Innovation Management Watch Summary: “Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale” by Harvard Business Review

Scaling Innovation Is a Collaboration Problem 

Image by Miroslav Vrzala 

Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards, and Jason Wild argue that many promising innovations fail at the moment they should accelerate—when teams try to move from prototype to implementation. The issue is often not the quality of the concept, but the organization’s ability to execute across boundaries. As innovation becomes more complex and specialized (and as AI reshapes workflows and product portfolios), scaling increasingly depends on partnerships among functions, business units, and external collaborators. No single group typically holds all the capability, tools, and decision authority required to take an idea from a strong pilot to sustained impact.   

The article highlights a familiar failure pattern: a dedicated innovation team develops something that tests well, then “hands it off” to groups responsible for operations, IT integration, marketing rollout, compliance, or customer delivery. At that point, hidden constraints surface—legacy systems, risk controls, incentive misalignment, competing priorities, and disagreements over whether the initiative is strategically meaningful. External partnerships can be even harder: startups are built for speed, while large organizations prioritize reliability and risk mitigation. When these tensions aren’t handled well, teams either water down the idea through compromise or lose momentum entirely through politics, conflict, and stalled decision-making.   

A key warning is that leaders often over-rely on formal mechanisms—cross-functional structures, innovation labs, governance contracts, and program management—to solve what is fundamentally a human challenge. Innovation requires experimentation and learning by everyone involved, not just the originators. That kind of risk-taking depends on trust, and structure alone rarely creates the social connection needed to build it.   

Key Findings 

Breakthrough Ideas Need “Bridgers” 

The authors introduce “bridgers”: leaders with strong emotional and contextual intelligence who can build trust, influence, and commitment across partners. Bridgers enable scaling because they help diverse groups collaborate without defaulting to defensive behavior, silo politics, or endless negotiation.   

Bridgers Curate the Right Partners Early 

Bridging begins by attracting and selecting the stakeholders required throughout the scaling journey—including those who provide key capabilities and those whose buy-in is essential. Bridgers build broad networks, listen deeply to uncover real incentives and fears, and assess alignment and friction before commitments are made. The DIFC Fintech Hive example shows how this works in practice: aligning financial institutions, startups, and regulators required early engagement, shared learning, and mechanisms that made experimentation feasible for risk-averse partners.   

Image by Miroslav Vrzala 
 

Bridgers Translate Across Boundaries 

Partners often misread each other’s behavior because they don’t share context, vocabulary, or risk tolerance. Bridgers make those differences explicit and translate technical possibilities into business meaning. The Mastercard Labs example illustrates this through tangible prototypes and storytelling that helped senior leaders understand emerging technologies, ask better questions, and make faster decisions because they shared a common language.   

Bridgers Integrate Efforts Into a Shared Operating Model 

Scaling requires coordination: decision rights, handoffs, shared standards, metrics, and criteria for when to green-light or stop work. Bridgers co-create this operating model with partners and keep momentum by focusing relentlessly on what each group needs to move forward. Equally important, they build “social glue” by reinforcing a shared north star that helps resolve conflict. Delta’s innovation lab example shows how anchoring teams on the customer experience—and reframing IT as a shaping partner rather than a service function—can reduce risk resistance and keep delivery on track.   

The Leadership Imperative 

Organizations that want repeatable scale should identify and develop bridgers across levels: senior leaders redesigning innovation systems, and midlevel leaders serving as boundary interfaces across functions, geographies, and external ecosystems. The article recommends developing these leaders through cross-boundary roles, rotations, external community involvement, executive “air cover,” and visible recognition—because bridging work is demanding and often invisible when things go well.   

The Takeaway 

Scaling innovation fails most often where collaboration fails. Companies that reliably turn bold ideas into market realities will be those that deliberately develop bridgers—leaders who curate the right partners, translate across competing contexts, and integrate work into a shared operating model grounded in trust and commitment.   

This summary is based on the Harvard Business Review article “Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale” by Linda A. Hill, Emily Tedards, and Jason Wild (March–April 2026). All rights to the original content remain with the respective copyright holders.