“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This chapter’s epigram comes from Peter Drucker (we originally thought it was Todd McCullough), and is still so true it deserves to be on a T-shirt. Our experience in the years since first writing Naked Innovation has only confirmed our belief that innovators need to address culture to get their ideas implemented. We describe how to diagnose the cultural context for change with the “Propeller Model,” which examines five critical areas: leadership, structure, process, people, and communication. Then, innovators can plot their approach which addresses creation of angst, vision, and belief—all described in a comprehensive plan.

However, it’s also true that innovation implementation typically also involves a lot of practical stuff that has to get done. There’s plenty of drama in solving these problems, which like the earlier stages of innovation, require careful coordination across disciplines, skillful management of resources, and deft deployment of a variety of tools. We don’t address this side of implementation at all. Should we? It’s a tough call—culture change is complicated enough and likely the least commonly addressed!