The Innovation Autopsy: Innovation Doesn't Die in the Lab - It Dies in the Gap (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798259286375)

Three hands went up.

In a room of twelve senior executives reviewing fourteen active innovation projects, the Chief Operating Officer asked a simple question: How many have a confirmed commercial owner?

Three hands.

The room went quiet.

That moment captures the real problem at the heart of innovation: not weak ideas, but the gap between technology visionand business reality.

THE INNOVATION AUTOPSY is a diagnostic and practical guide for business and technology leaders who want to understand why innovation programmes fail - and what must change to make them work.

This is not a book about creativity slogans or disruption theater.
It is a book about the predictable organisational conditions that kill innovation:

• unclear ownership

• weak governance

• misaligned incentives

• poor commercial connection

• lack of leadership honesty

Inside, you will discover:

• why innovation language often outpaces innovation capability

• what real commercial ownership actually means

• why innovation leadership looks different across industries, geographies, and organisational sizes

• what open innovation really requires

• how leaders can carry the personal burden of innovation in complex organisations

The book also includes four practical tools:
The Innovation Reality Check Canvas
The 30-Day Innovation Diagnostic
The Commercial Ownership Checklist
The Stop / Continue / Double Down Decision Table

These are not consultant frameworks. They are field tools for leaders who need to act on Monday.

Who this book is for:
Innovation managers, R&D leaders, technology directors, business unit leaders, and senior executives in industrial and technology organisations who have seen innovation struggle - and want a clearer diagnosis and a more effective response.

Innovation doesn't fail. It dies in the gap between technology vision and business reality.
This book is the autopsy - and the survival guide.