[MichaelRo]

>> Why is it that innovations require heroics to occur in our organization?

Why do we immediately assume that innovation = progress? Sure, the things that SURVIVE are useful, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of ideas are just like mutations in evolution more likely to be at best useless and probably damaging in various ways.

You see, social constructs are not as dumb as they appear to be to the armchair intellectual. "Why, we should embrace innovation and immediately adopt any idiocy that Mary from accounting is suggesting as our global company policy". I assure you that by natural law, if "random idea from random guy" were profitable on average, we'd have a system that would encourage such ideas. The sad fact is that they aren't and will never be.

Friction (named in the article as "Dysfunctional Organization") is an unfortunate but necessary process which ensures "survival of the fittest", even among "innovation". It's as simple as that.

[ahstilde]

Innovation is required for progress. The alternative to innovation is stagnation. The end result of stagnation is death.

[dmvdoug]

Pithy but, alas, meaningless.

First, define “progress.”

Second, innovation is a new idea, product, strategy, etc. Stagnation is lack of movement or lack of growth. There are alternatives to stagnation that are not innovation. Consider satisficing.

Third, the end result of stagnation may be other than death. It may be a steady state. Surviving, but not growing, is not death.

[fuzzfactor]

Don't sell short progress that has already been made.

I would estimate that for most people born in the 21st century, before they were born there were already more promising undeployed innovations that can't be beat, than new ones that will actually be deployed during their lifetime.

That's not all I do, but just about. Experimentation & discovery is like that. When I started out innovation was still as highly valued as it should be, up until the mid 1970's when people lost interest since nobody could afford to deploy anything any more anyway, unless they were among the most well-heeled who had weathered the economic devastation.

[esafak]

Evolution requires mutation before selection can take place.