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It could be thought that the availability of talent proportionately determines the level of innovation accomplished at a workplace but that are other influential modifiers. The most common which comes to mind is office politics but there is an even greater cultural effect.
The simplest categories can be either “Just Culture” or “Blame Culture”. Let’s briefly describe each:
Just culture is a concept related to systems thinking which emphasizes that mistakes are generally a product of faulty organizational cultures, rather than solely brought about by the person or persons directly involved. In a just culture, after an incident, the question asked is, “what went wrong?” rather than “who caused the problem?”.
In a blame culture, problem-solving is replaced by blame avoidance. Blame generates “fear, errors, accidents and passive-aggression” with those feeling powerless and lacking emotional safety. Organisational chaos, such as confused roles and responsibilities, is strongly associated with blame culture.
A seasoned engineering team exhibits open discussion about new developments and areas to leverage them. Any failure, even if significant does not stir panic. A controlled communication with elements of maturity founded from experience forms with focus entirely on the problem.
The individuals with the rarest and most sought after tech talent enjoy systems thinking. Something which should not have happened did and the follow up investigation is enjoyable because it builds a hypothesis which tests their knowledge. Any individual responsible is completely irrelevant because the situation presents an opportunity to add any missing guard rails and generally improve the product.
The most valuable concepts such as experimentation and providing opinions shift from discovery to instead bearing risk.
Businesses which benefit greatly from innovation and technological advancement, especially when developed in house are set up to fail with a blame culture.