Innovation

Most organisations don't fail because of bad strategy. They fail because of good strategy applied in the wrong context. Clayton Christensen proved this over decades of research across industries as different as disk drives, steel manufacturing, and retail. His conclusion was uncomfortable: the very decision-making disciplines that make companies successful — listening to your best customers, investing in the highest-return opportunities, demanding rigorous market analysis — a

The core tension is this: your existing systems require stability, discipline, and predictability. Your emerging capabilities require experimentation, tolerance of failure, and speed. These two cultures sit in the same organisation, often in the same team. Most leaders resolve this tension by choosing one and calling it culture. The result is either an IT function that's operationally excellent but innovation-dead, or a creative lab that can't run reliable production systems.

Most CTOs have innovation on their agenda. Fewer have the structure to make it real. Here's what separates the ones who do. Over 25 years working across startups, scale-ups and FTSE 100 enterprises, I've watched the same pattern play out. A CTO is appointed. There's genuine intent — to innovate, to transform, to drive the technology agenda. And then reality hits. Competing priorities blur the mandate. Many CTOs find themselves trapped in an authority gap—burdened with the man

The S-curve and the style of Leadership The Efficiency Paradox Most modern organisations are trapped in a cycle of diminishing returns, applying the "proven" management techniques only to watch their innovation initiatives stall. This is the Efficiency Paradox: the very habits that drive operational excellence are the same ones that sabotage breakthrough innovation. To innovate, leaders must recognise that the rigid planning and specialist silos designed for the mature platea