The graveyard of good ideas
Sometime in 2024, I was invited to sit in on an “innovation committee” of a top-tier manufacturing firm. On the agenda? Reviewing a proposal to invest in a new AI-enabled production line. Sounds exciting, right?
Until I walked into the room and realised this so-called innovation committee was made up of the same people on the finance and procurement committees, just wearing different hats. No young minds, no customers, no real thinkers, just spreadsheets, policies, and a loud obsession with ROI.
After 90 minutes, they shelved the proposal citing “lack of budget clarity.” What they didn’t know: a mid-sized competitor launched a similar line six months later and captured a niche market worth $2.2 million annually. That’s the thing about innovation committees. They’re usually where good ideas go to die.
Innovation is not a committee function. It’s a power choice.
If your innovation committee meets quarterly, operates with a fixed agenda, and reports to the same board that values predictability over experimentation, you’re not innovating. You’re administrating.
In agriculture value addition, for example, I have seen firms try to “innovate” with new packaging or drone testing, only to have the ideas stalled by procurement red tape and board risk aversion. What began as a bold idea ends up as a 62-slide PowerPoint lost in SharePoint.
Innovation must break things intelligently.
True innovation leaders start with customer obsession, not compliance. They don’t ask, “Can we fund it?” They ask, “What happens if our competitor does this first?”
Instead of having an innovation committee, smart boards create “innovation budgets” tied to specific challenges. Then they give intrapreneurs room to test, fail fast, and pivot. Not by asking for permission but by being trusted to experiment.
In one agricultural processor I worked with, we created a “Dragon’s Den” model for internal innovation. Each quarter, frontline teams pitched ideas to a rotating panel including one board member, a client, and a non-sector expert.
One idea is a mobile drying unit prototype that cuts spoilage by 27% and pays for itself in six months. That never would have happened in a traditional committee.
Leadership challenge: Most executives want predictability. Innovation demands messiness. Your job as a board or CEO is to protect the bold from the bureaucracy.
That means shielding early-stage ideas from over-scrutiny and setting aside money that can be lost with zero ROI, because what you gain in learning is worth more.
Leadership tool-Abolish the “innovation committee.” Instead, create a standing “Innovation War Room” with five rules:
1) No minutes,
2) No suits,
3) No gatekeepers,
4) Fast funds for pilot testing,
5) Monthly field reviews.
Make it sacred and strategic.
Innovation is not a line item, but it’s a leadership philosophy. If your committee is still debating frameworks while your competitors are shipping MVPs, you’ve already lost the future.
