When business leaders talk about innovation, the conversation often turns quickly to technology. Artificial intelligence. Automation. Advanced manufacturing. New equipment. Research and development. Those investments are important, but after years of working alongside entrepreneurs, established companies, universities, investors and economic development organizations, I have become convinced that some of the most valuable innovation infrastructure is much less tangible: It is the relationships that allow a good idea to find the right person.
Innovation rarely happens in isolation. A company may have a promising technology but lack an understanding of the market. A manufacturer may have a persistent problem without knowing that a startup 20 miles away is developing a potential solution. A researcher may have made an important discovery but have no experience bringing a product to market. In each case, the technology exists. What is missing is the connection.
Business leaders tend to think about innovation primarily as something we create internally. We ask: What should we build? What technology should we adopt? Where should we invest? Those are important questions. But there is another one worth asking: Who should we know?
The answer may be a startup developing technology relevant to your industry. It may be a university researcher with expertise your team doesn’t have. It could be an investor who sees emerging trends across dozens of companies or a peer in another industry who has already solved a problem you’re encountering.
Building those relationships before you need them creates a different kind of organizational capacity. When a new challenge emerges, you aren’t starting from scratch to find the right expertise or identify potential partners. You already have a network you can activate, which can make it easier to move quickly, explore an unfamiliar opportunity or see a problem from a perspective that doesn’t exist inside your organization.
It also requires something that can be difficult for successful companies: being open about what you don’t know. The best innovation networks I have seen are not built around organizations trying to prove that they have all the answers. They work because people are willing to share problems, make introductions, exchange expertise and occasionally send an opportunity somewhere else when another organization is better equipped to help.
Trust becomes infrastructure.
It is what allows people to make the introduction, share the challenge, take the meeting or bring an opportunity forward before anyone knows exactly where it will lead. Unlike a new piece of equipment, you cannot purchase it when you suddenly need it. Relationships have to be built over time. For business leaders, that means innovation strategy shouldn’t live exclusively within an R&D department, technology budget or annual planning process. It should influence how we engage with the communities and industries around us, which means asking a different set of questions: Are we creating opportunities for our teams to encounter people outside our usual circles? Are we sharing the problems we are trying to solve? Are we building relationships with entrepreneurs and researchers before we have a specific need? Are we contributing our own expertise to those networks?
The organizations best positioned to adapt may not be the ones with access to the most technology; they may be the ones with the strongest connections to the people creating what comes next. ●
Jessica Sublett is President and CEO of Bounce Innovation Hub
