---
id: "claim-formal-structure-insufficient"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["¶5"]
tags: ["organizational-design", "innovation-failure"]
related: ["concept-bridger", "contrarian-structure-vs-trust", "concept-mutual-trust-influence-commitment", "quote-trust-and-risk"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
speakers: ["Linda A. Hill", "Emily Tedards", "Jason Wild"]
enrichment_assessment: "Supported. Literature shows governance and labs are necessary but insufficient without trust-building; 'consistently fail' slightly overstates — evidence indicates common failure, not inevitability."
source_url: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/why-great-innovations-fail-to-scale"
source_title: "Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale"
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-nm-102-innovations-fail-to-scale"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/why-great-innovations-fail-to-scale"
sourceTitle: "Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale"
---
# Formal structure is insufficient for scaling innovation

**Claim (confidence: high; testable).** Leaders frequently try to solve cross-boundary collaboration by over-relying on **formal structures**: appointing dedicated project managers, creating cross-functional teams, establishing innovation labs, or drafting complex IP agreements. These structural efforts consistently fail to *scale* innovation because they do not create the social connection required to build trust. Innovation inherently demands experimentation, learning, and risk-taking from all parties — and **people do not take risks with individuals or groups they do not trust** ([[quote-trust-and-risk]]), rendering structural and contractual mandates ineffective without genuine relational [[concept-bridger|bridging]].

This is the load-bearing premise beneath the [[contrarian-structure-vs-trust|structure-cannot-manufacture-trust]] contrarian and motivates the [[concept-mutual-trust-influence-commitment|trust/influence/commitment triad]].

**Enrichment validation:** Supported across Hill's corpus (*Genius at Scale*, the ABCs framework, and reprints of this article). The literature does **not** say structure is useless — governance and labs are *necessary but insufficient* without trust-building leadership. The article's 'consistently fail' phrasing slightly overstates: the evidence indicates **common** failure, not inevitability.


## Related across articles
- [[claim-incumbent-architecture-mismatch]]
- [[concept-paving-the-cow-paths]]