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Key Takeaways
- Most leaders equate innovation with technology, speed or big disruption, but that’s not the whole picture.
- Real innovation depends on people feeling safe enough to question how things are done, suggest new ideas and challenge assumptions.
- Leaders must lower the social cost of speaking up, make change predictable through context, give people a reason to stay, and make experimentation everyone’s job.
Every company says it’s innovating right now. New AI pilots, new platforms, new “transformations” built for speed. But recent retention data shows why that story keeps breaking down.
The Work Institute’s 2025 Retention Report found that 63% of job exits in 2024 were preventable, driven by issues such as career stagnation, work-life imbalance and weak manager support. When preventable turnover sits that high, innovation doesn’t stall because the tech is wrong. Innovation stalls because the people carrying it don’t feel supported enough to stay, stretch and build on what came before.
The long view matters. Most leaders equate innovation with technology, speed or big disruption. That framing isn’t incorrect, but it’s not the whole picture. Real innovation depends on people feeling safe enough to question how things are done, suggest new ideas and challenge assumptions.
AI adds a quiet layer of fear. Employees wonder if a good idea will eliminate a job or make a role irrelevant. If innovation feels intimidating or exclusive, people hold back. And a few elite teams can’t sustain growth alone. The most meaningful ideas often come from someone with a different or unexpected perspective, provided the culture gives them room to speak.
The education sector has lived inside this tension for decades. Colleges and universities modernize continually while staying anchored to mission, community and identity. That same balancing act applies in every industry that’s facing rapid change. The question isn’t whether teams adopt new tools; it’s whether culture lets teams keep improving long after the rollout.
Here’s how to facilitate innovation that lasts:
Lower the social cost of speaking up
Psychological safety is the precondition for durable innovation. Julia Rozovsky, leader of Google’s Project Aristotle, found that teams innovate best when people trust that their mistakes won’t be punished and ideas won’t be mocked. In other words, the highest-performing teams were the ones with the strongest psychological safety. Despite the benefits, psychological safety is still low in some workplaces. Almost half (49%) of employees surveyed for the American Psychological Association’s 2024 Work in America Survey experienced low psychological safety.
So, if psychological safety is the fuel, the immediate question is how leaders build more of it in everyday work. Encourage dissent early instead of rewarding agreement late. Treat experiments as learning cycles, rather than verdicts on competence. Name smart risks even when results miss. Those behaviors lower the social cost of speaking up, which raises the supply of ideas. Innovation thrives when fear stays low and curiosity stays high.
Make change predictable through context
Adaptability keeps growth alive through transitions, but adaptability doesn’t appear in a vacuum. People lean into change when context is clear and communication is steady. Trust builds when leaders share the “why” behind shifts, not just the “what.” Transparency builds when tradeoffs are explained in plain language. Clarity builds when teams know where they have freedom to act and where they don’t.
Higher ed offers a useful template for making change feel navigable instead of destabilizing. Education leadership culture tends to rely on shared governance, visible mission and consistent language, creating continuity even as platforms and policies evolve.
At Liaison, we recently reorganized a division within Client Success to improve efficiency and support growth. Rather than issue a new structure, we explained the “why,” engaged leaders in shaping the message and held all-hands meetings for questions — acknowledging uncertainty and anchoring communication in continuity. This made the change feel collaborative and helped teams align more quickly.
Borrow that rhythm: Establish shared goals, make decision rules explicit and keep the story consistent as tools change. Continuity of meaning makes room for continuity of effort.
Give people a reason to stay and stretch
Turnover disrupts innovation. High churn wipes organizational memory and turns every new initiative into a restart, while longer employee tenure gives teams the stability to keep iterating instead of abandoning work midstream. That stability is getting harder to count on. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the median number of years wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 3.9 years in January 2024, down from 4.1 years in January 2022 and the lowest level since January 2002.
In a labor market shaped by shorter stays, workplace loyalty doesn’t come from perks or slogans. It comes from feeling seen, valued and invested in — and the relationship with a direct manager sits at the center of that commitment. The aforementioned Work Institute’s 2025 Retention Report found that management behavior accounted for 9.7% of preventable departures, driven by poor leadership, lack of support or ineffective communication from managers.
When managers provide meaningful work, real career conversations, visibility beyond the current role and opportunities to stretch, people want to stay. Engaged employees naturally contribute fresh ideas and become more adaptable, which means innovation shows up as a byproduct of trust rather than a demand.
Make experimentation everyone’s job
A culture of innovation can’t depend on a single executive’s energy. It has to survive leadership changes, market turns and new tool cycles. One way to do that is to formalize space where exploration is expected. 3M’s long-running 15% Culture gives employees dedicated time to pursue ideas beyond their usual responsibilities, and the company credits this permission with fueling products such as Post-It Notes. The exact percentage matters less than the policy-level message: Experimentation is part of the job, not a side hustle that requires special approval.
Pair that permission with guardrails. Define user problems worth solving. Encourage cross-functional pairings. Track learning rather than just outcomes. Those moves keep innovation inclusive and repeatable instead of heroic and rare. Cultural leadership in education shows the same pattern: Mission-anchored experimentation gives institutions the confidence to modernize without losing themselves.
As we all know, technology will keep advancing and making teams faster, but it can’t replace heart. People remain the heartbeat of culture and the source of sound judgment, empathy and purpose. Investing in people as intentionally as tools is what future-focused leadership looks like in practice — hiring early-career talent, growing the employees already in the room and helping them apply innovation in responsible, meaningful ways. Build those leadership skills now, and progress will keep compounding through the next platform shift.
Key Takeaways
- Most leaders equate innovation with technology, speed or big disruption, but that’s not the whole picture.
- Real innovation depends on people feeling safe enough to question how things are done, suggest new ideas and challenge assumptions.
- Leaders must lower the social cost of speaking up, make change predictable through context, give people a reason to stay, and make experimentation everyone’s job.
Every company says it’s innovating right now. New AI pilots, new platforms, new “transformations” built for speed. But recent retention data shows why that story keeps breaking down.
The Work Institute’s 2025 Retention Report found that 63% of job exits in 2024 were preventable, driven by issues such as career stagnation, work-life imbalance and weak manager support. When preventable turnover sits that high, innovation doesn’t stall because the tech is wrong. Innovation stalls because the people carrying it don’t feel supported enough to stay, stretch and build on what came before.
