During a recent panel, a topic surfaced that many companies struggle with: the difference in return on investment (RoI) between sustaining and radical innovation. Sustaining innovation is concerned with adding functions and features to existing products and new versions of products to existing product categories. The RoI for these investments tends to follow a Gaussian curve in terms of RoI. Some initiatives do a little better; some do a little worse but by and large most initiatives tends to have a positive RoI. Radical innovation, on the other hand, is concerned with completely new products where there is no promise of success. In this case, the RoI tends to follow a power function, meaning that most initiatives will have a negative RoI and only a few will have a positive outcome. The few that are successful, however, are so positive that the return will pay back the total cost of the investment of all initiatives many times over. This is how venture capital investors work: they know that most companies that they invest in will lose their investment. But the one our of every 10 delivers the dough and pays for all the failures. Many leaders in companies pride themselves on successful initiatives, but in my view having a too high success rate means that you’re taking too little risk in your innovation initiatives. This of course applies to our personal lives just as well. So, as my daily reflection: what is the success rate of your personal innovation portfolio? And are you taking enough risk?