Why Great Ideas Fail: The Missing Link Between Innovation and Adoption

Have you heard recently "the pace of change is relentless"?

I don't know about you - perhaps we all start to think like this at a certain age - but I believe real change isn't just about the thrill of something new, but about making change that lasts.

It's fun (at least, for someone like me, with "ooh, squirrel!" syndrome) to be on the never-ending rollercoaster of new technology. There's always something new to learn. There are many, many "a-ha" moments when something clicks, that sets off a dopamine rush and the joy of being successful even if it was just to make a program print "hello world".

But the moment of understanding, whether it's just one tool or technology, or an entirely new industry, is just one moment. To go from "ooh squirrel" to an actual transformation requires two less glamorous ingredients: operationalising and understanding.

And today let's break down what is needed in each of these phases, so that we can measure when actual change happens.

"Day 2" operations

First, let's look at making a new idea operational. One might call it productionising or making a process repeatable. There are many necessary parts that have nothing to do with the original idea: think of a light switch that you may have programmed to "turn on the light!". Part of operationalising is making sure you can turn it off. Not just so that you can turn it on again, but also to save electricity - oh, bet you weren't thinking about that when you were building the new invention!

Operationalisation to me has a few characteristics, things to think about, sustainability just being one of them:

1. Security: Is the change being developed with protection in mind? Is any data that's collected being protected with a password? Backed up? How are you protecting the entire system - for example, if it has a physical interface.
2. Resilience: If something goes wrong - a power outage, an attack, an accident: is there a way to recover? Will you need to rebuild the entire system, or can you recover parts?
3. Environmental, Social, Governance: How does this change affect the areas of business such as environmental impact, people, or the world around us? Is this change sustainable in the long term? Governance is also interesting because it could mean keeping records of who and when updates to the system were made, or something was removed.

Operational elements are necessary to ensure the longevity of a change. Without them, a change might be adopted at first, but not stick around; it might not be adopted at all! To me, it's about addressing the things that might go wrong on "day 2" - once the initial excitement has worn off.

People also need to change

Secondly, it's also necessary to focus on the people side of changes. I think this is underrated in making changes permanent: how often are good ideas dropped because the person who implemented them left the business, or went on holiday, and everyone went back to the way it was before? ("Oh, Tina is the only one who knows how our new tracking system works. Well, back to Excel!")

This slightly less tangible area involves communication, influence, and enablement. For many technologists and "ideas people" this is the most frustrating part because we tend to jump onto new ideas all the time so it's very antithetical to even consider not adopting this new exciting idea.

People change isn't just a HR challenge but one that needs to be thought of all the way through product development, IMO:

• What skills users and customers might need to learn in order to actually operate at maximum potential - what is the least they can do to feel like this is really working?
• How familiar the interfaces or experience is to them: where are the points of friction?
• What are they doing today and what do they like about it? (Yes, some people really enjoy slogging through spreadsheets rather than opening up a beautiful kanban board in a new digital app.)
• What language should we use when talking about this change? Are there words or phrases that people automatically have a preconceived understanding of? Are there acronyms that we've invented during development that we need to teach them?

I really appreciate the people side of new technologies because when you see people start to embrace the new thinking or new technology and make it their own, there's another kind of "a-ha" moment that happens.

(Admittedly, it's a little less gratifying when someone else gets the credit, but at least the idea's taken root.)

And that's the gap

I know of so many ideas that are ultimately brilliant but failed because of these two elements that are necessary but hard. It happens with all new ideas: from consumer technology like the Minidisc (I loved mine!) or enterprise software that ultimately never gets widely adopted by staff (basically, every ERP ever). I'm sure you have examples as well.

I've realised that leaning into these two areas is not just important, but critical to success. Leaning into operations early in the process, so that we can think about what's needed and have it in place before "go live". Then communication, bringing people along as soon as possible on the journey, and giving them opportunities to start to feel like it's their idea.

Thinking about adoption takes a different mindset. I can't imagine putting "communication" into a PRD, but it probably should be part of the initial discussion. If you wait until the product is developed, I think you're too late.

So as I ride the wave of the next new thing, I’m reminding myself to invest early in understanding "day 2 operations" - and storytelling. This way, we can turn ideas and a-ha moments into changes that transform. One of such, of course, is generative AI.. but that's for another blog post!