Breaking Innovation Barriers: Getting Management to Say Yes
Gijs van Wulfen, founder of the FORTH method, on why most innovation dies from organisational resistance rather than bad ideas.
With Gijs van Wulfen
From The Corporate Venturing Podcast, brought to you by Open Road Ventures
4 things this conversation gets into
- 01Why innovation fails before it starts, as fear cascades down
- 02Frictions as your best source of ideas, and how to surface them fast
- 03From 1,191 ideas to six fundable business cases
- 04Bringing the most conservative people in the organisation along
Gijs van Wulfen is the founder of the FORTH Innovation Method, a bestselling author and keynote speaker named the number one Design Thinking Thought Leader in the world by Thinkers360. His latest book, Breaking Innovation Barriers, is a practical guide to getting management to say yes to innovation.
Davide Ritorto is a management engineer from Italy with an international MBA, currently working at Lamborghini. He is what some call an intrapreneur, passionate about open innovation and corporate venturing, and driven by curiosity about how things work and how to make them work even better. Through Open Road Ventures he sets out to inspire and inform other innovators, intrapreneurs and dreamers.
He founded Open Road Ventures as a weekly publication on open innovation and corporate venturing, and The Corporate Venturing Podcast grew out of it. He also mentors startups at Motor Valley Accelerator and sits on the Open Innovation Advisory Board at UC Berkeley Haas.
The Corporate Venturing Podcast is made by Open Road Ventures. The Bundl Venture Club is a partner of the show.
Read the full show notes
In this episode, I'm joined by Gijs van Wulfen, founder of the FORTH Innovation Method, bestselling author, and keynote speaker named the #1 Design Thinking Thought Leader in the world by Thinkers360. His latest book, Breaking Innovation Barriers, is a practical guide to one of the hardest parts of innovation: getting management to say yes.
This is not an episode about innovation theory or design thinking frameworks.
It's about the uncomfortable reality that most innovation efforts die not from bad ideas, but from organizational resistance, misaligned incentives, and leaders who ask for innovation then block it at every turn.
We go inside the FORTH method, built over decades of frustration in corporate environments, and explore why getting people to say yes matters as much as the idea itself. Gijs walks us through a live project in the Netherlands, from 173 customer frictions to 1,191 ideas to six business cases ready for funding.
In this episode, Gijs shares insights on:🧭 Why innovation fails before it starts, fear cascades from the top down🐘 The difference between "innovators" and "innovators," and why urgency changes everything🗺️ How the FORTH method bridges business strategy and creative thinking in five phases🔍 Why frictions are your best source of ideas, and how to surface them fast💡 From 1,191 ideas to six fundable business cases: how the convergence actually works🦾 What exoskeletons taught a team about separating real trends from hype🤝 Why empathy for the most conservative people in your organization determines your speed
We close the episode by reframing innovation not as a creative challenge but as an organizational and human one. The slowest animals in the herd set the pace. The innovator's job is to bring them along.
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