"Innovation" is a worn-out word. It turns up in countless speeches, in marketing copy and in strategic plans that end up in a drawer. But when the time comes to put it into practice, up comes a resistance that deserves a closer look. The question is not whether we innovate enough, but this: why do we find it so hard to innovate? There is no single answer. There are habits, inertias and fears that we will hardly overcome unless we name them.
1. Because innovating means being challenged
The first obstacle is personal, almost psychological. Innovating means accepting that someone may tell us: "your idea isn't going to work". And that can hurt, unless it is taken well, and it switches on the mental armour of "nobody is going to teach me how to run my own business", which is lethal for any prospect of change. A company or an institution grows more when it opens itself to the possibility of being wrong. But that openness demands humility, a quality in short supply in structures where "being right" gets confused with "having power".
We humans confuse a solution with a hunch, which is why we trip over the same stone twice. Except for geniuses, a hunch is almost never the answer first time round, other than by pure chance. Learning from criticism, iterating and improving is the key. Seneca saw it coming in his When we ask for an opinion, we run the risk of being given one.
2. Because innovating requires collaboration
The second obstacle is cultural. Innovating is not a solo adventure but real collaboration: inside the company, across departments, across sectors, even between competitors. The more interactions, the better it works.
Collaboration is the subject we keep failing. In business, cultural or regional circles it is common to find a "People's Front of Judea" for every "Judean People's Front": scattered projects that are afraid to share what they know.
Clusters could be a promising answer, but they still need more push and, above all, progress on concrete content (essentially, focused on problems) and on formats that get rid of the feeling of "meeting up for a chat". Because innovations multiply when we pool resources, talent and experience. And the best solutions turn up at the borders where disciplines cross.
3. Because we confuse it with R&D
Third mistake: reducing innovation to R&D. Research and development are crucial, but they are not enough. R&D happens in universities, laboratories and specialist departments, and it is linear: the more resources we put into it, the more knowledge it generates. But is that knowledge directly applicable as solutions?
Innovating, by contrast, is a non-linear process of interactions, iterations and shared culture. It may not even need extra resources if good use is made of the knowledge already generated, much of which is asleep in a drawer: more than 50% of Spain's research knowledge is estimated to be sitting there, available.
Handing it over to a department is comfortable: "they take care of that". But it kills innovation at the root: it turns it into a merely technical matter instead of a collective DNA. Innovating for real means the whole organisation, from senior management to the person on the front line, breathing a different attitude towards change.
4. Because we confuse it with digital technology
Lately, the fever around artificial intelligence and big data has created the illusion that going digital is innovating. It is not. Technology is a tool, powerful and necessary, but no more than that: a hammer is no guarantee of a good house.
In the same way, buying the latest software does not transform an organisation: what transforms it is the capacity to imagine what to use the software for. Which is why companies that replace strategic thinking with software purchases are bound to fail.
5. Because we don't explore, we only exploit
The deepest obstacle: we are obsessed with exploiting what we already do, only better. For decades, business schools taught us to control results, cut costs, gain efficiency, build projections. They hardly ever taught us to explore for real.
Exploitation is necessary, but on its own it is no longer enough. Exploration opens uncertain paths, with no guarantee of an immediate return, but it secures the future. Because it creates it. And yet exploring is still seen as a luxury.
The paradox is plain: we ask young people to be innovative, and then hand them an ecosystem built around more of the same. How do we attract them if the real message is that exploring "doesn't pay"?
The price of not innovating
We hear the complaints every day: European projects that never arrive, small firms held back from scaling, stagnant productivity, suffocating red tape. All perfectly legitimate. But they should not stop us looking inwards as well. Innovation is not a grant from Brussels or a freshly installed piece of software. It is a change of mindset. And that is where we keep failing.
Innovating is uncomfortable. But comfort is the greatest enemy of the future. Spain, and our own region within it, has talent, knowledge and companies with potential. What is missing is nerve: being willing to be challenged, to collaborate, to go beyond the laboratory, to use technology with a purpose and to spend time exploring.
The best opportunities today lie in competing on value. If we don't learn how to do it, we will all pay for it. Which is why the question is no longer "why do we find it so hard to innovate?", but this: how much more are we willing to lose by not doing it?
What innovating takes
- It means being challenged
- It requires collaboration
- It is not a synonym for R&D
- It is not a synonym for digital technology
- It needs exploring as well as exploiting
"When we ask for an opinion, we run the risk of being given one" (Seneca)
Joaquín Romero Roldán is an Independent Board Advisor and a member of the Instituto de Consejeros-Administradores (IC-A), the Spanish institute of directors.