetrable wall. Without substantial top-level influence, you're essentially powerless, and your initiative risks being suffocated before it can even take its first breath.
The New Recipe (using Game Theory)
Instead of framing challenges in innovative projects as mere 'politics,' it is more insightful to analyze them through the lens of the rational self-interests of the conflicting parties.
At core the new recipe is centered around 1 big principal:
The innovator needs to demonstrate victories that make opposition increasingly costly
To increase the cost of opposing your project, consider game theory’s core coalition formation framework.
Let’s unpack this framework though an example: Imagine you are about to introduce a generic ML initiative. Using Core Coalition Fomration Tactic to introduce this innovative product in 2025 for a scale up tech company in Toronto with 18 month financial runway and 65 employees, Claude AI responded with:
Executive Level:
CTO/CIO: Show how ML strengthens technical infrastructure and future-proofs systems
CFO: Present clear cost savings from automation and improved efficiency
CEO: Demonstrate competitive advantage and market positioning
CPO: Illustrate how ML enhances existing product features
Technical Teams:
Data Scientists: Give them autonomy in model selection and development
Engineers: Offer opportunities to work with cutting-edge tech
DevOps: Include them early in infrastructure planning
Security Team: Involve them in data governance decisions
Secondary Stakeholders
Customer-Facing Teams:
Sales: Provide clear talking points about AI benefits
Customer Success: Involve them in UX decisions and feature prioritization
Support: Include them in training data collection and validation
Marketing: Give them early access to demo features for content creation
Operational Teams:
Legal: Early involvement in data privacy and compliance
HR: Partner on change management and training programs
Operations: Include them in process integration planning
Coalition Maintenance
Resource Allocation:
Budget sharing between departments
Shared KPIs and success metrics
Cross-functional team formation
Joint ownership of outcomes
For Data Science:
Access to more computational resources
Budget for new tools/platforms
Conference attendance
Publication opportunities
For Engineering:
Technical architecture influence
New technology adoption
Career development paths
Innovation time allocation
Now within each of these considerations and within the context of your own organization, there will be nuances to consider. For instance, what if the Chief Product Officer is the sole C-level executive involved in the project, and she has a history of successful collaboration with Chief Information Officers? There are theories that can exploit that alignment and eventually expand consensus to include all C levels.
In nuanced scenarios, you can increase the dose and prescribe further one or many of the theories below within your specific context and after multiple iterations, you will have a filled matrix of potential remedies for all scenarios.
Sequential Move Games
Information Games
Nash Equilibrium Strategy
Risk Mitigation (Game Against Nature)
Reward Structures
Minute has compiled this matrix and is adding on to it on a case by case basis as it helps organizations get their ideas shipped before they fast-die in committees.
