When most people talk about innovation, they talk about speed. 

Hackathons. Disruption. Sprints. Yes, those are fun. Who doesn't love the intense periods of dynamic engagement and silo-breaking? 

It’s exciting, but it’s also misleading. As much as we want to talk about our successes and events we put on, innovation doesn’t move at the speed of hype. 

It moves at the speed of care.

The very word culture comes from cultus—to care, to cultivate, to till the soil. 

Culture was never meant to be about slogans or posters on a wall. 

It was about tending to something fragile until it grew strong enough to stand on its own.

This is where we get innovation wrong. 

Too often, organizations treat innovation like a racehorse, betting on a few “mavericks”, throwing money at pet projects, or “skunkworks” teams, when in reality, it’s much closer to farming.

Farmers know that seeds don’t thrive in rock-hard soil. 

They know you have to tend to the earth, nurture the seedlings, and pay the most attention when shoots are tender and easily destroyed. 

Without care, there is no harvest.

And the same is true of innovation: ideas die not because they’re bad, but because the culture around them isn’t safe or supportive enough for them to grow.

So how do we build cultures where innovation thrives? Here are three tools every professional and leader can use:

1. Create Psychological Safety

Google’s Project Aristotle found that the single greatest predictor of team performance wasn’t talent or leadership, it was psychological safety. Build environments where people feel safe to voice bold ideas, share half-formed thoughts, and take risks without fear of ridicule or punishment.

2. Nurture the Early Shoots

Treat new ideas like fragile seedlings. Don’t demand immediate ROI. Instead, ask: What support does this idea need to grow stronger? Small prototypes, mentorship, and feedback loops are the water and sunlight of innovation.

3. Shift from Spotlight to Soil

Innovation isn’t about spotlighting a few “rockstars.” It’s about cultivating the soil of the whole organization so everyone feels their ideas matter. Shift the attention from individual heroes to the collective environment that allows ideas to take root.

 

The next time you think about innovation, don’t think about speed or spectacle. 

Think about farming. 

Because innovation, like culture, is cultivated 

one seed, 

one act of care, 

one safe environment at a time.