"Twenty years ago, as the top digital and innovation executive for Citi's credit card business, I led the team that spent months building what looked like a brilliant partnership. We'd found a startup with a disruptive payments platform-one that became the forerunner of what has become a new payment type used by millions of consumers today. The deal: strategic investment in exchange for access to the startup's codebase as a sandbox for innovation pilots. No more waiting in the legacy systems queue. Just rapid prototyping with leading-edge developers."
"The loss wasn't just financial. It was a failure to recognize that resistance contains intelligence about reality that plans built-in echo chambers inevitably miss. Colleagues felt blindsided-asked to bless a final deal rather than shape an evolving strategy. The resistance wasn't about the idea. It was about being excluded from the journey."
A team created a strategic partnership with a startup offering a disruptive payments platform, exchanging investment for access to the startup's codebase for rapid prototyping. The deal was developed within a supportive silo, excluding risk, compliance, legal, finance, regulatory affairs, and P&L stakeholders. Final approval was rejected after those stakeholders raised regulatory, governance, and ROI concerns. The missed opportunity included a later $1 billion acquisition and damaged colleague trust. Resistance reflected substantive intelligence about operational, compliance, and organizational realities. Successful innovation requires early inclusion of skeptics, translating resistance into design constraints, shared accountability, and governance aligned with scaling criteria.
Read at Fast Company
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