Hierarchies don’t kill innovation

Organizational hierarchies have existed for a long time and when implemented well, they drive clarity of ownership and accountability, which is crucial for organizations to function well. It is not the hierarchies that affect an organization’s ability to support innovation and agility. Rather, it is the ability or the inability of an organization to create a psychologically safe environment for ideas to flourish, people to experiment, fail fast and learn quickly, and for diverse opinions and experiences to thrive that makes or breaks its ability to innovate.
I do not think that hierarchies kill innovation. It is the people who operate with a fixed mindset that do that. At Accenture, we have recently started rolling out The Leadership DNA – it is a way to think about the leadership behaviors that are needed in a digital world that will support our organization’s ability to drive purposeful innovation at speed. The leadership behaviors apply across all levels in our organization and