Author Archives: Meri Gruber
This is the tenth of several ‘Innovation Perspectives’ articles we will publish this week from multiple authors to get different perspectives on ‘What are three specific actions that a non-innovative company can take to become more innovative?’. Here is the next perspective in the series: by Meri Gruber No company is completely non-innovative – all companies innovate, they just don’t know where and how. Companies should look to the advice of authors Chip and Dan Heath in “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” to build on small successes and become more innovative. Look for bright spots, where innovation is happening: 1. Find the bright spots. Ask the bright-spot question: “Where are we innovating today and how can we do more of it?” Too often our focus is on what isn’t working, what the Heath’s call “archaeological problem solving.” Switch instead to “bright-spot evangelizing.” 2. Connect your people … Continue reading
Innovation in Entrepreneurship – A Case Study on Keen Mobilityby Meri GruberKeen Mobility is a story of innovation, invention and entrepreneurship. Innovation is often focused on inventions and new products, but innovation is also a new way of thinking about conventional wisdom. Jeffrey Phillips wrote an insightful post “Innovation, Invention and Entrepreneurs”, defining innovation as “a new idea that is put into valuable or profitable action.” What is so wonderful about the Keen Mobility story is how Vail Blackwell Horton and Jerry Carleton combined innovation, invention and entrepreneurship to deliver value for a large, underserved population and create a profitable, growing business. Keen Mobility was founded by Vail Blackwell Horton and Jerry Carleton. Vail and Jerry were college roommates at the University of Portland (UP). Vail, born without legs, had been using artificial legs to walk but the crutches he needed to use with the artificial legs were destroying his … Continue reading
As a culture we like to think of our achievements as the triumph of the individual. But last week I used a memorable chicken breeding example to show you that group performance outweighs individual performance in a group environment because a focus on individual performance comes at a cost to the group performance.The reality is that company performance is a complex group effort. Without positive group productivity, companies under perform. And most companies under perform. We are used to seeing numbers like 90% of companies fail to execute on their goals, that excellence in business execution is the chief concern of CEO’s. What’s going on here? “Companies assume people are atomistic and economic, versus social creatures”, writes Stanford professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton in “The Knowing-Doing Gap, How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action.”There are two things going on here that get in the way of group productivity, two … Continue reading
