722 Posts Found

The more firms engage in getting today’s work done, it actually reduces the probability of making shifts in innovation and strategy. That is what is so strikingly paradoxical to leaders: The very recipes that work so well for today often get in the way of the future. It’s a challenge to incrementally improve what you’re doing as you’re trying to complement it with something different. … [ Read more ]

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

If you want to understand the future, just look at what rich people do today.

Content: Quotation | Author: Hal R. Varian | Source: Medium | Subjects: Future, Innovation, Management, Market Research

It takes 30 years for a new idea to seep into the culture. Technology does not drive change. It is our collective response to the options and opportunities presented by technology that drives change.

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul Saffo | Subjects: Change Management, Innovation, IT / Technology / E-Business, Marketing / Sales

I like to say the role of the entrepreneur is to understand the difference between perception and reality. Perception is conventional wisdom, it’s what everybody thinks is right, or is the answer. And reality, sometimes it’s the same, but often it’s very different.

I like to say the distance between perception and reality is the innovator’s playground. But if you are going to play in that … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Travis Kalanick | Source: Business Insider | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Nancy Lublin […] prompts her people to act originally by banning words such as like, love and hate, because, as a basic visceral response, they circumvent any critical thought. Saying why something is loved or hated inspires new, substantial ideas.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Adam Grant, Nancy Lublin | Source: First Round Review | Subject: Creativity

Amazon has shown a remarkable ability to succeed in a wide variety of different product categories. That’s a contrast to most other high-profile tech companies that are really good in one area — Google’s dominant online services or Apple’s extraordinarily profitable hardware — but struggle when the quest for growth pushes them outside their zone of core competency. Amazon has figured out how to combine … [ Read more ]

Content: Case Study | Author: Timothy B. Lee | Source: Vox | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy | Industry: Retail | Company: Amazon.com Inc.

Breakthroughs may be worth pursuing, but most companies benefit more from incremental innovation efforts that add new forms of consumer value to their present products and services. The trick is to determine what elements to add in order to boost the perceived value of your offering. You don’t want to expend resources adding features that consumers don’t care about. While what constitutes “value” can be … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Eric Almquist | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Customer Related, Innovation, Marketing / Sales

The talking speaker started as part of a secret augmented-reality project and ended up as a surprise hit.

Content: Case Study | Author: Joshua Brustein | Source: Bloomberg.com | Subject: Innovation | Company: Amazon.com Inc.

We have a much better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. The moment I hit send on that draft, it’s out of my mind, whereas when I leave it open, then I’m constantly processing it. I’m seeing new possibilities.

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Creativity, Innovation, Thought

If you want to be an original – the kind of nonconformist who champions new ideas and really drives creativity and change in the world – I thought you had to be an early bird, a first mover. But again, the evidence proved me wrong. Turns out that most originals are great procrastinators. The reason for this is pretty simple. […] What I noticed as … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Career, Creativity, Innovation, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

One of the myths that people carry around is if you want to be original, you will think, “I should do less because I want to perfect my invention or my creation.” But again, the data actually support the opposite story. Dean Simonton is a psychologist who has been studying this his whole career. What he finds is, one of the best predictors of how … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adam Grant | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Creativity, Innovation

CEO Adrian Gore describes how the South African company has been shaking up its industry through business-model innovation and explains what helps to catalyze new ideas.

Content: Case Study | Author: Adrian Gore | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Strategy | Company: Discovery

The Four Steps to the Epiphany launched the Lean Startup approach to new ventures. It was the first book to offer that startups are not smaller versions of large companies and that new ventures are different than existing ones.

Startups search for business models while existing companies execute them. The book offers the practical and proven four-step Customer Development process for search and offers insight … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Steve Blank | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

It’s easier to do something new and hard than something derivative and easy. People will want to help you and join you if it’s the former; they will not if it’s the latter.

Content: Quotation | Author: Sam Altman | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Some ideas, such as luxury goods and many smartphone apps, are destined for niche markets. Others, like social networks, work at global scale. Explicitly considering the appropriate magnitude and reach of a given idea is important to ensuring that the right resources and risks are involved in pursuing it. The seemingly safer option of scaling up over time can be a death sentence. Resources and … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Erik Roth, Marc de Jong, Nathan Marston | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Operations, Strategy

Julie Zhuo, Product design VP of Facebook, lists 32 lessons learned about what it takes to build great products.

Content: Article | Author: Julie Zhuo | Source: Medium | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Marketing / Sales

Governing beliefs reflect widely shared notions about customer preferences, the role of technology, regulation, cost drivers, and the basis of competition and differentiation. They are often considered inviolable—until someone comes along to violate them. Almost always, it’s an attacker from outside the industry. But while new entrants capture the headlines, industry insiders, who often have a clear sense of what drives profitability, are well positioned … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Marc de Jong, Menno van Dijk | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Innovation, Management, Strategy

The rationales behind innovation and earnings targets are not really great bedfellows. You have to invest in innovation, even if you don’t know where it will end up. But with a growth-target mind-set, you’re always thinking, “Oh, we can’t do this, because it’s going to undermine our margins” or whatever. You ought to do both well, but it’s challenging to balance those two parts of … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Adrian Gore | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation

Constraints aren’t the enemy of creativity—they make it more effective.

Content: Article | Author: Donald Sull | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation

When it comes to innovation, the single most common piece of advice may be to “think outside the box.” Constraints, according to this view, are the enemy of creativity because they sap intrinsic motivation and limit possibilities.

Sophisticated innovators, however, have long recognized that constraints spur and guide innovation. Attempting to innovate without boundaries overwhelms people with options and ignores established practices, such as agile programming, … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Donald Sull | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Innovation