If you don’t understand your customers and employees experiences from their perspective, it’s far harder to know where to focus your efforts for the biggest impact and improvements.

“Fewer leadership teams are out there getting their hands dirty, speaking to employees, engaging with customers, and understanding how to run an experiment,” says Imber. “We continue to see leaders talking about innovation but staying at arms-length from the action.”

Relatively few organisations include customers or employees in decisions relating to innovation, according to the ServiceNow/ThoughtLab study. While 96% of global c-suite executives say their senior management and boards are involved key decisions, only 8% of leaders consult customers and just 1% talk to their own people—even though customers and employees are often the most affected by changes in products, services, or processes.

“That's a defining factor of organisations that are highly innovative” says Imber. “They've got leaders that roll up their sleeves, hit the front line, and role model behaviour.”