Innovation has been studied, debated and celebrated for decades. Yet despite the books, conferences and investment, many organisations still struggle to make it part of everyday work.
As I prepare to attend the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna this November, this is the question I’m most interested in exploring. This article is the first in a monthly series reflecting on the Forum’s ideas, connecting them with what I’m seeing in organisations and asking what it really takes to operationalise innovation.
Knowing Isn’t Enough
Bookshelves are full of innovation. Conferences celebrate it. Leaders talk about it. Organisations invest heavily in training, programmes and initiatives designed to encourage it.
Yet understanding innovation is not the same as making it happen.
Over the past few decades our knowledge has advanced much faster than our practice. We know more than ever about creativity, experimentation, collaboration and learning. The challenge is no longer understanding innovation. The challenge is embedding it into the way organisations are led and managed.
From Understanding to Operationalising
Operationalising innovation means making it part of the organisation’s operating system rather than treating it as an occasional event. It becomes embedded in leadership behaviours, management practices, systems and routines until innovation is no longer dependent on exceptional individuals or moments of inspiration.
This year’s Forum theme, Next Gen Innovation – When Everything Depends on Ingenuity, shifts the conversation away from innovation as isolated breakthroughs towards the conditions that allow innovation to happen consistently.
Over the coming months I’ll explore those ideas through this series.
Why Ingenuity Matters
The word ingenuity is significant because it shifts the focus from outcomes to capability.
Ingenuity is our capacity to think creatively, adapt intelligently and solve problems resourcefully, particularly when time, information or resources are limited. Innovation is what happens when that capability creates value.
Seen this way, the relationship becomes clearer:
- Ingenuity is the capability.
- Innovation is the outcome.
- Operationalising innovation means creating the leadership behaviours, management practices, systems and routines that consistently allow one to become the other.
Organisations do not operationalise innovation directly. They operationalise the environment in which ingenuity can flourish. Through the way work is organised, decisions are made and people are led, leaders determine whether ingenuity is encouraged, constrained or simply left to chance.
Creating the Conditions
One of the speakers I’m particularly looking forward to hearing is Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. In Collective Genius, she argues that leaders do not create innovation themselves; they create the environment in which innovation can emerge.
We’ve already had a glimpse of those conversations. In a recent Global Peter Drucker Forum discussion, Amy Edmondson and Roger Martin explored why innovation so often stalls in established organisations. Their discussion focused not on finding more creative people, but on creating organisations that support learning, experimentation, psychological safety and exploration alongside the demands of day-to-day operations.
That resonates strongly with what I see in organisations. Innovation is rarely limited by a shortage of ideas. More often, it is constrained by the way organisations are managed. Leadership behaviours, management systems and everyday routines either create the conditions for ingenuity—or quietly suppress it.
Watch the Amy Edmondson and Roger Martin discussion here.
Questions Worth Exploring
As I prepare for Vienna, I’m finding myself less interested in asking, “How do organisations become more innovative?” Instead, I’m asking:
- How do organisations make innovation sustainable?
- How do they make it repeatable?
- How do they make it part of everyday management rather than occasional initiatives?
These are the questions I’ll be taking with me to the Forum and exploring through the conversations, ideas and perspectives shared by this year’s speakers.
An Invitation
This article is the first in a monthly series leading up to the Global Peter Drucker Forum.
Each month I’ll explore a different speaker, idea or perspective, connecting research with practice and asking what it means for leaders trying to build organisations where ingenuity can thrive.
If you’re attending the Forum, I hope these reflections provide another lens through which to experience the conversations in Vienna. If you’re not, I hope they encourage you to join the discussion and discover why the Forum has become such an important meeting place for people who care about the future of management.
You can register for the event in Vienna here.
About the Author
Catherine McDonald is a Lean Business & Leadership Coach, LinkedIn Top Voice and Co-Host of the Lean Solutions Podcast. She will be attending the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2026 and will be writing a monthly series reflecting on the Forum’s ideas and their practical application in organisations.