corporate innovation

Corporate Innovators, the Hero’s Journey and Hollywood Storytelling!

A deep current in business innovation is the hero’s journey! And yes, I get that sometimes this takes on mythical proportions, but the journey is real. The startup story hoovers up a ton of innovation mindshare, but today I’d like to focus on innovation within the corporate world where there are both seen and unseen hero journeys happening with a degree of scale that all come together to form a robust, and very sophisticated corporate innovation ecosystem.

This multi-threaded corporate innovation journey speaks to how corporations work, how they innovate, and how people at corporations innovate together!

Key Story Elements for Strong Corporate Innovation

To help illustrate the concepts around how individuals rise to deliver corporate innovation, I’ll be using some well-established story telling techniques from the entertainment industry. Think big budget blockbusters. Adventures in distant lands. Smaller, more contained narratives with compelling and well balanced character dynamics. The limited series. The prequal. The period piece. The Oscar worthy short film.

Along with the emotion and requisite story lines. Passion. Intrigue. Suspense. Falling down. Getting up. And so much more! And yes, the hero, or more likely a hero for each adventure!

A Corporation Baseline

Stepping outside of our story for a moment let’s really think about what a corporation is all about, and what it represents.

At a high level a corporation is the synthesis of talented individuals who come together to get work done that likely an individual on their own could not do. When best realized we see the impossible. Short of best often we still something pretty stellar.

Even more simplified: people organizing in both formal and informal ways, looking to do things.

So we have a definition that consists of people and activities. And yes, every corporation is unique in that they have unique people doing unique things.

The Corporate Innovation Human Hero Narrative

Like all good stories, and forgive me, but I’m going to go a bit Star Wars here…. There are so many hero stories; both the obvious ones as well as the ones that go untold and don’t quite make it into mainstream. Not every story will get a full feature film treatment, but sometimes they get a series, or a cartoon, or be an action figure, or maybe they get trialed for primetime with a dedicated single comic book spinoff (sorry, I just left Star Wars and entered the Marvel universe there.) Or maybe something even more simplified like a blog post or a feature on a podcast.

These are all great story vehicles, but clearly, they all don’t live on the same scale. But for the fans, they are all important in their own ways.

Within each of these stories there are main characters, and because we are talking about Hollywood, often these characters are portrayed as heroes.

Corporate innovation is no different. Both backwards and forwards in terms of the level of storytelling and the framing devices used to help contextualize our people.

The Foundational Corporate Innovation Story

At the highest level, we’ll often find the heart of corporate innovation for a company lies within an origin story. Candidly, I love this story, as it is the one that will bind an organization together, through the good times and even more so through the inevitable challenges. Often this lives with an individual, or a small nucleus of folks, the founders, the ones who saw a space and boldly went into it. Through hard times, pivots and all kinds of nuance, somehow, they got to the next level, and the many levels beyond that to establish a fully functional corporation.

As the company continues to grow, so too do the legends around these venerable company figures. And to be fair, founders have to show a ton of grit and perseverance; consider the list of founders that didn’t manage to cross the chasm, and you begin to understand how rarefied the club of corporate founders is. While many of the founders may eventually move on, their founder energy and the many lessons learned on the way continue to be a strong fountain of corporate innovation.

The original cast often carries such a huge shadow that the leading characters in the remakes are invariably compared to the original. And as if often the case with all great original casts, they have their hardcore loyalist fans that no matter what always feel the original cast is the best version of the show that was ever made. (And because I like to at times be controversial I’ll say it – I still like the original Star Wars cast the most!)

This is the easiest corporate innovation story to identify.

The Sung Heroes of Corporate Innovation

We then move into the current leadership layer. Sometimes this group is part of the original cast, but as organizations age we see this layer is a mix of home-grown talent and new faces.

This group is often where the big innovation mandates are driven, but not everyone in this group is an innovator. The truth is many across the leadership layer fill different, still business critical roles outside of innovation, and at times some of these folks will fly in and out of corporate innovation schemes. And even when they are not in the prime innovator seats they are most certainly ‘in the room’ supporting their fellow leadership colleagues as these big bold initiatives are shaped and rolled out.

And when this group of critical corporations innovators are at the wheel, you can be sure there is a big movie poster ready to roll that showcases the story.

And this would be befitting of a corporation’s A list talent.

The B Story Heroes; the Backbone Corporate Innovation

Sometimes corporations can engineer innovation, but as if often the case with best laid plans, plans as laid out don’t always lay out according to plan….

And so often this group of heroes of innovation are a mixture of the right place at the right time, teamed with a true will to innovate. Sometimes these are drafting efforts (we start small and draft to something larger), sometimes external trends might drive a selection (market factors, news, politics…) where someone is deep in an area that suddenly has an innovation spotlight thrust upon it.

And as is often the case, eureka happens too – but eureka + the natural energy of flow of a corporation (remember all those super talented people mentioned earlier?) combine to propel innovation really quickly from this group.

Other times innovations from this group are the classic overnight success that was years in the making. Corporations have a bit more leash to play to the long game at times…

And yes, in our movie theme, these are the folks that we didn’t realize were about to get a main story line, but suddenly there they are, soaking up the screen time.

And yes, more often than not, the players for these roles come with years of experience. As true in Hollywood as it is in the corporate world. Not a very accidental grouping, but that doesn’t in any way negate the importance, and the rarity, of this group managing to break through and deliver innovative performances.

Think of this group as folks that hold roles like practice head or regional leader – often managing rather large talent populations. Going back to our Hollywood lens, these folks would be listed on the movie credits with rather prominent support cast recognition.

What is really nice about this group of innovators is that corporations, much like Hollywood studios, have a great way to support, develop and scale this group of innovators and their innovations across the ecosystem relatively quickly – time to value.

The Beloved Spinoff Characters

As with every great entertainment franchise, on occasion as you watch it all unfold in front of you, there is a character that really pops. Unexpected always, but their screen presence, or maybe their chemistry with the main cast is undeniable. They get a spinoff because the audience can’t get enough of them.

This same paradigm works in corporations. On occasion an emerging innovator, along with the innovation energy, gains enough visibility to grow and shine. And from there they continue to gain recognition, to build internal capital, and eventually they find their way onto the corporate innovation runway. Often the rise and rate of realized innovation is fast.

And not everyone in this group of emerging innovators makes it successfully to the movie poster status. And this is normal. Corporations often will over fund this part of their business with purpose – much easier and more cost effective to try and shoot a bunch of pilots rather than pushing everything straight to series (what I did there was I moved from movies to television – just need to make sure you are with me, and for whatever reason I’m really invested in this analogy!)

What I love about this group is the diversity of stories. Dark stories. Fun stories. Stories that target specific demos. Stories that might be based in different time periods. And just like with Hollywood, corporations will often take more creative liberties and be a bit bolder and more experimental with this group of innovation heroes. Risk taking with potential for high rewards. But also with a benefit of being able to explore a wider number of potential innovations.

I hope you didn’t think corporations were boring!

In truth, often within this group of innovators the thrust of the innovation will be more ‘home grown’ and as the corporation begins to catch up to the innovator, the corporation will begin to ladder in resources to see how the innovation moves past various gates and ultimately goes into full throttled production.

Think of it like this – a pitch, then a pilot script is ordered, and then a much larger pilot investment is made, then potentially to holy grail of a full series order and then finally the promised land of syndication!

The Festival Acquisition Hero

Much like in Hollywood where often movies are produced independently and then sold to major players through a series of market places (typically but not always at movie festivals), the same holds true in the corporate world where acquisitions of other emerging companies is a mainstay.

What is interesting about this group, at least through the lens of our narrative, is how these acquisitions are managed.

In the entertainment industry, when considering an acquisition factors such as the onscreen talent (are they “bankable?”), the potential overall marketability of the picture and the purchase price are all considered. After the picture is acquired there is also a very strong current of evaluation that is done following the release of the movie where pundits (and analysts) will question if the acquired movie was well supported once acquired. In the mainstream we’ll often hear about this dialogue through the lens of ‘indie status’ and an ability by the studio to maintain the indie voice. Needless to say if a competitive movie acquisition doesn’t perform well at the box office, fingers quickly get pointed in all kinds of directions!

And yes, within this group there is a very well established media machine in place to help support the hero narrative. And also yes, often within this group of innovation heroes there is a good mix of A players that wanted to take a shot at ‘doing something new’ along with emerging talent that are about to get their big break.

Corporations take on a similar role as they pursue acquisitions, particularly around very innovative companies. Can a corporation maintain the founder talent and energy (the founder hero)? Can a corporation keep the ‘indie spirit’ alive while also integrating the newly acquired company into the larger corporation?

And so we see people that came together to do things (startups and established companies), now coming together with larger bodies (corporations) of people, often looking to do more things.

This is a great source of corporation innovation, and when done well it can be a great lift for all involved.

And much like with indie film acquisitions, there also isn’t a formula that guarantees you have a breakout hit on your hands before your release it.

The Unsung Heroes of Corporate Innovation

Finally, perhaps we’ve saved the best for last. These are the gritty characters that the screenwriter had a ton of backstory for that never quite made it into the picture. We all love these characters even if they don’t get the same billing as the rest of the cast. Often these characters are making countless decisions around their specific character’s design and approach that can get missed by the untrained eye. Choices to walk in a specific manner. To assume an accent (even though the might not have any lines!). To daydream about how they fit into a scene or a blockbuster picture without often realizing that they are IN the scene, in the movie.

We tend to find these characters in the b-roll or in the director’s commentary or ‘making of’ tracks.

The truth is, without them, there is no movie.

And often this is where true innovation at the corporate level happens. In the rooms we don’t hear about. In the departments that perhaps aren’t as natively celebrated, driven by individual passion for excellence and moved by a will to define new boundaries and explore uncharted path.

And yes, the truth is that many of these innovations don’t get celebrated in the same ways – whereas we might find our innovation corporation A listers talking on stages and being interviewed in publications, for this group the celebrations tend to be much more localized within a department or a staff meeting, and often recognized through other means such as a plaque, or a cake.

That is no way makes these innovations any less worthy – in fact this is perhaps one of the biggest advantages a corporation has when it comes to discovering innovation. I’m going to come back to my earlier definition of a corporation:

People organizing in both formal and informal ways, looking to do things.

Those talented individuals – not all of them get to be the leaders, but so many of them have the potential to deliver on innovation and help realize impact.

And yes, this is also a pretty well understood strength of all of the most innovative corporations!

So Many Opportunities; so Many Innovators

As we start to wind down, hopefully what I’ve shared has resonated with others that work at corporations.

And for those that don’t work in a corporation, hopefully I’ve managed to inspire with some fresh perspective on how corporations manage to encourage talent to embrace innovation and innovator mindsets. And how corporations develop and design to create innovation pathways.

And yes, there are also plenty of great movies that don’t break the mold, but rather tell their story really well. Also true of corporations where often the game is about finding the right mix between established and proven approaches while also continuing to push to pursue their next, often driven by an insatiable curiosity and a never-ending passion to innovate.

In Hollywood parlance this mix of bold innovative pictures along with tried and true large screen formats is referred to as the studio’s slate.

And corporations too produce their own version of a slate wherein they look to find the right mix of profitable efforts along with a dedication to developing their next generation of ‘hits.’

See You at the Innovate Summit!

I’m beyond excited to explore this theme among many others, along with my fellow panelists and participants at the upcoming Innovate Summit this coming May 20 – 22, 2025 in Owensboro, KY! It promises to be a wonderful melding of a diverse group of innovators sharing innovative ideas – all coming together to inspire and elevate.

Curious about the event or looking to possibly attend then head over to TheInnovateSummit.com and use Gadarian20 for 20% off your registration!

And yes – a huge shoutout to my friend Brian Wallace for putting together a stellar lineup!

Your Turn!

If you have a corporate innovator in your midst that you’d like to shout out to please feel free to call them out in the comments by name along with whatever type of innovator you feel they might be (Get those sun glasses on as I have a suspicion that we might see a few emerging movie stars, along with folks that just arrived at Sunset and La Brea, and even some new categories of Hollywood corporate innovators) – I’m sure they’d enjoy your shout out!

Poster artwork generated with DALL·E. Creative collaboration with ChatGPT (OpenAI)