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David O'Connor
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17 July 2025
Innovation Isn’t About Ideas. It’s About People Who Dare to Break the Rules
Let’s be honest: Innovation has been overhyped and underdelivered.
Organizations everywhere love the idea of innovation. They run workshops, design thinking sessions, and hackathons. They wallpaper their walls with sticky notes. But few of them actually innovate. Why?
Because innovation doesn’t come from technique. It comes from nerve.
The truth is: Innovation starts with rebellion.
Every transformational idea, from the printing press to civil rights to the iPhone, started with someone who looked at the status quo and said, "This isn’t good enough."
And that’s the part most leadership programmes miss.
Real innovation is uncomfortable.
It questions power. It breaks rules. It upends hierarchies. It rattles boardrooms. It’s not just uncomfortable - it’s inconvenient.
Which means that unless your organization is ready to be disrupted from the inside out, no number of sticky notes will help.
So, what should we be developing?
Not just ideation skills, but rebellion with a purpose. Not just creativity, but organized disruption. Not just curiosity, but courageous challenge.
Ask yourself:
- What do you stand for?
- Who benefits from your leadership?
- How are you helping build a fairer, greener, more equitable world?
The most effective leaders aren’t looking for applause, they’re looking for tension. They’re not obsessed with maintaining harmony; they’re obsessed with moving things forward.
They create environments where provocation is encouraged. Where challenging the status quo isn’t punished but prized. Where failure is reframed as iteration.
If we want real innovation, we have to stop trying to manage creativity and start mobilising it with intention.
Because the future will be built not by obedient operators but by visionaries with edge, agitators with integrity, and rule-breakers who know exactly what they’re doing.
David O'Connor
David O’Connor is Director of Strategy & Innovation at Common Purpose. In his role, he leads the development of new approaches, and learning experiences that push the boundaries of leadership development. David is passionate about redefining how we prepare leaders to navigate complexity, and is driven by the belief that disruptive thinking can unlock powerful, inclusive impact in communities and organizations.
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