Category Archives: Change

We Must Stop Fooling Ourselves and Get Our Facts Straight

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Mehdi Hasan’s brutal takedown of Matt Taibbi was almost painful to watch. Taibbi, a longtime muckraking journalist of some renown, was invited by Elon Musk to review internal communications that came to be known as the Twitter Files and made big headlines with accusations regarding government censorship of social media.

Yet as Hasan quickly revealed, Taibbi got basic facts wrong, either not understanding what he was looking at, doing sloppy work or just plainly being disingenuous. What Taibbi was reporting as censorship was, in fact, a normal, deliberative process for flagging problematic content, most of which was not taken down.

He looked foolish, but I could feel his pain. In both of my books, I had similarly foolish errors. The difference was that I sent out sections to be fact-checked by experts and people with first-hand knowledge of events before I published. The truth is that it’s not easy to get facts straight. It takes hard work and humility to get things right. We need to be careful.

A Stupid Mistake

Some of the most famous business stories we hear are simply not accurate. Gurus and pundits love to tell you that after inventing digital photography Kodak ignored the market. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, its EasyShare line of cameras were top sellers. It also made big investments in quality printing for digital photos. The problem was that it made most of its money on developing film, a business that completely disappeared.

Another popular fable is that Xerox failed to commercialize the technology developed at its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), when in fact the laser printer developed there saved the company. What also conveniently gets left out is that Steve Jobs was able to get access to the company’s technology to build the Macintosh because Xerox had invested in Apple and then profited handsomely from that investment.

But my favorite mistold myth is that of Blockbuster, which supposedly ignored Netflix until it was too late. As Gina Keating, who covered the story for years at Reuters, explains in her book Netflixed, the video giant moved relatively quickly and came up with a successful strategy, but the CEO, John Antioco, left after a fight with investor Carl Icahn and the strategy was reversed.

Yet that’s not exactly how I told the story. For years I reported that Antioco was fired. I even wrote it up that way in my book Cascades until I contacted the former CEO to fact-check it. He was incredibly generous with his time, corrected me and then gave me additional insights that improved the book.

To this day, I don’t know exactly why I made the mistake. In fact, as soon as he pointed it out I knew I was wrong. Somehow the notion that he was fired got stuck in my head and, with no one to correct me, it just stayed there. We like to think that we remember things as they happened, but unfortunately our brains don’t work that way.

Why We Get Fooled

We tend to imagine that our minds are some sort of machines, recording what we see and hear, then storing those experiences away to be retrieved at a later time, but that’s not how our brains work at all. Humans have a need to build narratives. We like things to fit into neat patterns and fill in the gaps in our knowledge so that everything makes sense.

Psychologists often point to a halo effect, the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another. For example, when someone is physically attractive, we tend to infer other good qualities and when a company is successful, we tend to think other good things about it.

The truth is that our thinking is riddled with subtle yet predictable biases. We are apt to be influenced not by the most rigorous information, but what we can most readily access. We make confounding errors that confuse correlation with causality and then look for information that confirms our judgments while discounting evidence to the contrary.

I’m sure that both Matt Taibbi and I fell into a number of these pitfalls. We observed a set of facts, perceived a pattern, built a narrative and then began filling in gaps with things that we thought we knew. As we looked for more evidence, we seized on what bolstered the stories we were telling ourselves, while ignoring contrary facts.

The difference, of course, is that I went and checked with a primary source, who immediately pointed out my error and, as soon as he did, it broke the spell. I immediately remembered reading in Keating’s book that he resigned and agreed to stay on for six months while a new CEO was being hired. Our brains do weird things.

How Our Errors Perpetuate

In addition to our own cognitive biases, there are a number of external factors that conspire to perpetuate our beliefs. The first is that we tend to embed ourselves in networks that have similar experiences and perspectives that we do. Scientific evidence shows that we conform to the views around us and that effect extends out to three degrees of relationships.

Once we find our tribe, we tend to view outsiders suspiciously and are less likely to scrutinize allies. In a study of adults that were randomly assigned to “leopards” and “tigers,” fMRI studies noted hostility to out-group members. Research from MIT suggests that when we are around people we expect to agree with us, we don’t check facts closely and are more likely to share false information.

In David McRraney’s new book, How to Change a Mind, he points out that people who are able to leave cults or reject long-held conspiracy theories first build alternative social networks. Our associations form an important part of our identity, so we are loath to change our opinions that signal inclusion into our tribe. There are deep evolutionary forces that drive us to be stalwart citizens of the communities we join.

Taibbi was, for years, a respected investigative journalist at Rolling Stone magazine. There, he had editors and fact checkers to answer to. Now, as an independent journalist, he has only the networks that he chooses to give him feedback and, being human like all of us, he subtly conforms to a set of dispositions and perspectives.

I probably fell prey to similar influences. As someone who researches innovation, I spend a lot of time with people who regard Netflix as a hero and Blockbuster as something of a bumbler. That probably affected how I perceived Antioco’s departure from the company. We all have blind spots and fall prey to the operational glitches in our brains. No one is immune.

Learning How To Not Fool Ourselves

In one of my favorite essays the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that,” He goes on further to say that simply being honest isn’t enough, you also need to “bend over backwards” to provide information so that others may prove you wrong.

So the first step is to be hyper-vigilant and aware that your brain has a tendency to fool you. It will quickly grasp on the most readily available data and detect patterns that may or may not be there. Then it will seek out other evidence that confirms those initial hunches while disregarding contrary evidence.

This is especially true of smart, accomplished people. Those who have been right in the past, who have proved the doubters wrong, are going to be less likely to see the warning signs. In many cases, they will even see opposition to their views as evidence they are on the right track. There’s a sucker born every minute and they’re usually the ones who think that they’re playing it smart.

Checking ourselves isn’t nearly enough, we need to actively seek out other views and perspectives. Some of this can be done with formal processes such as pre-mortems and red teams, but a lot of it is just acknowledging that we have blind spots, building the habit of reaching out to others and improving our listening skills.

Perhaps most of all, we need to have a sense of humility. It’s far too easy to be impressed with ourselves and far too difficult to see how we’re being led astray. There is often a negative correlation between our level of certainty and the likelihood of us being wrong. We all need to make an effort to believe less of what we think.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: 1 of 1,050+ FREE quotes for your meetings & presentations at http://misterinnovation.com

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Concentrated Wealth, Consolidated Markets, and the Collapse of Innovation

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Private Equity is Ruining Everything from Sandwiches to Pet Ownership

LAST UPDATED: January 20, 2026 at 3:59 PM

Concentrated Wealth, Consolidated Markets, and the Collapse of Innovation

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

I have always maintained that innovation is a byproduct of human curiosity meeting competitive necessity. It is a biological process of sorts; a marketplace needs diversity, mutation, and the survival of the fittest ideas to stay healthy. However, we are currently witnessing a systemic threat to this ecology: the massive concentration of wealth in the hands of a dwindling few. This financial gravity is creating a “Consolidation Gravity Well” that is sucking the life out of industries, raising prices, and — most crucially — killing the very spirit of innovation, community and entrepreneurship.

When wealth is widely distributed, it acts as seed corn for a thousand different experiments. But when wealth is concentrated, it becomes a weapon of market stabilization. For those at the top, innovation is often viewed as a threat to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized. The result is a rapid consolidation across industries — from digital platforms to healthcare to agriculture — that leaves consumers with fewer choices and higher bills.

“When wealth concentrates, the marketplace loses its heartbeat. We trade the vibrant pulse of human-centered discovery for the sterile, predictable hum of a monopoly’s balance sheet.” — Braden Kelley

The Erosion of Value for Money

The standard economic argument for consolidation is “efficiency.” Larger firms, we are told, can leverage economies of scale to lower costs. Yet, in practice, we see the opposite. When three or four firms control 80% of a market, they stop competing on value creation and start competing on extraction. Without the threat of a nimble competitor stealing their lunch, these giants engage in “shadow pricing” and “feature stripping.”

The consumer feels this as a decrease in value for money. You pay more for a subscription that offers less; you buy food that is more processed but more expensive; you use software that hasn’t seen a meaningful update in five years because there is nowhere else to go. This is a direct consequence of wealth concentration allowing incumbents to buy their way out of the need to innovate.

How Financial Gravity Sucks Wealth Upwards

Concentrated wealth creates a financial gravity that funnels massive pools of capital — from sovereign wealth funds and ultra-high-net-worth individuals — directly into private equity (PE) vehicles seeking high-return alternatives to public markets. This capital is deployed through aggressive “roll-up” or “buy-and-build” strategies, where a PE firm identifies a stable “platform” company in a fragmented industry — like plumbing, dental services, HVAC, or veterinary care — and systematically gobbles up smaller independent competitors as “bolt-on” acquisitions. By centralizing control, these firms often shift the focus from organic, empathy-driven innovation to “multiple arbitrage” and operational extraction, where value is manufactured by selling the consolidated giant at a higher valuation multiple than the individual pieces were originally purchased for. The ultimate cost is a landscape where consumer prices often spike by 7% to 20%, competition is silenced, and the marketplace loses the healthy diversity required for genuine, breakthrough human-centered innovation.

Case Study 1: The “Kill Zone” in Digital Platforms

In the technology sector, the concentration of wealth has created what venture capitalists call the “Kill Zone.” This is the space around a dominant platform (like Google, Amazon, or Meta) where any startup that shows true innovative potential is either acquired or crushed. Because these giants have nearly infinite cash reserves, they don’t have to wait to see if a startup’s idea is better. They simply buy the team and the patents, often “sunsetting” the product to protect their existing revenue streams. This has led to a stagnation in social media and search innovation, where the goal for founders is no longer to “build a great company,” but to “get bought by the monopoly.” The human-centered focus on solving user problems is replaced by the financial focus of an exit strategy.

The Innovation Debt of Oligopolies

Consolidated industries suffer from what I call Innovation Debt. Because they face no external pressure to reinvent themselves, they continue to polish old, inefficient systems while ignoring the fundamental shifts in human needs. They become brittle. When a shock hits the system—be it a pandemic or a supply chain crisis—these consolidated giants often fail to adapt because they have spent decades optimizing for profit extraction rather than resilient innovation.

Case Study 2: The Consolidation of American Meatpacking

In the mid-20th century, the meatpacking industry was relatively diverse. Today, just four companies control the vast majority of the market. This concentration of wealth and power has allowed these firms to keep prices high for consumers while keeping payments to farmers low. From an innovation standpoint, the industry has stagnated. Instead of investing in more sustainable, humane, or efficient farming practices, the focus has been on process consolidation and political lobbying to prevent regulation. When the supply chain was tested recently, the lack of innovative, decentralized alternatives led to massive price spikes and shortages. The lack of competition meant there was no “Plan B” being developed by a smaller, hungrier innovator.

Case Study 3: Consumer Goods and Shrinkflation Innovation

In consumer packaged goods, consolidation has produced a different form of innovation failure. Fewer parent companies control hundreds of brands. Price increases are disguised through shrinkflation, packaging changes, and marketing narratives.

Instead of innovating on nutrition, sustainability, or affordability, companies innovate on perception management. Value erodes while margins grow.

This is not innovation in service of humans—it is innovation in service of financial engineering.

Case Study 4: How Private Equity is Redefining the Price of Pet Companionship

For decades, the local veterinarian was a staple of the community—an independent practitioner who knew your dog’s name and your family’s budget. Today, that landscape has been fundamentally reshaped. As of early 2026, private equity firms and megacorporations control approximately 50% of all veterinary clinics in the United States, a staggering leap from just 10% a decade ago. This aggressive “roll-up” strategy is not just changing who signs the paychecks; it is systematically altering the economics of pet ownership, pushing life-saving care and insurance out of reach for many families.

The private equity playbook is simple: acquire independent clinics, centralize administrative functions, and implement standardized, profit-maximizing medical protocols. While proponents argue this brings professional management and better technology, the data suggests a different reality for “pet parents.”

“We are witnessing the financialization of empathy. When a clinic’s primary metric shifts from ‘patient outcome’ to ‘EBITDA multiple,’ the price of a pet’s life becomes a line item that many middle-class families simply can no longer afford.”

Case Study 5: The Industrialized Home

In a world of accelerating change, we often focus on digital transformation, but one of the most significant shifts is happening behind the walls of our homes. The plumbing and HVAC sectors, historically dominated by local family businesses, are currently undergoing a massive private equity roll-up. This financialization is fundamentally decoupling the “service” from the “provider,” leading to an environment where the objective is no longer the longevity of the machine, but the maximization of the average service ticket.

“When a technician is carrying a sales quota instead of a toolbox, the pride of an effective and reasonably priced repair dies. We are trading the resilience of our home infrastructure for the sterile efficiency of a private equity exit strategy.”

— Braden Kelley

The “Roll-Up” Reality: Sales over Service

By early 2026, it is estimated that nearly 40% of residential service revenue in major U.S. metropolitan areas is captured by private equity-backed platforms. These firms utilize a “platform and bolt-on” strategy: they buy a large, reputable local company and then acquire smaller competitors to “bolt on” to the operation. While the name on the truck remains the same to preserve generational trust, the internal culture is replaced by high-pressure sales training.

Mini-Case 1: The Wrench Group and the Pricing Surge

The Wrench Group, backed by Leonard Green & Partners, has become a dominant force in the trades. By consolidating major brands like Abacus and Coolray, they have built a multi-billion dollar platform. In many markets where Wrench or similar entities have taken over, homeowners have reported that a standard “capacitor fix” (a $20 part) that used to cost $150 now frequently results in a $15,000 quote for a full system replacement. This shift effectively raises the barrier to home maintenance, making homeownership increasingly unattainable for the middle class as “repairability” is phased out in favor of “replacement cycles.”

Mini-Case 2: TurnPoint Services and the “Membership” Trap

TurnPoint Services, supported by OMERS Private Equity, has rapidly acquired dozens of local plumbing and electrical brands. A core part of their “innovation” is the aggressive push for proprietary membership programs. While marketed as preventative maintenance, these programs are often designed as lead-generation engines. Technicians are trained to find “critical failures” during routine check-ups, using the membership as a hook to keep the homeowner within the corporate ecosystem. This decreases value for money by forcing consumers into a subscription model for services that were historically transactional and transparent.

The Negative Impact on Innovation

This consolidation has a chilling effect on true innovation. Instead of developing more durable HVAC components or more efficient plumbing diagnostics, “innovation” in the sector is now focused on financing algorithms and sales psychology. When the market is controlled by a few giants whose goal is to sell the company in 3 to 5 years, there is no incentive to invest in 20-year solutions. The result is an Innovation Debt that the homeowner pays through premature system failure and inflated insurance premiums driven by the rising cost of emergency repairs.

The Human Cost of Consolidation

From a human-centered perspective, consolidation produces predictable harms:

Customers pay more for less value
Workers face fewer employers and weaker bargaining power
Entrepreneurs encounter higher barriers to entry
Society loses resilience and adaptability

Innovation ecosystems require tension. Consolidated systems eliminate it.

Rebuilding Conditions for Real Innovation

Restoring innovation is not about punishing success—it is about restoring balance. Healthy systems reward value creation, not value extraction.

That requires:

Modernized antitrust frameworks
Capital access beyond elite networks
Open, interoperable platforms
Human-centered success metrics

Innovation flourishes when power is distributed, competition is real, and human needs—not financial optimization—define progress.

The Path Forward: Human-Centered Systems

If we want to reignite the engine of innovation, we must address the wealth concentration that enables this consolidation. We need policies that protect the “biodiversity” of our markets. Innovation thrives when the barriers to entry are low and the rewards for genuine value creation are high. An innovation speaker like Braden Kelley might tell a boardroom, “Growth is not a zero-sum game of acquisition; it is a generative process of empathy-driven creation.”

We must shift our focus back to the human. When we design markets that prioritize the few, we lose the genius of the many. It is time to climb out of the consolidation gravity well and build an economy that rewards those who dare to build something new, rather than those who simply have the deepest pockets to buy what already exists.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does wealth concentration lead to industry consolidation?

When massive amounts of capital are concentrated in the hands of a few entities or individuals, those players possess the “financial gravity” to acquire competitors, build insurmountable barriers to entry, and buy out emerging startups before they can challenge the status quo.

Why does consolidation decrease innovation?

Innovation requires biological diversity in the marketplace. When an industry consolidates into a duopoly or oligopoly, the remaining players lose the incentive to take risks on breakthrough ideas, shifting instead to rent-seeking.

What is the “Innovation Tax” on consumers?

It is the combination of rising prices and declining value for money that occurs when competition vanishes. Consumers pay more for stagnant products because they have no alternative.

Postscript

Do yourself a favor and avoid private equity owned sandwich chains like Subway, Jimmy John’s, Arby’s, Panera Bread and Jersey Mike’s Subs that have jacked up prices while simultaneously downsizing portions and replacing ingredients with lower quality alternatives. I now routinely go to grocery stores and get a higher quality sandwich at a lower price.

Disclaimer: This article speculates on the potential future direction of society based on current factors. It is hard to predict whether commercial, political and charitable organizations will respond in ways sufficient to alter the course of history or not.

Image credits: Grok, Gemini

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Building Your Dream Organization

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Exclusive Interview with Oscar Amundsen

Leaders aspire to create a “dream organization” not merely for the sake of prestige or profit, but because they recognize that a deeply aligned, human-centered culture is the ultimate multiplier of potential. In a dream organization, the traditional friction between individual aspiration and corporate objective vanishes, replaced by a shared sense of purpose and psychological safety that allows innovation to flourish naturally. These leaders understand that when employees feel truly seen, valued, and empowered to contribute their best work, the organization becomes antifragile — capable of navigating uncertainty with a level of agility and commitment that cannot be bought or mandated. Ultimately, the quest for a dream organization is an investment in a sustainable future where the workplace acts as a catalyst for both professional excellence and personal fulfillment.

Today we dive deep into what it takes to create a “dream organization” through a dialogue with our special guest.

Helping Leaders Build Their Dream Organization

I recently had the opportunity to interview Oscar Amundsen, a full Professor of Organization Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

He has extensive experience in researching various industries and businesses. His work is focused on change and innovation in organizations. This includes related topics such as leadership, culture, trust, motivation, and organizational development. In these fields, he has published numerous books and scientific articles.

Amundsen’s goal is to develop research-based knowledge AND at the same time make the research concrete and accessible. The point is to make the knowledge useful for creating better organizations. Whether the enterprise is in the public, voluntary or private sector.

Below is the text of my interview with Oscar and a preview of the kinds of insights you’ll find in How to Become a Dream Organization: Eight Things Leaders Need to Know to Promote Change and Innovation presented in a Q&A format:

1. What does it take for an organization to break its own practices and develop new ones?

Organizations can be seen as ‘organisms’ that develop habits. And we all know that habits are not easy to break. But organizations can also be seen as ‘tools for achieving goals’. Since the world around the organization changes, the organization itself must also change to remain a suitable tool for the (changed) tasks that need to be solved.
As a leader, you must have the ability to identify the need for change. This means you need to look both ‘outward and inward’: What is required of us in a changing environment? And what does this mean for how we work within this organization?

Many leaders overlook that the latter question requires deep knowledge of what is happening inside the organization. Therefore, you should consult with employees who are close to the core tasks of the organization. You don’t know everything yourself, and you need some knowledge from the ‘foot soldiers’ to make the organization better.

I would also add that ‘breaking away’ is precisely a hallmark of all innovation. If you are going to do things in new ways, you have to break with what is established (in a market, in a practice, etc.). However, all such breaks require a willingness to take risks. You can never know with one hundred percent certainty how it will turn out, even though you should of course avoid taking reckless chances with your business. But you must accept that things can go wrong from time to time in order to achieve something new.

2. What are the keys to promoting the ability to both change and innovate?

This is precisely the question that the book answers. I present a research-based model with eight keys to strengthening the ability for change and innovation. The book is therefore structured around eight chapters, each addressing one of these keys. The point is to show how these eight mechanisms influence the capacity for change and innovation. This knowledge gives you the opportunity to build and develop an organization that not only solves its tasks smarter and better, but also becomes an attractive place to be for both leaders and other employees.

3. Why do people resist sharing new practices?

If you have an organization where people are afraid of making mistakes and trying new things, much will happen in secret. In the book, I write about an employee who comes up with a new and efficient way of working but keeps it hidden from both colleagues and managers because she fears her solution deviates from established procedures. She knows the solution is both sound and sensible. It is only when a researcher visits the organization that she (anonymously) shares her new way of working. Her lack of trust in leadership means that a new practice remains with her, even though it could have spread (and been improved) if it had been openly discussed among employees and managers. This organization misses out on the resource that ordinary employees represent for improving and renewing the business.

4. What are the keys for leaders to manage that determine whether trust or mistrust dominates?

Let me first say that trust is worth its weight in gold in this context. The reason is that trust in an organization is absolutely fundamental to building its ability to innovate. In the book I highlight five aspects that explain why and how trust influences the organization’s ability to change and innovate.

As a leader, you should understand these aspects, because only then can you say something meaningful about the state of trust within the organization.

Practicing trust requires a certain degree of courage. Trusting someone always (in principle) involves some risk: You can never be 100 percent certain that the trust you show will be honored. It may sound strange, but despite this, I recommend a more trust-based leadership approach because it has so many positive effects.

Concretely, you should reflect on the signals you personally send out, but may be even more important: You should examine the control systems used in your organization. Is there more control than necessary in some areas? What is the purpose of that control? Is it to ‘catch’ people making mistakes, or is it to learn from mistakes?

5. Why is autonomy so important to employees?

There is solid research evidence to support the claim that autonomy is, in fact, a fundamental human need (along with mastery and belonging). All people function better when they have some influence over their own situation – of course within the goals and frameworks set by the organization. In the book, I discuss how autonomy strengthens people’s motivation and drive – and (not least) increases their willingness to contribute constructively within an organization. It is well-established knowledge from innovation research that autonomy, within good boundaries, is positive for innovation.

6. Why is it important for organizations to have positive vibes and how is this different from optimism?

Optimism is good, but it can actually become a ‘straitjacket’. In the book, I illustrate this through a case where I explain the spectacular fall of mobile phone manufacturer Nokia. At the turn of the millennium, they were the world’s largest mobile phone producer. But a culture developed within the company where it was ‘not allowed’ to raise objections or criticize the strategy. Management only wanted to hear good news. The short version of this story is that Nokia was therefore unprepared when the iPhone entered the market, and gradually disappeared until the remnants were bought up some years later.

On the other hand: Having positive feelings toward your own company, is of great value to the organization. This is something completely different from a demand for pure optimism. Research suggests that such positive feelings influence your relationship with colleagues and the organization. The point is that a positive atmosphere makes you more:

Helpful: The mechanism is ‘feel good – do good’. Things flow more smoothly, including knowledge sharing.
Engaged: You become willing to make sacrifices and go the extra mile.
Protective: You ‘speak proudly’ about the company externally and help prevent dangers and trouble.
Constructive: You are more likely to come up with constructive suggestions.

The last point directly impacts an organization’s ability to change and innovate, while the first three strengthen that ability indirectly.

7. What do tolerance of failure and diversity look like in practice?

Tolerance for mistakes is essential for achieving innovation. In a ‘zero-error culture,’ you will struggle to innovate simply because people are afraid to experiment, to try and fail. Although mistakes will always happen, it is useful to distinguish between different types of mistakes: What you want to encourage (and have more of) are what can be called ‘intelligent mistakes.’

These are mistakes that occur when you deliberately try something new. The goal is to learn so that you can move forward with what you are trying to develop. Other types of mistakes can be called basic or complex. These are the ones you want as few of as possible, but you cannot say they should never exist. Research shows that if you have zero tolerance for mistakes, they will be hidden, and you lose the opportunity to learn from them.

When it comes to diversity, I write in the book about how different types of perspectives and knowledge are valuable for innovation. I emphasize that leaders should demonstrate a certain level of humility and recognize that they need others’ insights to make good decisions.

8. What is practical anchoring and why is it so important?

Practical anchoring is essentially about involving the right employees in change processes. The point is that you need knowledge of actual practice to carry out sensible change work. People in the organization should see the benefit of the changes you are planning if you want them on board when changes are implemented. This makes sense not only for engagement and motivation but also to ensure you don’t create a less efficient organization with duplicate work and potential obstacles to doing a good job.

9. Why does fear play such a big role in organizations’ ability to change & innovate?

This is a broad topic, which I dedicate an entire chapter to in the book. The short version is that fear leads employees to avoid participating and contributing with their knowledge and experience. We are social beings who generally want to avoid the risk of offering an original contribution or asking a critical or fundamental question if there are potential negative consequences. In the Nokia case, we also see that people became tactical regarding their own career opportunities within the organization: They eventually learned that those who asked critical (but necessary) questions lost opportunities in the company. This caused engineers to drift to the sidelines – even on strategic technical issues.

10. Getting 100% participation is always a good thing, right?

There are many benefits to involving people in both innovation and change efforts. The point is to make the best use of the knowledge resources you have within the organization for the benefit of the organization. In addition, you become a more attractive employer if you allow people to participate in development. Modern employees actually expect to have some influence over their work situation and to use their knowledge in ways that benefit both themselves and the organization.

That said, I still emphasize in the book that there is a balance here: It’s not as if everyone should have an opinion on everything and participate in every possible process. That would only create chaos and overload for people in key roles. In the book, I use the term ‘participation satisfaction’ to describe this. People have different needs for involvement—both personally and, most importantly, based on the role they have. Conclusion: Not “the more participation, the better,” but balanced according to need.

11. Any question I didn’t ask that you want to answer?

Well, you haven’t asked me about the title of the book. I want to underline that “the dream organization” is not meant as a utopic situation. Rather, it’s meant more like a goal image. A goal image for those who want to build and become stronger in change and innovation. So, the book is about improving the organization – and at the same time making it attractive to be a part of – as a leader and as an employee.

So, the title of the book is an invitation to raise your gaze a little and ask something like: “What steps could I take to build a better organization? How can I develop a workplace where people like to work – and where change and innovation are a natural part of working?” That’s the kind of organization I want to help make reality with this book.

Thank you for taking the time for me and my book!

Conclusion

Thank you for the great conversation Oscar!

I hope everyone has enjoyed this peek into the mind of the man behind the insightful new title How to Become a Dream Organization: Eight Things Leaders Need to Know to Promote Change and Innovation!

Image credits: Oscar Amundsen, Anne Line Bakken, ChatGPT

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Rearchitecting the Landscape of Knowledge Work

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Rearchitecting the Landscape of Knowledge Work

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

One thing the pandemic made clear to everyone involved with the knowledge-work profession is that daily commuting was a ludicrously excessive tax on their time. The amount of work they were able to get done remotely clearly exceeded what they were getting done previously, and the reduction in stress was both welcome and productive. So, let’s be clear, there is no “going back to the office.” What is possible, on the other hand, is going forward to the office, and that is what we are going to discuss in this blog post.

The point is, we need to rethink the landscape of knowledge work—what work is best done where, and why. Let’s start with remote. Routine task work of the sort that a professional is expected to complete on their own is ideally suited to remote working. It requires no supervision to speak of and little engagement with others except at assigned checkpoints. Those checkpoints can be managed easily through video conferencing combined with collaboration-enabling software like Slack or Teams. Productivity commitments are monitored in terms of the quality and quantity of received work. This is game-changing for everyone involved, and we would be crazy to forsake these gains simply to comply with a return-to-the-office mandate.

That said, there are many good reasons still to want a return. Before we dig into them, however, let’s spend a moment on the bad reasons first. First among them is what we might call “boomer executive control needs”—a carry-over from the days of hierarchical management structures that to this day still run most of our bureaucracies. Implicit in this model is the notion that everyone needs supervision all the time. Let me just say that if that is the case in your knowledge-work organization, you are in big trouble, and mandating everyone to come back to the office is not going to fix it. The fix needed is workforce engagement, and that requires personal intervention, not systemic enforcement. Yes, you want to do this in person, and yes, the office is typically the right place to do so, but no, you don’t need everyone to be there all the time to do it.

This same caveat applies to other reasons why enterprises are mandating a return. Knowledge work benefits from social interactions with colleagues. You get to float ideas, hear about new developments, learn from observing others, and the like. It is all good, and you do need to be collocated to do it—just not every day. What is required instead is a new cadence. People need an established routine to know when they are expected to show up, one they can plan around far in advance. In short, we need the discipline of office attendance, we just want it to be more respectful of our remote work. In that light, a good place to start is a 60/40 split—your call as to which is which. But for the days that are in office, attendance is expected, not optional. To do anything else is to disrespect your colleagues and to put your personal convenience above the best interests of the enterprise that is funding you.

So much for coping with some of the bad reasons. Now let’s look into five good ones.

Customer-facing challenges. This includes sales, account management, and customer success (but not customer support or tech support). The point is, whenever things are up for grabs on the customer side, it takes a team to wrestle them down to earth, and the members of that team need to be in close communication to detect the signals, strategize the responses, and leverage each other’s relationships and expertise. You don’t get to say when this happens, so you have to show up every day ready to play (meaning 80/20 is probably a more effective in-office/out-of-office ratio).
Onboarding, team building, and M&A integration. Things can also be up for grabs inside your own organization, particularly when you are adding new people, building a new team (or turning around an old one), or integrating an acquisition. In these kinds of fluid situations, there is a ton of non-verbal communication, both to detect and to project, and there is simply no substitute for collocation. By contrast, career development, mentoring, and performance reviews are best conducted one-on-one, and here modern video conferencing with its high-definition visuals and zero-latency audio can actually induce a more focused conversation.
Mission-critical systems operations. This is just common sense—if the wheels start to come off, you do not want to lose time assembling the team. Cybersecurity attacks would be one good example. On the other hand, with proper IT infrastructure, routine system monitoring, and maintenance as well as standard end-user support can readily leverage remote expertise.
In-house incubations. It is possible to do a remote-only start-up if you have most of the team in place from the beginning, leveraging time in collocation at a prior company, especially if the talent you need is super-scarce and geographically dispersed.
But for public enterprises leveraging the Incubation Zone, as well as lines of business conducting nested incubation inside their own organizations, a cadence surrounding collocation is critical. The reason is that incubations call for agile decision-making, coordinated course corrections, fast failures, and even faster responses to them. You don’t have to be together every day—there is still plenty of individual knowledge work to be done, but you do need to keep in close formation, and that requires frequent unscripted connections.
Cross-functional programs and projects. These are simply impossible to do on a remote basis. There are too many new relationships that must be established, too many informal negotiations to get resources assigned, too many group sessions to get people aligned, and too much lobbying to get the additional support you need. This is especially true when the team is led by a middle manager who has no direct authority over the team members, only their managers’ commitment and their own good will.

So, what’s the best in-office/remote ratio for your organization?

You might try doing a high-level inventory of all the work you do, calling out for each workload which mode of working is preferable, and totaling it up to get a first cut. You can be sure that whatever you come up with will be wrong, but that’s OK because your next step will be to socialize it. Once you get enough fingerprints on it, you will go live with it, only to confirm it is still wrong, but now with a coalition of the willing to make it right, if only to make themselves look better.

Ain’t management fun?

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Google Gemini

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The Keys to Changing Someone’s Mind

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The Keys to Changing Someone's Mind

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When is the last time you changed your mind about anything substantial? Was it another person that convinced you or an unexpected experience that changed your perspective? What led you to stop seeing something one way and start seeing it in another? I will bet it does not happen often. We rarely change our minds.

Now think about how much time we spend trying to change other people’s minds. From sales pitches and political discussions, to what we are going to have for dinner and when the kids should go to bed, we put a lot of time and effort into shaping the opinions of others. Most of that is probably wasted.

The truth is that we cannot really change anyone’s mind. Only they can do that. Yet as David McRaney explains in his new book, How Minds Change, there are new techniques that can help us be more persuasive, but they don’t require brilliant sophistry or snappy rhetoric. They involve more listening than speaking, and understanding the context in which beliefs arise.

Why We Fail To Adapt

We don’t experience the world as it is, but through the context of earlier experiences. What we think of as knowledge is really connections in our brains called synapses which develop over time. These pathways strengthen as we use them and degrade when we do not. Or, as scientists who study these things like to put it, the neurons that fire together, wire together.

It’s not just our own experiences that shape us either. In fact, a series of famous experiments done at Swarthmore College in the 1950’s showed that we will conform to the opinions of those around us even if they are obviously wrong. More recent research suggests that this effect extends out to three degrees of influence, so it’s not just people we know personally, but the friends of our friends’ friends that shape how we see things.

Finally, there are often switching costs to changing our minds. Our opinions are rarely isolated thoughts, but form a basis for decisions. Once we change our minds, we need to change our actions and that can have consequences. We may need to change how we do our jobs, what we choose to buy, how we act towards others and, sometimes, who we choose to associate ourselves with.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt makes the point that our beliefs become closely intertwined with our identity. They signal our inclusion in a particular “team.” That’s why contrary views can often feel like an attack. Rather than taking in new information we often feel the urge to lash out and silence the opposing voice.

Meeting The Mind Changing Threshold

As closely as we cling to our beliefs, sometimes we do change our minds. In one study that analyzed voting behavior, it was found that when up to 20% of the information that people were exposed to contradicted their beliefs, they dug in their heels and grew more certain. Beyond that, however, their resolve tended to weaken. The informational environment can deeply influence what people believe.

Their relationship to the subject matter is also important. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) developed in the 1980s both suggest that we treat different topics in different ways. Some topics, such as those that are important to us professionally, we’re willing to invest time in exploring systematically. Others are more marginal to us and we will tend to look for shortcuts.

For example, if we are researching a business investment, we’ll want to gather facts from a variety of different sources and study them closely. On the other hand, if we’re trying to decide which craft beer to select from a large selection at a bar, we’ll rely on subtle cues such as packaging, how the beer is described or what we see others drinking.

If we want to change someone’s mind about something we need to understand their relationship to the subject matter. If they are heavily invested in it, they are unlikely to be swayed by superficial arguments. In fact, weak or purely emotive arguments may suggest to them that the opposite is true. At the same time, if someone is not very knowledgeable or motivated to learn about a topic, bogging them down with a lot of facts is likely to bore them.

Two Strategies For Persuasion

If you want to change somebody’s mind, you can follow two different kinds of approaches. The first, which can be called “topic denial”, argues the facts. The second, called “technique denial,” exposes flaws in reasoning. For example, if you want to convince a vaccine skeptic you can either cite scientific evidence or refute the form of the argument, such as pointing out that while there may be a minimal risk to taking a vaccine, the same could be said of aspirin.

While research shows that both approaches can be effective, we need to keep context in mind. If you are in a trustful environment, such as a professional or scientific setting, a fact-based topic rebuttal can often be effective. However, if you’re trying to talk your crazy uncle out of a conspiracy theory at Thanksgiving dinner, you may want to try a technique rebuttal.

In recent years a variety of methods, such as Deep Canvassing, Street Epistemology and the Change Conversation Pyramid have emerged as effective technique rebuttal methods. Interestingly, they don’t rely on any elaborate rhetorical flourishes, but rather listening empathetically, restating the opposing position in a way that shows we understand it, identifying common ground and exploring how they came to their conclusion.

The truth is that we can never truly change somebody’s mind. Only they can do that. All too often, we treat opinions as if they were artillery in a battle. Yet attacking someone’s beliefs is more likely to raise their defenses than to convince them that they are in error. Before we can convince anyone of anything, we need to first build an environment of safety and trust.

Let Empathy Be You Secret Weapon

When we want to change somebody’s minds, our first instinct is to confront their beliefs. We want to be warriors and fight for our position. Yet because people’s opinions are often a result of their experiences and social networks, countering their beliefs won’t feel to them like merely offering a different perspective, but as an attack on their identity and dignity.

That’s why we’re much better off listening and building rapport. That’s not always easy to do, because staying silent while somebody is voicing an opinion we don’t agree with can feel like a surrender. But it doesn’t have to be. In fact, if we can identify a shared value and a shared language in an opposing viewpoint, we have a powerful tool to argue our position.

The truth is that empathy isn’t absolution. In fact, it can be our secret weapon. We don’t have to agree with someone’s belief to internalize it. We all have a need to be recognized and when we take the time to hear someone out, we honor their dignity. That makes them much more willing to hear us out. Lasting change is always built on common ground.

At some point, we all need to decide if we want to make a point or make a difference. If we really care about change, we need to hold ourselves accountable to be effective messengers and express ourselves in terms that others are willing to accept. That doesn’t in any way mean we have to compromise. It simply means that we need to advocate effectively.

To do that, we need to care more about building shared purpose than we do about winning points.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Flickr

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6 Stages Most Organizations Skip Between Insight and Scale

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6 Stages Most Organizations Skip Between Insight and Scale

by Braden Kelley and Chateau G Pato

Which Stages Do Organizations Skip Between Insight and Scale? (Short Answer)

Six stages most organizations skip between insight and scale: (1) mandate match, (2) falsifiable behavior hypothesis, (3) cheap evidence before commitment, (4) adoption design in the operating model, (5) transfer to a BAU owner, and (6) scale gates tied to adopted behavior. Insight is necessary. It is not a license to industrialize. Soft landings fund the middle on purpose.

Insight without the middle is a story. Scale without the middle is a hard landing with better branding.

Why Is the Leap From “We Learned” to “We’re Scaling” So Dangerous?

I have sat in reviews where an insight won the room and scale funding arrived in the same meeting — no mandate written, no behavior named, no cheap evidence, no BAU owner, no gate beyond the calendar. That leap feels decisive. It is usually expensive.

Most organizations jump: Insight → Scale (or Insight → Big Build → Scale). Soft landings walk the middle:

Insight → Mandate → Behavior hypothesis → Cheap evidence → Adoption design → Transfer → Scale gates → Scale

Stage	Why skipped	Done looks like
1. Mandate match	Decision rights feel political	Written levers + sponsor before experiments
2. Behavior hypothesis	Solutions feel more executive-ready	One falsifiable human behavior named
3. Cheap evidence	Big programs attract budget	Go/no-go evidence + decision date
4. Adoption design	“Change management later”	Work, incentives, old-path kill designed
5. Transfer to BAU	Lab/pilot keeps the baby	Named operator + transfer dates
6. Scale gates	Calendar / impatience theater	Adopted-behavior proof before rollout

1. What Is Mandate Match — and Why Do Teams Skip It?

The stage: Confirm what you are empowered to decide, ship, stop, or change because of this insight — policy, incentives, process, budget, metrics.

Why skipped: Insight workshops photograph well. Naming decision rights is political.

Breaking looks like: Beautiful insight, zero levers. Innovation cosplay.

Done looks like: Written mandate and a sponsor with levers before the next experiment.

Run it: One page — problem, who hurts, what we can change, what we cannot. Before you fund a pilot, use 11 Questions Before Funding Any Innovation Pilot.

2. Why Must Insight Become a Falsifiable Behavior Hypothesis?

The stage: Translate insight into a named behavior you can prove or kill — complete in one try, abandon workaround, time-to-confidence, first-contact make-right.

Why skipped: Solutions feel more executive-ready than hypotheses.

Breaking looks like: Roadmaps and demos with no learning theory.

Done looks like: One sentence: “We believe [who] will [behavior] when [condition], measured by [signal].”

Run it: Kill any “insight” that cannot name a behavior.

3. Why Run Cheap Evidence Before Commitment?

The stage: Run the smallest test that can falsify the behavior — contact, prototype, concierge, or instrumented pilot — before platform build or enterprise rollout.

Why skipped: Big programs attract budget. Cheap tests feel small.

Breaking looks like: Premature scale. Requirements freeze. AI epic backlogs.

Done looks like: Go/no-go evidence with a decision date — not endless “still exploring.”

Run it: Time box + kill criteria + named stopper. Structure the bet with Experiment Canvas examples when you need a falsifiable frame.

4. What Does Adoption Design in the Operating Model Require?

The stage: Design how the median person succeeds — redesigned work, incentives, enablement as practice, and a kill date for the shadow path — before scale funding.

Why skipped: “We’ll handle change management later.”

Breaking looks like: Tool bolted onto unreformed work. Shelfware with a ribbon.

Done looks like: Dual workstream truth — system ready and people able; old path time-boxed.

Run it: Treat adoption as a design deliverable equal to the product backlog. For the failure patterns when tools launch without that design, see 12 Adoption Mistakes That Turn Good Tools Into Shelfware.

5. Why Must Transfer to a BAU Owner Happen Before Scale?

The stage: Name the workflow or journey owner who will run it in BAU — with handoffs, support, and retirement of “innovation owns it.”

Why skipped: Labs and pilots keep the baby. The core never asked.

Breaking looks like: Orphan after applause. Pilot purgatory. Dual-running forever.

Done looks like: Build-operate-transfer — or embed-from-day-one — with dates and operators.

Run it: No scale review without a named BAU owner in the room. When labs become destinations instead of vehicles, see 5 Reasons Innovation Labs Fail — and 5 Replacements That Work.

6. How Do Scale Gates Tied to Adopted Behavior Prevent Hard Landings?

The stage: Expand only when behavior evidence, transfer readiness, and capacity are real — not because the roadmap quarter arrived.

Why skipped: Executive impatience. “We’re past pilot” theater.

Breaking looks like: Enterprise rollout of a costume. Hard landing at scale.

Done looks like: Scale scorecard — adopted behavior, retired workaround, owner in BAU, stop/start capacity.

Run it: Refuse scale funding that cannot show the gate evidence. Premature scale is also how good ideas die in the pipeline — see 8 Ways to Kill a Good Idea Before It Ships — and why transformations stall after applause in 9 Reasons Digital Transformations Stall After the Pilot.

How Do You Run an Insight-to-Scale Readiness Check?

Before the next “scale this insight” review, run five go/no-go questions:

What are we empowered to change?
What behavior are we falsifying?
What cheap evidence do we have — with a decision date?
Who owns BAU after applause — and what old path dies?
Which adopted-behavior gate justifies scale — not which calendar date?

Don’t leap from insight to scale. Earn the middle — or inherit the hard landing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What stages come between insight and scale?

Between insight and scale, organizations should run mandate match, a falsifiable behavior hypothesis, cheap evidence before commitment, adoption design in the operating model, transfer to a BAU owner, and scale gates tied to adopted behavior — not a leap from “we learned” to “we’re scaling.”

Why do companies scale too early?

Companies scale too early when insight or a demo feels like proof of readiness, calendars and executive impatience replace behavior gates, change management is deferred, and nobody owns BAU after applause. Premature scale industrializes a costume.

How do you go from insight to scale?

Go from insight to scale by attaching mandate, naming a falsifiable human behavior, running cheap evidence with kill criteria, designing adoption and the old-path kill date, transferring to a named BAU owner, and expanding only when adopted-behavior gates and capacity are real.

What is premature scaling?

Premature scaling is forcing enterprise rollout, full integration, or big-bang launch before a named human behavior is falsified and a BAU owner exists — replacing learning with calendar politics and “we’re past pilot” without adopted-behavior proof.

What is a scale gate in innovation?

A scale gate in innovation is an evidence threshold for expansion — typically adopted behavior, retired workarounds, transfer readiness, and organizational capacity — that must be met before enterprise rollout. Calendar dates and demo applause are not scale gates.

Image credits: 1 of 1,500+ FREE quotes for you at http://misterinnovation.com

Content Authenticity Statement: The topic area, key elements to focus on, etc. were decisions made by Braden Kelley, with a little help from Google Gemini and Cursor to clean up the article, add images and create infographics.

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The Hidden Discipline for Transformation Success

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The Hidden Discipline for Transformation Success

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

In Zone to Win, we lay out a playbook for transformational initiatives that focus on prioritizing a single effort across the entire enterprise for a period of no longer than two years. Core to success is the unswerving commitment of the CEO, the Executive Leadership Team, and the Board of Directors to see this through to completion come hell or high water. That means it is top of the agenda at every operational review and in between has an open-door escalation path to address any obstacles that come up in real time. It also means that the company as a whole is continually getting updates on the progress being made, the importance of the mission, the imperative that it get everyone’s support.

All necessary, all good. That said, there is a hidden discipline that makes the difference between success and failure, one that can be made visible in the annual operating plan, and thereby remove some of the mystery that surrounds transformational success. It begins with the transformation team simply calling out any dependencies it has on deliverables that come from divisions in the Performance Zone.

That list will get supplemented by additional unanticipated requests that inevitably crop up in the race to get to material scale. Taken together, these are the actions that are most subject to delay or deprioritization whenever the Performance Zone gets under performance pressure. The problem is that time is the one resource you cannot replenish, so you can never afford to delay or deprioritize any request from the Transformation Zone.

So, the discipline required for success is to call out every dependency as soon as it becomes visible, put it on a strict timeline, and then monitor it relentlessly through to completion. At every juncture, you will get pushback, not for the request per se but for the timeline on which it needs to be delivered. Capitulating to that pushback is the nice thing to do—the requests always have merit in their own right—but you cannot take that route and expect the transformation to succeed.

To make this brutally clear, if at any time during a transformational initiative, you lose momentum for any reason, that initiative will fall short of the game-changing goals you set for it. Said another way, inertia is a hugely powerful force, and the world does not naturally want to transform. Give it any other path, and it will take it. Your job is to block every other path. You don’t have to be brilliant to do this. You just have to be undistractedly vigilant.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Geoffrey Moore

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Outcome-Driven Innovation in the Age of Agentic AI

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The North Star Shift

LAST UPDATED: January 5, 2026 at 5:29PM

Outcome-Driven Innovation in the Age of Agentic AI

by Braden Kelley

In a world of accelerating change, the rhetoric around Artificial Intelligence often centers on its incredible capacity for optimization. We hear about AI designing new materials, orchestrating complex logistics, and even writing entire software applications. This year, the technology has truly matured into agentic AI, capable of pursuing and achieving defined objectives with unprecedented autonomy. But as a specialist in Human-Centered Innovation™ (which pairs well with Outcome-Driven Innovation), I pose two crucial questions: Who is defining these outcomes, and what impact do they truly have on the human experience?

The real innovation of 2026 will show not just that AI can optimize against defined outcomes, but that we, as leaders, finally have the imperative — and the tools — to master Outcome-Driven Innovation and Outcome-Driven Change. If innovation is change with impact, then our impact is only as profound as the outcomes we choose to pursue. Without thoughtful, human-centered specifications, AI simply becomes the most efficient way to achieve the wrong goals, leading us directly into the Efficiency Trap. This is where organizations must overcome the Corporate Antibody response that resists fundamental shifts in how we measure success.

Revisiting and Applying Outcome-Driven Change in the Age of Agentic AI

As we integrate agentic AI into our organizations, the principles of Outcome-Driven Change (ODC) I first introduced in 2018 are more vital than ever. The core of the ODC framework rests on the alignment of three critical domains: Cognitive (Thinking), Affective (Feeling), and Conative (Doing). Today, AI agents are increasingly assuming the “conative” role, executing tasks and optimizing workflows at superhuman speeds. However, as I have always maintained, true success only arrives when what is being done is in harmony with what the people in the organization and customer base think and feel.

Outcome-Driven Change Framework

If an AI agent’s autonomous actions are misaligned with human psychological readiness or emotional context, it will trigger a Corporate Antibody response that kills innovation. To practice genuine Human-Centered Change™, we must ensure that AI agents are directed to pursue outcomes that are not just numerically efficient, but humanly resonant. When an AI’s “doing” matches the collective thinking and feeling of the workforce, we move beyond the Efficiency Trap and create lasting change with impact.

“In the age of agentic AI, the true scarcity is not computational power; it is the human wisdom to define the right ‘North Star’ outcomes. An AI optimizing for the wrong goal is a digital express train headed in the wrong direction – efficient, but ultimately destructive.” — Braden Kelley

From Feature-Building to Outcome-Harvesting

For decades, many organizations have been stuck in a cycle of “feature-building.” Product teams were rewarded for shipping more features, marketing for launching more campaigns, and R&D for creating more patents. The focus was on output, not ultimate impact. Outcome-Driven Innovation shifts this paradigm. It forces us to ask: What human or business value are we trying to create? What measurable change in behavior or well-being are we seeking?

Agentic AI, when properly directed, becomes an unparalleled accelerant for this shift. Instead of building a new feature and hoping it works, we can now tell an AI agent, “Achieve Outcome X for Persona Y, within Constraints Z,” and it will explore millions of pathways to get there. This frees human teams from the tactical churn and allows them to focus on the truly strategic work: deeply understanding customer needs, identifying ethical guardrails, and defining aspirational outcomes that genuinely drive Human-Centered Innovation™.

Case Study 1: Sustainable Manufacturing and the “Circular Economy” Outcome

The Challenge: A major electronics manufacturer in early 2025 aimed to reduce its carbon footprint but struggled with the complexity of optimizing its global supply chain, product design, and end-of-life recycling simultaneously. Traditional methods led to incremental, siloed improvements.

The Outcome-Driven Approach: They defined a bold outcome: “Achieve a 50% reduction in virgin material usage across all product lines by 2028, while maintaining profitability and product quality.” They then deployed an agentic AI system to explore new material combinations, reverse logistics networks, and redesign possibilities. This AI was explicitly optimized to achieve the circular economy outcome.

The Impact: The AI identified design changes that led to a 35% reduction in material waste within 18 months, far exceeding human predictions. It also found pathways to integrate recycled content into new products without compromising durability. The organization moved from a reactive “greenwashing” approach to proactive, systemic innovation driven by a clear, human-centric environmental outcome.

Case Study 2: Personalized Education and “Mastery Outcomes”

The Challenge: A national education system faced stagnating literacy rates, despite massive investments in new curricula. The focus was on “covering material” rather than ensuring true student understanding and application.

The Outcome-Driven Approach: They shifted their objective to “Ensure 90% of students achieve demonstrable mastery of core literacy skills by age 10.” An AI tutoring system was developed, designed to optimize for individual student mastery outcomes, rather than just quiz scores. The AI dynamically adapted learning paths, identified specific knowledge gaps, and even generated custom exercises based on each child’s learning style.

The Impact: Within two years, participating schools saw a 25% improvement in mastery rates. The AI became a powerful co-pilot for teachers, freeing them from repetitive grading and allowing them to focus on high-touch mentorship. This demonstrated how AI, directed by human-defined learning outcomes, can empower both educators and students, moving beyond the Efficiency Trap of standardized testing.

Leading Companies and Startups to Watch

As 2026 solidifies Outcome-Driven Innovation, several entities are paving the way. Amplitude and Pendo are evolving their product analytics to connect feature usage directly to customer outcomes. In the AI space, Anthropic‘s work on “Constitutional AI” is fascinating, as it seeks to embed human-defined ethical outcomes directly into the AI’s decision-making. Glean and Perplexity AI are creating agentic knowledge systems that help organizations define and track complex outcomes across their internal data. Startups like Metaculus are even democratizing the prediction of outcomes, allowing collective intelligence to forecast the impact of potential innovations, providing invaluable insights for human decision-makers. These players are all contributing to the core goal: helping humans define the right problems for AI to solve.

Conclusion: The Human Art of Defining the Future

The year 2026 is a pivotal moment. Agentic AI gives us unprecedented power to optimize, but with great power comes great responsibility — the responsibility to define truly meaningful outcomes. This is not a technical challenge; it is a human one. It requires deep empathy, strategic foresight, and the courage to challenge old metrics. It demands leaders who understand that the most impactful Human-Centered Innovation™ starts with a clear, ethically grounded North Star.

If you’re an innovation leader trying to navigate this future, remember: the future is not about what AI can do, but about what outcomes we, as humans, choose to pursue with it. Let’s make sure those outcomes serve humanity first.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is “Outcome-Driven Innovation”?

Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) is a strategic approach that focuses on defining and achieving specific, measurable human or business outcomes, rather than simply creating new features or products. AI then optimizes for these defined outcomes.

How does agentic AI change the role of human leaders in ODI?

Agentic AI frees human leaders from tactical execution and micro-management, allowing them to focus on the higher-level strategic work of identifying critical problems, understanding human needs, and defining the ethical, impactful outcomes for AI to pursue.

What is the “Efficiency Trap” in the context of AI and outcomes?

The Efficiency Trap occurs when AI is used to optimize for speed or cost without first ensuring that the underlying outcome is meaningful and human-centered. This can lead to highly efficient processes that achieve undesirable or even harmful results, ultimately undermining trust and innovation.

Image credits: Braden Kelley, Google Gemini

Content Authenticity Statement: The topic area, key elements to focus on, etc. were decisions made by Braden Kelley, with a little help from Google Gemini to clean up the article.

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Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025

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After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling during the judging round, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025:

Robyn Bolton
Robyn M. Bolton works with leaders of mid and large sized companies to use innovation to repeatably and sustainably grow their businesses.
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Greg Satell
Greg Satell is a popular speaker and consultant. His first book, Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, was selected as one of the best business books in 2017. Follow his blog at Digital Tonto or on Twitter @Digital Tonto.

Janet Sernack
Janet Sernack is the Founder and CEO of ImagineNation™ which provides innovation consulting services to help organizations adapt, innovate and grow through disruption by challenging businesses to be, think and act differently to co-create a world where people matter & innovation is the norm.

Mike Shipulski
Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.

Pete Foley
A twenty-five year Procter & Gamble veteran, Pete has spent the last 8+ years applying insights from psychology and behavioral science to innovation, product design, and brand communication. He spent 17 years as a serial innovator, creating novel products, perfume delivery systems, cleaning technologies, devices and many other consumer-centric innovations, resulting in well over 100 granted or published patents. Find him at pete.mindmatters@gmail.com

Geoffrey A. Moore
Geoffrey A. Moore is an author, speaker and business advisor to many of the leading companies in the high-tech sector, including Cisco, Cognizant, Compuware, HP, Microsoft, SAP, and Yahoo! Best known for Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win with the latest book being The Infinite Staircase. Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute

Shep Hyken
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

David Burkus
Dr. David Burkus is an organizational psychologist and best-selling author. Recognized as one of the world’s leading business thinkers, his forward-thinking ideas and books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David is the author of five books about business and leadership and he’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and more. A former business school professor turned sought-after international speaker, he’s worked with organizations of all sizes and across all industries.

John Bessant
John Bessant has been active in research, teaching, and consulting in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. Today, he is Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Research Director, at Exeter University. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank, and the OECD. John has authored many books including Managing innovation and High Involvement Innovation (Wiley). Follow @johnbessant

Braden Kelley
Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, workshop leader, and creator of the FutureHacking™ methodology. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change from Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Art Inteligencia
Art Inteligencia is the lead futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. He is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Art travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. His favorite numbers are one and zero.

Stefan Lindegaard
Stefan Lindegaard is an author, speaker and strategic advisor. His work focuses on corporate transformation based on disruption, digitalization and innovation in large corporations, government organizations and smaller companies. Stefan believes that business today requires an open and global perspective, and his work takes him to Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia.

Dainora Jociute
Dainora (a.k.a. Dee) creates customer-centric content at Viima. Viima is the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world. Passionate about environmental issues, Dee writes about sustainable innovation hoping to save the world – one article at the time.

Teresa Spangler
Teresa Spangler is the CEO of PlazaBridge Group has been a driving force behind innovation and growth for more than 30 years. Today, she wears multiple hats as a social entrepreneur, innovation expert, growth strategist, author and speaker (not to mention mother, wife, band-leader and so much more). She is especially passionate about helping CEOs understand and value the role human capital plays in innovation, and the impact that innovation has on humanity; in our ever-increasing artificial/cyber world.

Soren Kaplan
Soren Kaplan is the bestselling and award-winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an affiliated professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, a former corporate executive, and a co-founder of UpBOARD. He has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top keynote speakers and thought leaders in business strategy and innovation.

Diana Porumboiu
Diana heads marketing at Viima, the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world, and has a passion for innovation, and for genuine, valuable content that creates long-lasting impact. Her combination of creativity, strategic thinking and curiosity has helped organisations grow their online presence through strategic campaigns, community management and engaging content.

Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and Senior Fellow for Innovation at Columbia University. He has been described as the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, credited with launching the Lean Startup movement that changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate.

Jesse Nieminen
Jesse Nieminen is the Co-founder and Chairman at Viima, the best way to collect and develop ideas. Viima’s innovation management software is already loved by thousands of organizations all the way to the Global Fortune 500. He’s passionate about helping leaders drive innovation in their organizations and frequently writes on the topic, usually in Viima’s blog.

Robert B Tucker
Robert B. Tucker is the President of The Innovation Resource Consulting Group. He is a speaker, seminar leader and an expert in the management of innovation and assisting companies in accelerating ideas to market.

Dennis Stauffer
Dennis Stauffer is an author, independent researcher, and expert on personal innovativeness. He is the founder of Innovator Mindset LLC which helps individuals, teams, and organizations enhance and accelerate innovation success. by shifting mindset. Follow @DennisStauffer

Arlen Meyers
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, an instructor at the University of Colorado-Denver Business School and cofounding President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameyers/

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney is the Author of “Beyond The Obvious”, Host of the Killer Innovations Podcast and Syndicated Radio Show, a Keynote Speaker, President & CEO CableLabs and an Innovation Mentor and Coach.

Ayelet Baron
Ayelet Baron is a pioneering futurist reminding us we are powerful creators through award winning books, daily blog and thinking of what is possible. Former global tech executive who sees trust, relationships and community as our building blocks to a healthy world.

Scott Anthony
Scott Anthony is a strategic advisor, writer and speaker on topics of growth and innovation. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, and currently serves at the Managing Director of Innosight’s Asia-Pacific operations.

Leo Chan
Leo is the founder of Abound Innovation Inc. He’s a people and heart-first entrepreneur who believes everyone can be an innovator. An innovator himself, with 55 US patents and over 20 years of experience, Leo has come alongside organizations like Chick-fil-A and guided them to unleash the innovative potential of their employees by transforming them into confident innovators.

Rachel Audige
Rachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.

Paul Sloane
Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader and editor of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, both published by Kogan-Page.

Ralph Christian Ohr
Dr. Ralph-Christian Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.

Dean and Linda Anderson
Dr. Dean Anderson and Dr. Linda Ackerman Anderson lead BeingFirst, a consultancy focused on educating the marketplace about what’s possible in personal, organizational and community transformation and how to achieve them. Each has been advising clients and training professionals for more than 40 years.

Howard Tiersky
Howard Tiersky is an inspiring and passionate speaker, the Founder and CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency, innovation consultant, serial entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. IDG named him one of the “10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today”, and Enterprise Management 360 named Howard “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”

Chateau G Pato
Chateau G Pato is a senior futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. She is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Chateau travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. Her favorite numbers are one and zero.

Shilpi Kumar
Shilpi Kumar an inquisitive researcher, designer, strategist and an educator with over 15 years of experience, who truly believes that we can design a better world by understanding human behavior. I work with organizations to identify strategic opportunities and offer user-centric solutions.

Anthony Mills
Anthony Mills is the Founder & CEO of Legacy Innovation Group (www.legacyinnova.com), a world-leading strategic innovation consulting firm working with organizations all over the world. Anthony is also the Executive Director of GInI – Global Innovation Institute (www.gini.org), the world’s foremost certification, accreditation, and membership organization in the field of innovation. Anthony has advised leaders from around the world on how to successfully drive long-term growth and resilience through new innovation. Learn more at www.anthonymills.com. Anthony can be reached directly at anthony@anthonymills.com.

Paul Hobcraft
Paul Hobcraft runs Agility Innovation, an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations core capabilities. Follow @paul4innovating

Jorge Barba
Jorge Barba is a strategist and entrepreneur, who helps companies build new puzzles using human skills. He is a global Innovation Insurgent and author of the innovation blog www.Game-Changer.net

Douglas Ferguson
Douglas Ferguson is an entrepreneur and human-centered technologist. He is the founder and president of Voltage Control, an Austin-based change agency that helps enterprises spark, accelerate, and sustain innovation. He specializes in helping teams work better together through participatory decision making and design inspired facilitation techniques.

Jeffrey Phillips
Jeffrey Phillips has over 15 years of experience leading innovation in Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies and non-profits. He is experienced in innovation strategy, defining and implementing front end processes, tools and teams and leading innovation projects. He is the author of Relentless Innovation and OutManeuver. Jeffrey writes the popular Innovate on Purpose blog. Follow him @ovoinnovation

Alain Thys
As an experience architect, Alain helps leaders craft customer, employee and shareholder experiences for profit, reinvention and transformation. He does this through his personal consultancy Alain Thys & Co as well as the transformative venture studio Agents of A.W.E. Together with his teams, Alain has influenced the experience of over 500 million customers and 350,000 employees. Follow his blog or connect on Linkedin.

Bruce Fairley
Bruce Fairley is the CEO and Founder of The Narrative Group, a firm dedicated to helping C-Suite executives build enterprise value. Through smart, human-powered digital transformation, Bruce optimizes the business-technology relationship. His innovative profit over pitfalls approach and customized programs are part of Bruce’s mission to build sustainable ‘best-future’ outcomes for visionary leaders. Having spearheaded large scale change initiatives across four continents, he and his skilled, diverse team elevate process, culture, and the bottom line for medium to large firms worldwide.

Tom Stafford
Tom Stafford studies learning and decision making. His main focus is the movement system – the idea being that if we can understand the intelligence of simple actions we will have an excellent handle on intelligence more generally. His research looks at simple decision making, and simple skill learning, using measures of behaviour informed by the computational, robotics and neuroscience work done in the wider group.

If your favorite didn’t make the list, then next year try to rally more votes for them or convince them to increase the quality and quantity of their contributions.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024