726 Posts Found

There will always be advantages to size and scope, but the industrial company was built for optimization, not innovation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gary Hamel | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

A leader’s failure to walk the talk is, arguably, especially conspicuous if that leader fails to make good on his or her talk about innovation. The promise to focus on innovation ends right there, with a promise. The inability or unwillingness to follow through on the promise creates what these authors call an Innovation Gap. In this article they suggest how leaders can close that … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Claude Legrand, David S. Weiss | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, Leadership

People involved in “risky work”, as opposed to “repetitive work,” face three challenges: to create, to communicate, and to collaborate.

Content: Quotation | Author: Richard P. Gabriel | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior, Work

The late Michael Dertouzos observed in his last book, The Unfinished Revolution, that all too often, humans are at the service of computers, rather than the much more desirable opposite. To take full advantage of new technologies, to really enable the widest range of possibilities opened up by innovation, we must make sure that technologies aren’t designed in isolation from their eventual users; technology ought … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Innovation, IT / Technology / E-Business

First of all, you need to fund the people, not the projects. You need both a dream and a vision without breaking the vision down into goals or missions. This, of course, is antithetical to business. Business rationale thinks problem solving is a good rubric and a metaphor for what they’re trying to do. Articulating goals actually stifles innovation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Alan Kay | Source: CGE&Y Center for Business Innovation (CBI) | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

The potential for innovation in your company increases when you have employees who demonstrate unrestrained thinking and the ability to connect seemingly disparate ideas. Is it possible to identify the people with these capabilities during a first interview? Absolutely—if you know what to look for and if you’re armed with the right questions.

Content: Article | Author: Lisa Bodell | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Human Resources, Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Innovation is celebrated far and wide, but the lack of a shared, accurate definition has undermined our collective ability to manage it effectively. The implications are anything but academic. Companies that treat an attack based on differentiation as if it were breaking important trade-offs may overreact, but mistake a true innovator for the merely different and the pain can last for decades.

Content: Article | Authors: Heather A. Gray, Michael E. Raynor | Source: Deloitte Review | Subjects: Innovation, Management

Big-bang disrupters don’t just replace older products—they change entire industries. Disrupters create products that are better and cheaper than existing ones, carve innovative market paths, and force other companies to learn new rules of strategy and competition.

Editor’s Note: I found this article to have too many sweeping but unsupported statements and some of the arguments were not convincing to me, but perhaps you will disagree… … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subject: Innovation

As we look to grow out of recession, innovation is more important than ever. However, the types of innovation companies pursue need to change. They must start to find novel ways of adding value at low cost, using existing technology in new applications and re-engineering inefficient business models. Managers wanting to learn how to make this change will find that China is a good place … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Eden Yin, Peter J. Williamson | Source: Ivey Business Journal | Subjects: Innovation, International

Cultures develop myths when they can’t rely on existing knowledge to explain the world around them. They are developed and passed down in an effort to explain why certain mysterious events occur, or to affirm how we should behave and think. Creativity is no different. These myths were prevalent almost everywhere I looked—everywhere except in the most innovative companies and people. If we want to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: David Burkus | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

Lean Six Sigma brings rigor and discipline to project management, but its approach to project selection is lacking. A new approach incorporates a structured, enterprise-level view of metrics to jump-start corporate innovation.

Content: Article | Author: Forrest W. Breyfogle III | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Operations, Project Management

No matter how radical a new product is, it will always be perceived initially in terms of some frame of reference. It is essential that this frame be understood, especially if it is an inappropriate one detrimental to early trial of the product.

Content: Quotation | Author: Gerald Zaltman | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subject: Innovation

In my experience, the more true we are to our own creative gifts the less there is an outer reassurance or help at the beginning. The more we are on the path, the deeper the silence in the first stages of the process. Following our path is in effect a kind of going off the path, through open country, there is a certain early stage … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: David Whyte | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Personal Development

An inventor is simply a person who doesn’t take his education too seriously. You see, from the time a person is six years old until he graduates from college, he has to take three or four examinations a year. If he flunks once, he’s out. But an inventor is almost always failing. He tries and fails, maybe a thousand times. If he succeeds once, he’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Charles Kettering | Subjects: Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Success / Failure

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.

Content: Quotation | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management, Organizational Behavior

The AeroVironment story is not a playbook for other companies to follow wholesale—for one, its heritage cannot possibly be duplicated—but it’s a fascinating tale rich with lessons for any company. Most of all, AV shows how disruptive technologies can evolve and shake up their industries, even when multiple market forces exist to hold them back. It also offers companies guidance about when to evolve to … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Lawrence M. Fisher | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Innovation | Company: AeroVironment

What questions should corporate innovators use to increase their odds of success? There are some classics out there, such as Peter Drucker’s (“If we weren’t already doing it this way, is this the way we would start?”), Ted Levitt’s timeless contribution (“What business are we really in?”), and the question Andy Grove asked to transform Intel (“If the board brought in a new CEO, what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Scott Anthony | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Innovation

Big companies have plenty of great ideas, but they do not innovate because they need a whole hierarchy of people to agree that a new idea is good in order to pursue it. If one smart person figures out something wrong with an idea–often to show off or to consolidate power–that’s usually enough to kill it. This leads to a Can’t Do Culture.

The trouble … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ben Horowitz | Subjects: Innovation, Organizational Behavior

A change of approach to loosely-linked research partners can generate radically new products.

Content: Article | Author: L. Felipe Monteiro | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subject: Innovation

Product development is often a make-or-break issue for start-ups, and it’s also one of the most poorly understood, entrepreneur Dan Cohen said during a recent presentation at Wharton San Francisco.

Content: Article | Author: Dan Cohen | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Innovation, Products & Services