Monthly Archives: August 2011
What’s better…. a lot of little innovations or one big innovation? If we had to choose, would it better to have an economy made up of a lot of firms trying to make small improvements to their business or do we want a game-changer like Apple or Google? The big innovations are glamorous and they become part of business folklore. Governments then spend a lot of effort trying to replicate the success of these companies by supporting businesses that might turn into the next Microsoft, GSK or Samsung. The trouble is that we need to go through a veritable haystack of businesses to eventually get these needles that grow from nothing to become global leaders in their industry. In hindsight we can say that Apple was always going to become a great business but hindsight is a misleading science. Someone who pointed to two strange kids (Jobs and Wozniak) at … Continue reading
We all like to believe that we are pretty good judges of ideas. We think we can objectively evaluate an idea based on its merits and recognize a creative solution, an innovative breakthrough, or a smart decision. When it comes to spotting the brilliant idea, we, like Potter Stewart, believe we know it when we see it. The reality is that factors beyond our conscious awareness influence how we perceive ideas and make decisions. Social psychology has demonstrated that our perceptions are influenced by a wide array of cognitive biases. (For a great book on the neuroscience of decision-making, I recommend Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide). Due to these biases, people give disproportionate weight to certain information. In settings where decisions are subject to the persuasiveness of the speaker’s argument–such as brainstorming sessions, strategy meetings, or interviews–the way in which …
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created as innovators. That they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are the right to exercise their creativity, the right to challenge the status quo, the right to imagine radical new ways of doing things, and the right to be heard, however outlandish their ideas may seem. That to secure these rights, companies need to institute governing structures, processes and mechanisms that encourage and support innovation in all its forms. That whenever organizations are destructive of these ends, it is the duty of the leadership team to demand the alteration and abolishment of old management practices that frustrate – rather than facilitate – innovation and experimentation, and to institute new management practices founded on principles that enable creativity and rule-breaking and risk-taking; principles that set the spirit of innovation free. We believe that … Continue reading
I’ve been talking for a while now in my speeches how crucial value is to innovation. It is no consequence as a result that value sits at the center of my definition of innovation: Innovation transforms the useful seeds of invention into solutions valued above every existing alternative – and widely adopted. In this definition you will also see that I draw a distinction between useful and valuable, and I develop it further in my book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire – the following is an excerpt on the topic from the book: “Often usefulness comes from what a product or service does for you, and value comes from how it does it. If you’re looking to truly deliver innovative products and services into the marketplace, then once you succeed at the designing and developing the ‘what’, don’t forget to also focus on achieving excellence in the ‘how’.” One of my … Continue reading
