Joe: A recent Gallup poll found that a staggering 85% of employees are not engaged at work. And while we often blame bad bosses or low pay, there's a huge, overlooked culprit: 'innovation fatigue.' It's this corporate obsession with creativity that has, ironically, crushed our very will to be creative. Lewis: Innovation fatigue? That sounds like a condition you'd get from attending too many mandatory brainstorming sessions with sticky notes. What does that even mean? Joe: It’s the perfect description for the corporate burnout we’re all feeling. And it's the central idea in a fantastic, and I think very necessary, book called 'Innovation for the Fatigued' by Alf Rehn. Lewis: Alf Rehn. Okay, what’s his story? Is he another consultant selling a five-step plan? Joe: That's the best part. He's the opposite. Rehn is a Finnish professor of innovation, but he's known for his provocative, almost 'business standup' style. This is a guy who was the first Westerner to keynote on innovation in North Korea. He is not afraid to challenge the sacred cows of the business world. Lewis: Wow, okay. North Korea? He’s definitely not your typical business guru. That alone makes me want to hear what he has to say. Joe: Exactly. And he has this one story that perfectly captures the absurdity of this 'innovation fatigue' he talks about. It’s a story about an experiment he ran on a group of high-level executives.

Joe: So, Rehn is invited to give a workshop to the executive team of a major US tech corporation. He’s a bit intimidated, these are sharp people from a hugely successful company. The first day goes well, but he notices they're a little too agreeable. They nod along to everything. Lewis: The polite head-nod. A classic sign of people either being geniuses or completely checked out. Joe: Precisely. So on day two, he decides to test a theory. He prepares a 20-minute lecture, but it's filled with complete and utter nonsense. Pure, meaningless, corporate-speak gibberish. He crafts phrases like, "You need to be the box that you think outside of!" and "We must leverage our disruptive synergies to re-architect the paradigm of tomorrow's value-chain!" Lewis: Oh no. That is physically painful to hear. It sounds like a LinkedIn post came to life and started screaming at you. Joe: It's pure jargon soup. He gets up there, delivers it with the utmost conviction, passion, theatrical flair... and what do you think happens? Lewis: Please don't tell me they bought it. Joe: Lewis, they didn't just buy it. They took notes. They were diligently writing down this gibberish as if it were profound wisdom. After his grand, nonsensical finale, there’s a moment of silence, and then the CEO just says, "Wow. That was... powerful. A lot to think about." Lewis: You're kidding me! They actually took notes? That's both hilarious and deeply, deeply terrifying. Why would smart, successful people fall for that? Joe: That's the million-dollar question, and it's the core of Rehn's diagnosis. It's because of two things. First, 'innovation fatigue.' People have been so bombarded with innovation-speak for so long that their defenses are down. They've lost the ability to distinguish between actual insight and a parody of it. It all just sounds the same. Lewis: Their jargon-detectors are broken. Joe: Completely fried. And this leads to the second, more dangerous problem, which Rehn calls 'innovation bullshit.' He uses the philosophical definition of bullshit, which isn't just lying. A liar knows the truth and tries to hide it. A bullshitter doesn't care about the truth at all. Their only goal is to impress, to sound smart, to perform. Lewis: So the consultant in that story wasn't trying to convey a truth. He was just trying to look like the kind of person who has profound things to say about innovation. Joe: Exactly. And the executives, in turn, were performing the role of 'innovative leaders' by diligently taking notes. The entire exchange was disconnected from reality. It was just style over substance. And this is happening in boardrooms and conference halls everywhere. Companies are spending millions on this performance, while their employees are becoming more cynical and exhausted by the day. Lewis: That VP's comment after Rehn revealed it was all a joke is the real punchline, isn't it? "But you sound just like the others." Joe: It’s the devastating punchline. It reveals that the emperor has no clothes, and for a while now, no one has even been checking. That's innovation fatigue.

Lewis: Okay, so on one hand, we have this meaningless, exhausting chatter. But on the other, I feel like genuinely good ideas still get shut down constantly in companies. How does the book explain that disconnect? If everyone is performing 'innovation,' why aren't they at least pretending to like new ideas? Joe: This is where Rehn's analysis gets even more insightful. He argues that our image of how ideas die is wrong. We picture a villainous manager in a dark room, stroking a white cat and saying, "No, your idea is too risky! Kill it!" Lewis: Right, a dramatic showdown. The brave innovator versus the evil corporate drone. Joe: But Rehn says that’s not what happens. Ideas rarely die with a bang. They die with a whimper. They're not murdered; they're starved through neglect and indifference. He applies the famous 'Broken Windows Theory' to corporate culture. Lewis: The theory that a neighborhood with broken windows and graffiti signals that no one cares, which invites more crime? How does that work in an office? Joe: A 'broken window' in an innovation culture is any small sign that the organization doesn't care. It's the manager who checks their phone during your pitch. It's the "great idea!" comment with no follow-up. It's the suggestion box that's just a black hole. These small acts of neglect send a powerful message: "We don't actually value new thinking here." Lewis: So it's death by a thousand tiny cuts of indifference. Joe: Precisely. And he tells this heartbreaking story about an internal ideas competition at a big chemical company. The leadership wanted to spark radical new thinking, so they launched this huge, flashy competition. They got over 700 submissions. Lewis: That sounds amazing! Seven hundred ideas! Joe: It was. But the execution was a disaster. One talented chemical engineer spent weeks crafting five detailed proposals. He submitted them, full of hope. A few weeks later, he received five separate emails. Each one was an identical, impersonal, computer-generated rejection. No feedback, no thank you, just a generic "does not meet our criteria." Lewis: Oh, that is brutal. That is a soul-crushing experience. It's the corporate equivalent of being ghosted after five great dates. Joe: It gets worse. The company selected six finalists for a grand finale event in a fancy auditorium. The jury was the executive team. But during the presentations, they were disengaged. They were checking their emails. One of them, and I am not making this up, actually fell asleep. Lewis: He fell asleep?! During the finale of his own innovation competition? That's not just a broken window; that's the whole building being condemned. Joe: Exactly. The message couldn't have been clearer: "We asked for your ideas, but we don't actually care enough to listen to them." That one event probably did more damage to their innovation culture than a decade of budget cuts. It showed that the whole thing was just 'innovation theatre.' It was a performance, and a lazy one at that. Rehn's point is that a supportive culture isn't about the grand gestures; it's about tending to these small interactions with care. Without that, even the best ideas will wither and die.

Lewis: So we're tired of the bullshit, and our best ideas are dying from a thousand tiny cuts of indifference. It sounds pretty bleak. How do we actually fix this? What's the antidote Rehn proposes? Joe: The antidote isn't another process or a new software. It's about building a culture of what he calls 'deep creativity.' And he argues this culture rests on four pillars: Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility, and Reflection. Lewis: Okay, those sound good, but they can also sound like corporate buzzwords themselves. How do you make 'respect' a real thing and not just a poster on the wall? Joe: That's the key question. And Rehn illustrates it with another brilliant, counter-intuitive story. He was working with a German corporation that was suffering from a severe case of this 'innovation theatre.' All talk, no action. The CEO was frustrated but didn't know what to do. After hearing Rehn speak, the CEO had an epiphany. Lewis: Let me guess, he launched a new initiative called 'Respect-a-Palooza 2024'? Joe: Something much more radical. He went back to his company and, in the following weeks, instituted a new policy: for a period of time, using the word 'innovation' in any internal communication was forbidden. Lewis: Hold on. He banned the word 'innovation' in order to become more innovative? That sounds like a complete paradox. Joe: It does! But think about what it actually did. By banning the empty buzzword, he forced people to change how they talked about new projects. You could no longer just say, "This is an innovative idea." You had to say, "This project will reduce our customer service calls by 30%," or "This new material will cut our production costs in half." Lewis: Ah, I see. It forced people to be specific. To talk about actual value and impact instead of hiding behind the shiny, meaningless label. Joe: Exactly. It was an act of respect for everyone's intelligence. It leveled the playing field. The people who were good at spouting jargon lost their power, and the people who had concrete, practical ideas—the engineers, the designers, the customer service reps—suddenly had a voice. They could participate in the conversation because it was now grounded in reality. Lewis: So banning the word was actually a way to enact the pillar of 'Respect.' It respected people enough to demand clarity and substance. Joe: You've got it. And it also fostered 'Responsibility'—you had to be responsible for the claims you were making. It wasn't just about looking innovative; it was about delivering real results. The company reported a distinct, positive change in their culture. The conversations became more honest, more inclusive, and ultimately, more creative. It was about killing the performance of innovation to make room for the practice of it.

Joe: So we've really gone on a journey here. We started in this world of 'innovation pornography,' as Rehn sometimes calls it—this glossy, fake, airbrushed version of creativity where everything is a TED talk and a success story. Lewis: Right, the world of nonsensical lectures and sleeping executives. Joe: And we've moved to a much more grounded, and I think more hopeful, reality. Rehn's ultimate argument is that building a truly innovative culture has very little to do with grand gestures or buzzwords. It's about the daily, quiet, and sometimes difficult work of building a culture where people feel seen and their ideas are treated with genuine care. Lewis: It feels like the big takeaway isn't to go launch another 'ideas competition' or hire a flashy consultant. It's to start with something much smaller and more human. Joe: Absolutely. The real work is in the micro-interactions. Lewis: So maybe the first step for anyone listening is just to commit to giving thoughtful, specific feedback on one new idea they hear this week. Instead of a quick 'no,' or a vague 'that's interesting,' or even worse, silence—actually engage with it for five minutes. Joe: That's a perfect, practical application. It's about fixing one 'broken window.' It's about showing one person that their thinking is respected, even if the idea isn't perfect. That's how you start to build the foundation. Lewis: It's a powerful shift in perspective. The goal isn't to find the next billion-dollar idea tomorrow. The goal is to create an environment where that idea, if it ever shows up, has a chance to survive. Joe: And that leads to the question we should probably leave our listeners with. It's a simple one to reflect on: What's one 'broken window' in your own team's culture? It might be small, it might be subtle. And what's one small thing you can do this week to help fix it? Lewis: A great question. It makes the whole thing feel less overwhelming and more actionable. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.