When it comes to innovation, organizations of all types face unfortunately high failure rates. In search of answers, leaders need to regularly evaluate their processes and identify the issues that are keeping innovation work from being more effective or efficient.

After hundreds of conversations with innovation teams, my team and I know that many of the roadblocks to successful innovation relate to speed. Specifically, many innovations fail due to poor problem/solution fit or organizational indecision & inaction. As shorthand, organizations often categorize innovation failure into two types — “too early” or “too late.” The too-early failures come from being so solution focused that teams are ahead of a trend with a product that doesn’t solve a real problem. The too-late failures result from teams obsessed with consumer research but not empowered to take action. By the time these teams launch their product, trends have changed and consumers are interested in something different.

Consider the beauty category, where brands uniquely compete to be quick to market and highly consumer relevant. Beauty brands must track with broad, sociocultural market shifts, like the wellness-oriented self-love trend. At the same time, specific products like sheet masks become tremendously successful in a short time, and skincare brands must hustle to get on the shelf quickly. Many organizations struggle with this tension—should we slow down to be more consumer-centric, or speed up to keep up with the latest and greatest?

"It’s a false choice to think that an organization can’t be a fast-moving, trend-focused market leader while still being consumer-centric and thoughtful in its methods. It just takes the right approach and tools to combines the best of both worlds."

One way to overcome this tension is to monitor and analyze the sociocultural and product-trend data in parallel. Paying attention to one type of trend without the other is a mistake too many organizations make, because the interaction between the two is where opportunity lies. Although sociocultural trends like self-love represent a big, brand-level opportunity, product trends (e.g., sheet masks) emerge and accelerate faster. New products are the harbinger of broader consumer needs and attitudes. Sheet masks help bring self-love to life in a way that consumers can try and discuss, leading the conversation and pushing the big ideas to a broader audience. A trend without a product is a ghost without a body.

Taking a closer look at sheet mask and self-love data demonstrates how product trends inform consumer shifts. Although smaller, conversation about sheet masks reaches an inflection point about one year before self-love does. Looking closer at the conversation, the most popular retweets about sheet masks during that time period suggest that the product is a religious, spiritual experience. Analysts armed with this insight can project this sentiment into a broader market opportunity — planning relevant products and activations ahead of self-love’s impending growth. Imagine tracking not just one product but a dozen or more, building rich insights and data-driven confidence to forecast that self-love and related wellness trends will continue to grow.

Follow these tips to help your organization balance speed and empathy:

• First, evaluate your organization’s roadblocks to innovation. Are your initiatives frequently too early or too late? Order a free set of innovation roadblocks cards.
• Build systems that capture and track emerging products for your category.
• Synthesize data from multiple product trends to inform broader consumer and market understanding.
• Ensure data is a key part of your story to accelerate decision making.
• Build test markets for new products. Don’t just track the market; consider ways you can shape it.

What do you think is a bigger roadblock to innovation — “too early,” or “too late,” or something else? Leave a comment and let’s start a conversation.