It’s probably HR.
Steve Jobs summed it up ““Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”[1] The most important tool for an innovation leader is their team. The second most important tool is their team, as is the third, fourth, fifth, etc. There is no greater advantage or disadvantage for an innovation leader, any leader really, than the people they rely on for success. Read beyond the surface reporting about any company that innovates consistently and it quickly becomes a story about the team.
In most organizations, building that team starts in HR. But most HR organizations are not optimized for innovation, they’re optimized for stability, predictability and cultural fit. That works beautifully for scaling operations and roles with defined performance targets. It works terribly for innovation.
Innovators rarely present as neat bundles of competencies. They are nonlinear thinkers, pattern-spotters, problem reframers and experiment runners. Their résumés often look unconventional which traditional hiring systems interpret as “inconsistent” or “unfocused.” In reality, those traits are often the strongest predictors of innovative impact.
Traditional HR isn’t designed for innovation:
- Hiring systems rely on competency models and behavioral interviews designed to reduce risk. Innovators, by definition, introduce it.
- Performance management rewards compliance and execution, not exploration and intelligent failure.
- Compensation bands favor tenure and hierarchy over disproportionate contribution.
- Career ladders assume linear advancement, while innovators move diagonally—across functions, disciplines, and problem spaces.
- Incentive Systems are built for annual outputs, not multi-year value creation. In long-cycle innovation work, the person who conceives the breakthrough rarely receives credit years later when it commercializes.
And when HR intentionally tries to “hire innovators,” it often overcorrects, confusing rebellion with creativity, swagger with leadership, and nonconformity with effectiveness.
HR was built to create order and maintain the status quo. Innovation requires a controlled amount of productive disorder. Until organizations rethink how they identify, compensate, and develop innovative talent, they will continue selecting system maintainers and filtering out the very people they need most.
If innovation is a strategic priority, your talent system must be redesigned to support it. Otherwise, you’re hiring won’t support the company’s ambition.
[1] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.