612: Why 70% of innovation efforts fail (and it’s not your process) – with Anita Friis Sommer, PhD

The seven missing pieces for successful product innovation Watch on YouTube

TLDR

Dr. Anita Friis Sommer joins me to discuss why most corporate innovation initiatives fail despite decades of process frameworks like Agile, Stage-Gate, and Lean Startup. Drawing on her experience co-developing the Agile Stage-Gate model and leading innovation at LEGO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO2 Research Center, Anita Friis Sommer shares practical insights from her new book, Mission-Driven Innovation. She emphasizes that true innovation success comes not from a single methodology but from aligning seven critical organizational dimensions. The conversation covers mission-driven leadership, creating empowering systems for innovation, and how budgeting, governance, and digital enablement play a key role.

Introduction

Here’s an uncomfortable number: Somewhere between 70 and 90 percent of corporate innovation initiatives never deliver the impact they promised — and that’s after decades of Agile, Stage-Gate, Lean Startup, and other frameworks we’ve thrown at the problem. Our guest today helped create one of those frameworks. And her argument is that the method was never the thing holding your success back.

Our guest is Dr. Anita Friis Sommer. She co-developed the Agile–Stage-Gate model with Dr. Bob Cooper, work that earned her the Maurice Holland Award twice. She spent over a decade at the LEGO Group leading sustainable operations at global scale, and today she’s the chief operating officer of the Novo Nordisk Foundation CO₂ Research Center, where she’s helping turn carbon-capture science into technology the world can actually use. She’s brought all of that together in a new book called Mission-Driven Innovation: How to Lead Technology in a Complex World. She will help you understand what actually determines innovation success and how to add the missing pieces to your organization.

Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers

Why Innovation Frameworks Aren’t EnoughAnita explains that processes like Agile Stage-Gate introduce helpful structure and flexibility, but simply installing a new methodology does not guarantee repeatable innovation success. The underlying organizational system often inhibits these frameworks from realizing their full potential.

Seven Dimensions of Mission-Driven InnovationAnita outlines the seven dimensions that drive innovation success:

1. Mission, Purpose, and Values: A motivating mission rooted in something beyond profit inspires intrinsic motivation and creativity, shifting teams from a fear mindset to one driven by passion.
2. Leadership and People: Moving from command-and-control to servant leadership creates psychological safety and strength-based teams.
3. Strategy and Roadmapping: Complex innovation needs co-created strategies and clear roadmapping, involving more than just top executives in future-oriented planning.
4. Structure and Governance: Modern organizations benefit from empowered decision-making at tactical and operational levels, moving away from classic bureaucratic bottleneck