Very few organisations deliberately set out to kill brave ideas, yet many quietly build cultures where those ideas never stand a chance of surviving. When leadership signals, whether explicitly or implicitly, that mistakes are unacceptable, every decision must be justified upfront, and success is measured quarter by quarter, people adapt accordingly. Creativity becomes less about pushing boundaries and more about protecting positions. Teams stop taking risks, not because they lack ambition, but because the environment has taught them that safety is what gets rewarded.

We know the usual pattern. More stakeholders, more opinions, and more rounds of feedback. In theory, that should improve the work, but in reality, it dilutes it. Because the goal typically shifts from creating something distinctive to creating something everyone can agree on, and those are very different things.

Research from Harvard Business Review has shown that as group size increases, decision quality often drops due to consensus bias. However, ensuring decision-makers are in the room and on the journey is key to securing buy-in. I have seen it so many times: the CMO leads the project, then holds back and delivers one big tadaaa moment to the CEO, and the whole thing falls apart because they haven't been on the journey.              

Over 12 people in a room, and you don’t get the best idea, you end up getting the safest one. Add time pressure, and it gets worse. When targets are under pressure, most teams don’t step back and think more clearly. They end up doing more. Faster.

I typically see brand awareness being turned off entirely and switch to dirty lead gen tricks like  PPC bursts and content syndication. Or last-minute events because we need pipelines. It looks productive, but in reality, it's usually just reactive.

Activity is not the same as progress. This is where misalignment really shows up. Sales teams start to get desperate and start pushing for immediacy. Marketing usually ends up being on the back foot, and instead of operating as one system, you end up with two functions pulling in different directions, both busy, neither driving real growth.

The best performing businesses don't look like this. They are aligned. Genuinely aligned. They're clear on who they are going after, how they win, and what success looks like. Sales and marketing operate as one team, not two functions negotiating with each other. You can feel it in how decisions get made and how quickly things move.

And then there is the word everyone hides behind. Bravery. Bravery does involve risk. You do not get distinctive work or growth by doing the same thing over and over again. But the best kind of brave does not feel reckless. It feels informed, backed by data, grounded in evidence, and clear on the trade-offs.

There is more than enough proof that different works, just look at the long-term outperformance of brands that invest in distinctiveness, not just short-term activation, as shown repeatedly by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising effectiveness studies.

The issue is not a lack of evidence. It is a lack of clarity and alignment around how to act on it. There are two things that make a real difference. First, testing. Not opinions in a boardroom, but actual audience response. Put the safe option and the more distinctive one on the market and see what lands. The conversation shifts quickly when the data is clear.

Second, decision-making. Too many processes are built for consensus, not conviction. The people who can say yes get involved too late, without context, and stall the work. If they are not in from the start, it’s game over.

Both require something more fundamental. A decision about what kind of organisation you want to be. The brands that commit to distinctiveness and back it with conviction consistently outperform the ones that do not. That is not luck. It is a choice, and it starts with how leadership sets the conditions for good, brave work to exist in the first place. Get that right, and the rest follows.