What the Like Button Can Teach Us About Innovation

The invention of the like button, which today can be found everywhere on the internet, transformed digital advertising and marketing and fueled the rise of the social media industry. While most people attribute it to Facebook, the button was actually used in some form by multiple companies several years before Facebook adopted it. In fact, after spending three years researching its origins, the authors were unable to identify a single inventor of the button. And that's what makes its origin story so instructive. The like button's design and development could be considered a miniature case study on the true nature of innovation-which is distributed, unpredictable, and far more modest in ambition than heroic innovation narratives suggest. That holds important implications for managers, who must stop trying to tightly manage innovation and learn to embrace its messy and iterative nature. To succeed, they'll have to be open to surprises, legitimize inconsistencies, encourage diverse contributions, and balance structured processes with flexibility and curiosity.