It’s time to ditch the ‘move fast and break things’ innovation playbook
The opinions expressed here by Trellis expert contributors are their own, not those of Trellis.
For over a decade, “move fast and break things” has been the defining ethos of innovation. Popularized by Facebook and widely adopted across the tech sector, this mantra encouraged speed, experimentation and disruption over caution, regulation or long-term impact.
For many leaders, speed to market was the imperative and negative consequences were just an unfortunate side issue. Of course, learning from failure is critical to any effective innovation.
But what happens when what we break can’t be repaired?
That’s the situation we face as climate change, declining public trust and widening inequality are no longer edge scenarios, but existential business risks. In this context, the innovation playbook forged in the last two decades looks increasingly anachronistic. Fast and broken is no longer acceptable. Speed alone, detached from purpose and consequence, is unsustainable innovation. And breaking things without accountability is not inventive — it’s negligent.
The innovation-ethics gap
Too often, innovation teams at large companies operate in deliberate isolation in an effort to replicate startups that are quick, creative and agile. Ethics, compliance and sustainability teams are often perceived as obstacles and compliance checkers: slow, cautious and adversarial. These siloes are toxic, ensuring harm only becomes visible when it’s too late.
Consider what’s happening now with AI development. Companies are racing to release increasingly powerful tools, often trained on biased datasets, without sufficient consideration as to how these tools could affect marginalized communities or democratic institutions.
Predictions that AI ethicists will be in huge demand haven’t materialized so far — instead, there’s widespread concern about “over-regulation.” Similarly, green tech startups, hawking e-scooters to solar products, have emerged with revolutionary ideas, such as batteries relying on minerals mined under ethically questionable conditions, only to face backlash when their supply chains reveal human rights violations or environmental degradation. Such firms have tended to assume that their environmental license to operate is sufficient, which means they may have overlooked their community and social impacts from the beginning.
This disconnect isn’t malicious, it’s systemic: Ethical questions only surface after prototypes launch. In most corporate innovation processes, there’s simply no forum or capability to consider them. As societal trust in business continues to disintegrate, the move-quickly-and-break-things model is becoming more obsolete. Instead, innovation and ethics must collaborate from the outset, not treat each other as afterthoughts. In a world of cascading risks and eroding trust, that is not just a moral imperative; it’s a competitive advantage.
Rethinking innovation
So what does this look like in practice?
First, ditch hero-driven innovation led by one superstar. Research shows individual outperformance at one company often doesn’t translate to a new firm, because teams and creative processes are the real competitive advantage. Innovation needs to be cross-functional, systemic and open to debate. Success shouldn’t be framed only in speed or adoption, but should account for societal outcomes and unintended consequences.
LEGO’s “System in Play” approach is a compelling model to demonstrate this. Its innovation success is built on collaborative, cross-functional teams that include diverse stakeholders from R&D, marketing, customer experience and external partners such as community representatives and end users. These teams co-create solutions through iterative workshops and design sprints, continuously integrating feedback from the communities they serve to ensure relevance and impact. Rather than relying on isolated “star” innovators, this model fosters shared ownership and collective problem-solving, harnessing creativity from multiple perspectives to drive sustainable innovation.
Second, choose a relevant metric beyond speed. In enterprise innovation environments, we’ve seen speed-to-market prioritized above all else. But what if the most innovative ideas are those that balance agility with anticipation? That optimized not just for adoption, but for sustainable impact? IKEA’s innovation labs, such as Space10, explicitly prioritize and value long-term design thinking and regenerative principles over short-term delivery, proving that meaningful innovation can still move with intention.
Third, consider unintended consequences. Progressive organizations embed foresight into their agile cycles: mapping second- and third-order effects on the environment and society, inviting ethicists early in design sprints and stress-testing ideas against potential regulatory and social backlash. This isn’t about perfection or paralysis. It’s about expanding the innovation lens beyond feasibility and desirability to include responsibility. For example, Paula Goldman, chief ethical and human use officer at Salesforce, oversees “consequence scanning,” where the social impact of new products is evaluated before a launch.
Fourth, include new approaches. We need to equip teams not only with canvases and user journeys, but with impact assessments, ecosystem mapping, life cycle assessments and frameworks that view future generations as stakeholders. These tools don’t slow innovation; they strengthen its foundations. Interface, the modular flooring company, pioneered life cycle assessments as a core innovation tool, using environmental impact data to guide product design, material selection and circularity efforts from the outset. L’Oreal also uses a product environmental analysis to ensure new formulations have lower impact than previous ones.
Finally, empower ethical and sustainability teams. Instead of acting as compliance gatekeepers or powerless messengers, they have an opportunity to engage as collaborators and facilitators helping to shape the conditions for innovation. This may require new skills, new alliances and, more critically, executive understanding that responsibility and innovation are not antithetical.
A new innovation ethos
Disruption is inherently reactive; it thrives on tearing down. But stewardship is generative and requires vision, accountability and care. In this new paradigm, innovation isn’t about simply outpacing competitors. It’s about creating value that lasts economically, socially and environmentally.
Therefore, we must rewrite innovation’s vocabulary:
- From “fail fast” to “learn fast and reflect often.”
- From “build, measure, sell” to “anticipate, co-create, test, progress.”
- From “MVPs” to “minimum responsible products (MRPs)” designed for sustainability, inclusion and long-term impact.
Already, we’re seeing early signals of this shift. Patagonia has shown how product innovation aligns with environmental stewardship by being one of the first retailers to use recycled polyester and organic cotton in its products and establishing a secondhand program that encourages repairing, reusing and recycling clothing.
But innovation transformation isn’t just about products. It’s about systems, mindsets and culture. It demands humility, openness to critique and an ability to ask “Should we?” before “Can we?”
Evolve or be left behind
Let’s be clear: This is not a call for less innovation. It’s a call for better innovation that’s deliberate, systemic and socially accountable.
Bold thinking remains essential. But the architecture of innovation must shift from singular heroism to collective creativity and stewardship. From short-term wins to long-term resilience. From speed-to-market as a goal to speed-to-impact as a principle.
This isn’t a philosophical shift. It’s a business one. Markets are demanding accountability. Regulators are catching up. Employees and customers are watching. Leaders who continue to view innovation as a siloed, ungoverned playground will soon find themselves outpaced by those who build for durability, trust and legitimacy.
If you lead innovation today, your job is to anticipate systems impact, integrate ethical perspectives and build outcomes that won’t collapse under scrutiny. That means new tools, new metrics and new collaborations — with people who are trained to challenge your assumptions, not validate them.
So ask yourself and your team this:
- What are we incentivizing and what are we ignoring?
- What harm might our solution create and who bears it?
- Are we designing for resilience or just reaction time?
Sustainable innovation isn’t slower. It’s smarter. And in an era defined by compounding risk, complexity and public scrutiny, it’s the only kind of innovation that will survive.
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