A leader's role isn't micromanaging teams. It's enforcing a robust governance process with a "heavy hand" while empowering project teams with autonomy (a "light hand"). Leaders should only intervene at key gates to apply their business acumen and strategic judgment.
While operational leaders often freeze amidst market uncertainty, innovation teams thrive in it—it's their core competency. In turbulent times, product innovators should be leveraged to help the entire organization navigate and capitalize on unpredictability, not just their own department.
An overemphasis on speed and team-level agile methods has crowded out the leader's governance role. This results in "portfolio chaos," where executives get dashboards but lack true visibility into project stages or strategic alignment, hindering effective decision-making.
To truly understand a complex market, 3M went beyond traditional research. They engaged in a year-long swap of their Stage-Gate process leader with a counterpart at the U.S. Department of Defense. This deep immersion allowed both organizations to learn about operations, needs, and collaboration at a strategic level.
Position governance not as a bureaucratic hurdle, but as a system that builds trust through clear standards and predictable decisions. This frees teams from worrying about shifting expectations, allowing them to focus purely on innovating and taking calculated risks.
Chasing trends by replacing one innovation method (e.g., Stage-Gate) with another (e.g., Agile) is a mistake. High-performing organizations don't swap frameworks. Instead, they deliberately integrate the best tools from various disciplines into a more sophisticated, overarching governance process.
An idea becomes an innovation not at launch or even the first sale. According to 3M's Art Fry, true validation is the repeat purchase. This indicates you haven't just sold a product but have fundamentally changed a customer's buying habits and created lasting value.