Innovation and Growth: They Don’t Have to be Exclusive
A Practical Strategy for Scaling Collaboration and Sustainable Innovation
By Simon Doble
In terms of sustainable innovation, we’ve always celebrated the nimbleness of small, agile players who can make bold, 180-degree pivots. Yet, in a world where solving grand challenges demands the strength of scale, there’s a pressing question: Can large enterprises grow while collaborating and keeping their innovative spark alive? Are innovation and growth mutually exclusive? The answer is in finding a delicate balance between freedom and structure. It’s about uniting people behind a common purpose, valuing every contribution, and strategically building resilient systems that don’t stifle creativity. This isn’t just about thriving internally; it’s about working together to make a lasting impact on the world.
Steffen Prößdorf • CC BY-SA 4.0
In my experience, when it comes to innovation and disruption, lean and agile always win. I believe that only smaller, more agile innovators can make the rapid decisions that are required. The 180-degree decisions that go against the current. And research supports this trend. Yet, solving big problems today often requires large teams that can still collaborate and innovate effectively.
Luckily, growth and innovation are not mutually exclusive. And research shows there are ways to grow while maintaining the levels of innovation usually found in smaller players. The key is balancing between openness and structure. Too much openness and people’s efforts are all over the place, not focused enough on a common goal. Too much structure and you end up with stuffy organisations unable to innovate and react to rapidly changing environments.
No matter how good of a player you are, if you’re Rooney, Messi, Marta, or Pele, you can’t win the Champions League by yourself. You need to be part of a team.
Maintaining this balance requires delicate leadership. Uniting your teams behind a common purpose, embracing the values of contribution, and creating the right structures can be the keys that allow for growth without stifling innovation. Taking inspiration from the work of Paul S. Adler and Charles Heckscher, two leading voices in the study of collaboration, here are a few concepts for building a successful collaborative enterprise.
Why Purpose Is the Ultimate Driver of Sustainable Innovation
Max Weber, the founding father of sociology, identified four uniting factors in early capitalist societies, including business:
Traditional: Driven by customs and habits. The way things were usually done. Habit is a strong, unconscious driving force of human behaviours.
Instrumental (self-interest): The basis of most traditional business activity. People are united by a common goal (=making money) and calculate the most efficient way to get there.
Affection: Driven by emotion and impulsive feelings that give way to rationality. The basis of organisations (or cults) led by visionaries and charismatic leaders.
Purpose (value-rational): Is motivated by a common value and belief that people can unite behind.
Of the four, purpose is the most effective uniting force for a company.
Purpose is:
more robust than self-interest—sure, people need to eat, and everyone wants to live a good life, but there is more to life than making money.
more flexible than tradition—especially if you strive for innovation and employ talented, free-thinking individuals, tradition will be too abstract and self-imposed.
less fleeting than devotion to a charismatic leader—a common belief in the super-human abilities of the leader is tricky, and it can be destroyed with one small mishap. Moreover, when the leader goes, so does the organising principle of the company.
I’ve previously explained why purpose is the right focus for companies today. But in terms of collaboration, I want to stress that a purpose needs to be collaborative. It should be formulated in a way that defines how we as a team want to achieve something for the customer, the broader society, and the world. It also states what defines success. In the traditional business driven by the instrumental logic, success is defined by the bottom line and shareholder earnings. In purpose-driven companies, it should include which contributions to the customers and society constitute success.
Collaboration and innovation in large teams are only possible if there is value placed on contributing to the common goal.
Broadly, purpose guides all employees and teams at all levels. When anyone from the company is asked why they do what they do, the answer shouldn’t be “Because this is how we do it” (traditional), “Because that’s what makes money” (instrumental), or “Because the leader told me to, and I believe him” (affectionate). Instead, they should be able to say how this action advances the common goal.
Given the common ownership of purpose, it is more than just the leader’s vision; it's complex, multidimensional, practical, and is constantly adjusted and updated by debates about concrete problems. Developing it may take years, but the impact on collaboration is worth the effort.
From Lone Wolves to Champions: The Power of Valuing Contribution
When you have spent enough time in the corporate world, you know that talented individuals can work hard without producing results as a collective. True collaboration and innovation come from valuing contributions towards a common goal and navigating with others. A good job means little if it doesn’t contribute to the team’s success.
Collaboration and innovation in large teams are only possible if there is value placed on contributing to the common goal. In practice, placing value on contribution emphasises working in a group, electing the best addition from each member without discouraging others, and going beyond own responsibilities to solve broader problems.
It’s about transforming individual abilities into the best possible contributions—moving from casual games with friends to the Champions League.
The Champions League Analogy
No matter how good of a player you are, if you’re Rooney, Messi, Marta, or Pele, you can’t win the Champions League by yourself. You need to be part of a team and do your part.
When you’re kicking the ball with friends, you can play for yourself and show off with no consequences. But if you want to win the most prestigious trophies, you need to make your contribution. Because all other players, team managers and staff, the fans, the groundskeepers—everyone is relying on you and playing as a team for a common goal. You were brought to the team because you’re a great striker, so don’t play defence or try to do it all by yourself. Instead, get in the best position to receive the pass and score.
Fostering a culture that values contribution over individual brilliance requires work and dedication. Firstly, it’s building trust and empathy for one another. Team members must trust each other to work towards a common goal and advance their shared purpose.
You need to know that they are able and eager to advance the common goal. And that they will not thrust a knife in your back and take credit for your work. This means valuing contribution over individual performance at all levels.
Rethinking Structures: Building and Growing Teams That Innovate Together
Advancing a common purpose and valuing contribution should be reflected in an enterprise’s structure and processes.
Corporate structures often fall into two extremes:
Traditional hierarchies: Pyramid structure with the CEO at the top, clear power dynamics, rooted in tradition, very effective at scaling up and executing orders (like armies) but bad at innovation. Based on tradition and self-interest.
Loose freelancer organisations: Flexible and innovative in short-term projects, loose hierarchy, loyalty for a charismatic leader but weak organisational cohesion. Everyone plays primarily for themselves. Based on affection and self-interest.
These organisational types align with Weber’s unifying factors but represent extreme examples. In reality, organisations are somewhere on the spectrum between these two. Within this spectrum, great collaborative communities also exist.
They aim to address the issue that traditional hierarchies excel at coordination but struggle with horizontal relationships, while loose freelancer models are innovative in the short term but ineffective for sustained, purpose-driven efforts.
These principles, while designed for internal collaboration, also support collaboration with external partners.
In reality, this middle ground can look different. On the looser side of the spectrum are holocracies, sociocraties, or teal organisations—trendy concepts in the business world these days emphasising self-organisation. On the more organised side are concepts like multimanagement—having various specialised managers around workers with various powers but still giving people enough self-control.
The key is harnessing everyone's knowledge and unique perspective to collaborate effectively while coordinating at scale.
Such organisations are building structures and processes that allow for large-scale cooperation, but everyone is expected to contribute to their creation and management. In effect, everyone is the owner of these processes. There are ways to change and improve them, but the effect of such change on everyone else involved needs to be acknowledged and communicated.
In my experience, implementing this process requires extensive communication and coordination. But this is a feature, not a bug, because this means applying empathy, building horizontal relationships, and judging procedural changes based on their contribution to the common purpose.
Such an organisation thrives on purpose, empathy, and a deep commitment to meaningful contributions, transforming individual efforts into collective breakthroughs.
The Big Takeaway: Collaboration as a Force Multiplier for Growth
At the heart of all these concepts are a few lessons that can transform how we work and innovate. Large enterprises can stay innovative while scaling if they balance openness with structure. Purpose drives teams forward, uniting them in a mission that goes beyond profit or tradition. It should focus on meaningful contributions to society. Valuing team contributions over individual performance builds trust and drives success. And shared ownership of how things are done further amplifies collaboration.
Here’s the kicker: these principles, while designed for internal collaboration, also support collaboration with external partners. As long as you have a common purpose, value contribution over competition and collaborate on building structures that are useful for everyone.
Only by building ecosystems of change can we design solutions that complement and amplify each other’s impact.
At Barefoot Citizens, we have taken this approach to heart. Our mission is guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), but we know very well that we cannot achieve such a large mission by ourselves. I’ve seen firsthand that only by building ecosystems of change can we design solutions that complement and amplify each other’s impact.
Think of the best solutions as a spider’s web—each thread makes the whole stronger as more contributors join. You can start building, but the greatest results come when you attract more spiders to that web to grow it even bigger. All it takes is a common purpose, valuing contributions over individual success, and collective ownership to strengthen and grow the web.
Ready to join us in building a more connected and resilient world? Connect with me directly or reach out to us at www.barefootcitizens.com/contact-barefoot-citizens
Together, we can use collaboration to grow stronger, together.
- Simon