Hello Innovator!

This week, we’re featuring a firsthand account from inside a Fortune 500 innovation work session — and a hard look at what happens when innovation becomes performance instead of action. We unpack the rise of innovation washing, why it’s more damaging than innovation theater, and what it takes to actually build the future (hint: it’s not another vendor showcase).

Here’s what you’ll find:

• This Week’s Article: Innovation Washing Is The New Status Quo

• Case Study: How Pfizer’s Structural Readiness Enabled Rapid Innovation

• Share This: Do you know how much opportunity is hiding within your innovation horizon?

Innovation Washing Is the New Status Quo

Innovation has long been a buzzword in the corporate world — a status symbol flaunted in boardrooms and on annual reports. But during a recent work session, I was reminded, once again, that for many organizations, innovation remains an underutilized concept. Today, innovation gets filtered through the wrong lens…

Branding, not growth.
Applause, not outcomes.
Press releases, not actions.

I saw this up close during a recent workshop with the Director of Innovation at a Fortune 500. Not a director — the director. This company has a single person tasked with driving innovation across a global, multi-billion-dollar organization. One person, sitting in a role that’s equal parts hopeful and handcuffed.

We sat together for a few hours, considering what innovation could look like inside his company. What he was up against became clearer by the minute: internal politics, turf wars, limited attention spans, and a financial system that requires him to lock in his budget 12–18 months before a project can even begin.

He’s expected to drive innovation but isn’t given the tools to test or build anything new. And the more he described his role, the more apparent it became to me that innovation is viewed not as a growth driver within this company, but rather a sales and marketing mechanism. 

His job is to find innovative new products that his vendors are releasing, and leverage them to demonstrate this company’s commitment to innovation by introducing them to customers. 

Let that sink in for a moment…

This F500 organization has one Director of Innovation for their multi-billion dollar business. He has no remit to explore and create new products or business lines.

His role is to make the company look innovative.

This work session laid bare, once again, the systemic challenges that limit innovation within behemoth organizations. And the experience reinforced a hard truth:

The Innovator’s Dilemma is alive and well in the halls of our largest and most highly respected companies.

In fact, it’s become the status quo.

Welcome to the World of Innovation Washing

Through no fault of his own, this particular Director’s role is no longer about creating value or driving disruption. His job now? Showing off someone else’s R&D to bolster his company’s image and reputation of “being cutting-edge.”

While this approach might dazzle customers and placate stakeholders, it also represents a deliberate decision to ignore the true potential of innovation: growth, transformation, and a path to securing a company’s long-term future.

This innovator has become a marketer. A sales technician.

He knows it. He said as much. His company’s innovation agenda is anchored in optics, not opportunity. And it reinforces what Christensen’s theories made plain: big companies favor sustaining innovations because they’re safe bets. They align with current incentives.

And they don’t rattle the system.