Inno-washing is a Waste of Time

Why do we pretend to do stuff we don’t do, just to impress others who we don’t like?

Something we all learnt in kindergarten and play school.: “We need to impress to be loved”. Maybe it is the fault of our parents or just society as a whole. But these traits have been carried on into our adult life and we boast to our friends and colleagues about how big, better and best we, or our businesses are to try to gain favour in their eyes. We take this further and fluff up the marketing brochures and annual reports to impress shareholders and funders.

Green-washing was, and still is a big thing for companies needing to look green, but still pump shit into the environment each day. They plant specboom and sponsor community projects trying to hide the fact that they are slowly killing our planet.

A new trend that I have seen is Inno-washing. Those businesses and organisations who have Innovation in their mission and even values, but struggle with the concept of change. They launch all sorts of projects with the best intentions but fail to execute. So they redefine the term to meet their procedures. All of a sudden innovation only requires pseudo-change without too much disruption.

I recently interviewed a CIO, yes Chief Innovation Officer, who was appointed at great cost to the organisation, but was so shackled in red tape that she was not able to even launch a single project in her first year of office.

Innovation requires bravery, boldness and brashness to take on what is and make new. To go to horizons and peek over into the abyss of the unknown and then leap. Those who innovate don’t need strings attached or bureaucratic processes to follow, they need the trust and freedom of those who sponsor and the encouragement from the crowd.

Let us all innovate for a better tomorrow.