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Innovation Strategy for Business Leaders: Building the Future Without Burning Out
- Mark Evans MBA, CMgr FCMi
- Jun 8
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 10
Innovation isn’t a campaign. It’s a mindset. A rhythm. A willingness to keep evolving, even when the industry would rather you sit down and shut up.
I’ve built first-to-world tech. Scaled it globally. And here’s what I know now that I didn’t when I started: innovation isn’t about ideas. It’s about resilience, patience, humility, and the ability to walk away when the data says it’s time.
If you’re leading internal innovation, you’re not just building products . you’re challenging culture, legacy systems, and your own assumptions. And if you’re not careful, ego will drag your cash, your health, and your business down a black hole.
Innovation is About People. Not Just Product
You can’t innovate in isolation. If your team isn’t aligned, you’re just another lone wolf with a sticky note.
True innovation is cultural. Your people need to be emotionally invested, not just technically involved. That means building a space where risk is normal, feedback is welcomed, and every idea, no matter how unpolished, is part of the canvas.
Co-creation isn’t a gimmick. It’s the immune system of innovation. Without it, your best ideas will die in silence.
The need for this safe, co-creative space is not just philosophical; it is a direct driver of commercial outcomes. The concept of 'psychological safety', a term coined by Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson, describes a team climate where individuals feel secure enough to take interpersonal risks, like challenging a convention or admitting a mistake (Edmondson, 1999). Without it, innovation is impossible.
When the fear of failure outweighs the drive to experiment, creative output grinds to a halt. The financial implications are stark: a 2022 Gallup report found that low employee engagement, a direct symptom of burnout and low psychological safety, costs the global economy a staggering $7.8 trillion in lost productivity. Leaders must recognise that investing in their team's wellbeing is not a 'soft' initiative; it is a core strategy to de-risk innovation and protect the bottom line.
Use Strategy to Avoid Wishful Thinking
BCG Matrix: Place Smarter Bets
I’ve used the BCG Growth-Share Matrix to anchor innovation strategy. Too many businesses pour energy into “Cash Cows” and “Dogs,” avoiding the risk of real change. But innovation lives in “Stars” and “Question Marks.”
Strategyzer: Explore Before You Exploit
The Strategyzer Explore vs Exploit model became our compass. Explore is about testing assumptions. Exploit is about scaling what works. Mixing them up is the fastest way to kill innovation.
We separated the two. Explored, validated, then moved to exploit. No skipping steps. No wishful thinking.
Case Study: iWaker. From Billboard to Behavioural Intelligence
My first major product innovation was iWalker, an advanced wearable digital media delivery system that revolutionised the way content was distributed and consumed. This innovative device was equipped with cutting-edge artificial intelligence that powered audience measurement capabilities, allowing it to effectively reach target audiences in environments where traditional media often struggled to make an impact.
In a world saturated with visual stimuli, this unique system stood out in the crowd by delivering personalised content directly to users, ensuring that our messages were not just seen but truly engaged with.
We strategically entered the outdoor advertising realm, a sector that had historically been dominated by static billboards and digital signage. These conventional advertising methods, while prevalent, often operated on an outdated model that relied heavily on estimates and assumptions regarding audience engagement. Advertisers typically valued and sold these advertising spaces based on a guess, a guess that someone, somewhere, might see the advertisement as they passed by.
This approach could lead to significant inefficiencies and missed opportunities, as the actual reach and impact of these ads were often unknown. With iWalker and its proprietary software, we aimed to disrupt this outdated approach by providing a technical solution that not only delivered content but also measured its effectiveness in real-time.
The AI technology embedded in each system analysed user interactions and engagement levels, providing advertisers with invaluable insights into who was engaging with their content, how long they were engaging, and in what contexts these interactions occurred. This data-driven approach allowed for more precise targeting and optimisation of advertising strategies, ultimately leading to a higher return on investment for advertisers.
Furthermore, iWalker's design as a wearable device meant that it could seamlessly integrate into the daily lives of consumers, allowing for a more natural and unobtrusive way to consume media. Whether individuals were shopping, exercising, or simply enjoying their time outdoor events, iWalker ensured that relevant content was delivered at the right moment, enhancing the overall user experience.
This not only benefited advertisers seeking to reach their audience effectively but also engaged consumer audiences by providing them with meaningful and tailored content that resonated with their interests and needs.
In summary, iWalker represented a significant leap forward in the outdoor advertising and event marketing industry, moving beyond the limitations of static and guess-based advertising to a dynamic, data-driven approach. By harnessing the power of AI and wearable technology, we were not just changing how advertisements were delivered; we were transforming the entire landscape of audience engagement, making it more interactive, measurable, and ultimately more effective.
The Kill Zone: Prototype, Test, or Walk
Every innovation hits a wall. It’s that moment between prototype and production where the numbers get scary, the engineering hits limits, and the stress mounts.
This is the Kill Zone (as i call it). I’ve been there. Most people dig deeper, mortgage their house, sacrifice more equity, and pray. But the smart move? Know when to walk. Or pivot.
And here’s a lesson I learned the hard way: designing a product is not the same as designing for manufacturing. What looks good on paper usually collapses when reality shows up in steel, circuits, and cost per unit. When your idea and concept hits the engineers, the real world design comes into play and you need to factor this hidden step into your cash flow and contingency. The drawings will have to go back to the designers, more time more money. My advise, design with engineers and the factory to inject real world experience into the drawings as early as possible.
Ego is the Enemy
Your ego will whisper that you’re different. That the market doesn’t get it. That you’re just one pitch, one prototype, or one round away from breakthrough.
Ignore it. I’ve let my identity get tied to an idea before., and I paid for it. Innovation is about data, feedback, and the willingness to let go. If the market isn’t responding, change it. Or kill it.
This battle against ego extends beyond personal decision-making; it defines how you lead your team through the inherent stress of innovation. An ego-driven leader passes pressure downwards, amplifying anxiety and creating a culture of fear. A true innovation leader acts as a "shock absorber," buffering the team from organisational politics and executive pressure.
They understand that their role is to create a resilient container within which the team can focus, experiment, and sometimes fail, without being derailed by external chaos. This act of shielding the team is one of the most powerful safeguards against the burnout that plagues so many promising ventures, ensuring that the best minds remain engaged, motivated, and capable of weathering the storm.
Disruption Needs a Clear Enemy
Innovation becomes powerful when you define what you’re fighting. For us, it was a broken outdoor media system selling impressions with no impact. Once we could measure truth, real engagement, the illusion collapsed.
Don’t be afraid to build your innovation against something outdated. The strongest value propositions are born from broken models others have stopped questioning.
Final Word: Innovation is a Rhythm, Not a Result
Innovation is not a finish line. It’s a constant rhythm of value creation, validation, and evolution. It never ends because, the customer’s needs never stop changing.
The key points that supports Innovation strategy for business leaders are:
Build with people.
Back your bets with strategy.
Kill what’s not working.
And move.
The real innovators? They’re not the loudest in the room. They’re the ones still standing when everyone else gave up.
Innovation strategy for business leaders written by Mark Evans MBA
References
Boston Consulting Group (1970) The Product Portfolio. BCG Perspectives.
Christensen, C.M. (1997) The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
EDMONDSON, A., 1999. Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), pp. 350-383.
GALLUP, INC., 2022. State of the global workplace: 2022 report. [online]. Washington, D.C.: Gallup. Available from: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace-2022-report.aspx [Accessed 7th June 2025].
Kim, W.C. and Mauborgne, R. (2004) Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Bernarda, G. and Smith, A. (2014) Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. Hoboken: Wiley.
Ries, E. (2011) The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Crown Business.
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, 2019. Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. [online]. Geneva: World Health Organization. Available from: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases [Accessed 6th June 2025].