Building Cultures of Innovation
Elspeth Murray and Kathryn Brohman share key ideas that make changemaking part of an organization’s DNA
- Innovation is more than ideation: it’s the commercial or organizational impact that comes from turning ideas into tangible results.
- Intentionality matters: today’s most successful innovators build deliberate systems, structures and processes to support ongoing innovation.
- Innovation must be shared across the organization: when every team and function contributes, innovation becomes part of the culture rather than the responsibility of a single group.
If you’re in business today, you’re almost certainly familiar with the value of innovation. Innovative organizations tend to be more profitable, more resilient and better able to leverage emerging technologies than companies that cling to the status quo. You may have even heard Steve Jobs say, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower,” and found yourself agreeing.
But do you know how to translate that belief into an organizational culture that lives and breathes innovation?
If you’re leading a typical business, the answer is often “no.”
During a recent webinar, Built to Innovate, Smith School of Business faculty Elspeth Murray and Kathryn Brohman revealed that only one in four companies are “innovation ready”—that is, equipped to prioritize, invest in and capitalize on innovative activities.
That needs to change, Murray said. “There’s a lot in flux in the world today,” she noted, pointing to shifting geopolitical dynamics and extraordinary technological developments. “Innovation is a key way to improve the longevity of any organization’s lifespan.”
Over the next hour, Murray and Brohman unpacked what it takes to launch, cultivate and grow cultures of innovation. Here are three key takeaways.
Takeaway #1: Innovation ≠ invention
The word “innovation” often conjures images of scientists in labs coming up with new ideas to change the world. That’s part of it, Murray said, but true innovation involves far more than ideation or invention.
“Innovation is ultimately the outcome of taking something—an idea, an invention—and deriving some sort of commercial success or impact from that. Something has to come out of it at the end,” she explained.
Organizations should therefore see innovation not as a single act but as a process of iterating and shaping ideas into something of use. Once that mindset is in place, Murray added, companies can innovate across many fronts.
“It’s not just about products and services,” she said. “You can innovate customer or employee experiences. You can innovate the ways in which you make money. Innovation can occur anywhere.”
Takeaway #2: Innovation doesn’t happen by accident
Paradigm-shifting innovations have sometimes emerged through serendipity or luck. But heading into 2026, few organizations can rely on happy accidents to stay ahead.
“One of the biggest changes in being built to innovate in today’s environment is the concept of being deliberate,” Brohman said. Not long ago, many organizations could afford to be playful about innovation by allocating a small percentage of resources to speculative ideas. In her view, those days are over.
“If you look at transformative business models and fundamental changes in thinking about the way we work, it all comes down to being much more deliberate in your actions around innovation.”
Murray agreed. “Innovation can’t just be a tagline in a vision statement or a set of values,” she said. “When you lift the hood and look at the innovation engine, you have to see evidence that innovation is a priority.”
Brohman outlined four areas where organizations can prime their operations for innovation:
- People: building teams capable of creativity, collaboration and change.
- Resources: allocating sufficient budget, data and tools to enable innovation.
- Processes: encouraging accountable, cross-functional and repeatable innovation practices.
- Coordination: aligning people, resources and processes to sustain momentum.
“That’s how you go from priming the engine to igniting it,” Brohman said.
Takeaway #3: Innovation works best when it’s everyone’s job
It was once common for organizations to create separate teams dedicated to innovation. But such siloed approaches are no longer as effective, Murray and Brohman argued.
“The reality is that in very innovative organizations, you see innovation occur everywhere,” Murray said. “Everyone is responsible for it. Every line of business is completely involved.” Internal innovation labs still have a role, as do leaders who champion innovation—such as a Chief Innovation Officer. But their mandate should be to support innovation across the entire organization, not own it outright. “The job is to be a great facilitator,” Murray said.
This kind of all-hands-on-deck approach may even require rethinking the org chart, Brohman added.
“It may mean making your governance a little bit less heavy. It may mean putting decision rights in the hands of the people who are actually delivering or consuming the innovation,” she said. “You may need to question the benefits you get from hierarchy versus more peer-to-peer or situational leadership models.”
“Leaders have to be very thoughtful and deliberate in their organizational design,” she continued. “They have to ask, ‘How do we design for innovation? How do we build ourselves to take that innovation and plant it into day-to-day work?’ Because gone are the days when we can just park innovation off to the side.”
Elspeth Murray is the Academic Director of the Master of Managment Innovation & Entreprenurship Program, and Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Social Impact at Smith School of Business.
Kathryn Brohman is the Director of the Master of Digital Product Management at Smith School of Business.
Want more? Watch the full recording of our webinar.
