A few years ago, I got to know an innovation manager at a large company who managed an in-house ideas platform. Employees could use it to make suggestions for all kinds of things. They could suggest new products and improvements to existing processes and services.

Many companies have such a concept of an internal suggestion scheme, but its success is limited. Employees complain that they often receive no feedback, or if they do, then very late and usually negative feedback. The suggestions disappear into nirvana.

Over the years, I have identified three types of innovation managers.

1. The Bouncer

Not so with this innovation manager. He complained to me about how stupid the ideas submitted were and how much time he wasted giving feedback to the submitters, listing the reasons why these ideas were so stupid.

It didn’t help that the entire proposal process was divided into “gates”, where ideas were evaluated and most were eliminated right at the beginning. The other gates were again hurdles for those successful in the first step. He saw his task as if he were a gatekeeper who had to keep ideas out. Instead of seeing himself as a “scout” who should actively search for ideas or problematic processes and products, he preferred to wait and then put down the club.

I know these proposal systems well enough from my own experience. One anecdote shows how proposals that do get through are selected: six months after I submitted my idea, it was rejected. Shortly after the rejection, I learned that a manager from the group had submitted the same idea – which was unknown to both of us. His proposal had been implemented and my identical one had been rejected. It’s a case of idea theater in which the managers end up approving their own ideas – and pocketing the associated bonus.

2. The Status-Quo-Defender

While the bouncer actively finds detailed reasons against proposals that are put forward, other innovation managers try to maintain the status quo and talk a good game. One of them, who worked for a motorcycle manufacturer, was tasked with analyzing new technologies and developing concepts for their use.

A lot is happening in the mobility industry: on the one hand, the switch from combustion engines to electric drives is already in full swing, and with autonomous vehicles, the next disruption is just around the corner. So you would think that an innovation manager would be eager to understand these new technologies, how they are changing existing products and what new opportunities they present.

However, during the interview, this innovation manager praised motorcycles with combustion engines and listed all the faults he had found with electric motorcycles. He could not imagine autonomous riding technology on motorcycles at all, because motorcycles are “pure emotion”.

Well, that’s probably what my great-grandfather, who was born in 1900, said when he saw cars for the first time. Horses were “pure emotion” and not “cold metals”.

3. The Problem-Ignorant

We often talk about Europe’s backwardness in terms of innovation and digitalization. Not only has my home continent not had much of a say in the last five or six waves of technology (internet, mobile devices, social media, autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, etc.) and has not been able to build a globally significant company, but technological innovations also seem to pass the authorities by without a trace. Synchronization of data between authorities? Transferring applications digitally? Online term agreement with a public authority? Far from it. Citizens have to enter data several times, errors in data reconciliation lead to an odyssey through the authorities, forms have to be printed out and people have to queue for hours for appointments.

This is the Germany of 2025 and many such often hair-raising examples are listed on my LinkedIn group Digital Doof DACH (in German). The reasons for this analog status quo are manifold, but one reason became clear to me based on people’s reactions to a recent LinkedIn-post.

In it, the founder of a consultancy firm actually reports some good news: he had reported a 159% increase in turnover within a year. He was delighted until he received a letter from the tax office that referred to this growth in turnover and contained a blanket suspicion in its tone:

Dear Mr. Steinhofer,
I would like a brief written explanation of the reason for the 159% increase in taxable sales in the period from February 2024 to January 2025 compared to the period from February 2023 to January 2024.
I request completion by June 12, 2025

There are still some legal bases given, but then please Dalli DallI! Maybe I’m a bit too sensitive, but the tone didn’t seem appropriate to me. It sounds very much like a blanket suspicion on the part of the tax office that this could be dubious business on the part of this consulting firm. And yes, there are criminals who launder money, but how many economic activities are involved? 1%? 2%? That doesn’t mean you have to adopt a harsh tone to slag off 98% or 99% of honest businesses like this. After a few years, even the citizens of the GDR no longer put up with such a tone.

While a number of commenters on this LinkedIn-post found the IRS’s tone equally critical, some stood out who didn’t think so. They, like this one, simply wouldn’t or couldn’t recognize the problem and downplayed it:

Honestly? Don’t brood over every little thing, this is the category “stupid text modules with a fundamentally justified background”. As a customer of Deutsche Telekom, various banks, etc., you experience this on a daily basis, in addition to issues with the authorities. In writing, in telephone loops… If I got upset every time or wrote a LinkedIn post, I would have a lot to do.
If you want to get upset: please.

The irony here is that this comment came from a “consultant for innovation and digital transformation”, i.e. someone who should go through the world with an open ear and a seeing eye in order to be able to fulfill his task. Not only does he deliberately not do this, he also finds reasons why this approach – general suspicion of illegal economic activities – and therefore this tone of the tax office is justified. He also uses a whataboutism argument: “In addition to government issues, you also experience this every day as a customer of Deutsche Telekom, various banks, etc.”. So it’s not so bad because others do it too.

It is not surprising that this commentator works at the Baden-Württemberg Court of Audit, i.e. at an authority related to the tax office. And citizens continue to naively think that they will one day have to deal with a digitized government apparatus that will also show them respect and provide them with fast services.

Conclusion

When I meet employees of a large company who have “innovation manager” in their title, I always start by asking them how they see themselves and what words they use to describe themselves. Do they see themselves as gatekeepers, as scouts, how do they talk about ideas and technologies (do they see them as an opportunity or primarily as a risk?), and what have they achieved so far apart from colorful furniture in an innovation room? And why do they have an old iPhone, are very happy with their 17-year-old Mercedes and are skeptical about ChatGPT in particular and AI in general?

My experience is that in many cases this is innovation theater. The people who hold the title of innovation manager are often completely unsuitable in terms of their character, their attitude and their curiosity for new things. This was already the subject of my book Future Angst, which contrasts the Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci, who was interested in so many things, with today’s innovation managers.

Note: I also know innovation managers in large companies who actively acted as “scouts”, but they were not always welcome. Because they “made waves” and that is not pleasant for everyone.