Reorg-proof innovation: what survives a change at the top
Innovation units rarely get shut down. They get narrowed, merged and paused. The room concluded that surviving a reorg is less about the quality of the work than about who else loses something when you are cut.
When the business turns its attention to the short term, what actually keeps an innovation mandate alive?
Five key insights
- 01It is rarely a closure, it is a pause
Work gets praised, paused and never restarted. Members described teams that delivered exactly what was asked, then were thanked and shelved for more urgent priorities. Survey results matched: narrowed mandates and merges outnumbered closures four to one.
- 02Awareness is not sponsorship
Leaders can follow the work closely, speak well of it, and still decline when it needs real money. The test of a sponsor is what they commit at the point of investment, not their interest during exploration. One actively negative sponsor outweighs ten neutral ones, so track sentiment one to one rather than in the room.
- 03Distance from the core is a judgement, not a principle
The closer the work sits to the existing business model, the closer the team should sit to the core. The further away, the more separation helps. Too far and the unit is forgotten, then questioned. One adjacency from the current model is survivable. Two rarely is.
- 04A board that judges does not protect you
Innovation boards often turn into a talent show: the team performs, the board waits to be impressed. That format produces approval, not ownership. Ownership comes from asking each leader what would have to be true for them to back it, then designing the test together.
- 05Portfolio track record outlasts any sponsor
Retrospective value creates credibility, prospective value justifies the pipeline. Anchoring the portfolio to the growth gap the business units cannot close organically makes the unit legible to the people who set budgets. And if the conversation has come down to pure metrics, the argument is already lost.
Where to start on Monday
Name the business unit growth target each project is meant to close, and keep that mapping current.
Ask each sponsor individually what would have to be true for them to commit resources, not just approval.
Move a share of your project budget to business unit co-funding, so cutting you costs them their own projects.
State plainly how many adjacencies away each bet sits, and stop pretending the number is lower than it is.
Report a retrospective portfolio number alongside the forward one, so credibility does not rest on projections.
In members’ own words
“The test I used: is your unit's objective in your boss's top five? If it isn't, be very careful. When the cycle turns, that's when you're on the chopping block.”
“If it all rests on one sponsor, you're exposed. Build a cross-functional board with redundancy, so support survives when someone leaves.”
“Ask each leader what would have to be true for them to back it, then design the test together.”
“The gap between the business units' growth target and their organic growth is what your portfolio has to fill.”
“I asked each leader to score their support from one to ten, and what would get them to ten. Every score was low. We killed it, because it was never going to get backed.”
“If the discussion comes down to pure metrics, you have already lost the game.”
Be in the room for the next one.
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