The Other Side of Innovation


Book Description

In their first book, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, the authors provided a better model for executing disruptive innovation. They laid out a three-part plan for launching high-risk/high-reward innovation efforts: (1) borrow assets from the existing firms, (2) unlearn and unload certain processes and systems that do not serve the new entity, and (3) learn and build all new capabilities and skills. In their study of the Ten Rules in action, Govindarajan and Trimble observed many other kinds of innovation that were less risky but still critical to the company's ongoing success. In case after case, senior executives expected leaders of innovation initiatives to grapple with forces of resistence, namely incentives to keep doing what the company has always done--rather than develop new competence and knowledge. But where to begin? In this book, the authors argue that the most successful everyday innovators break down the process into six manageable steps: 1. Divide the labor 2. Assemble the dedicated team 3. Manage the partnership 4. Formalize the experiment 5. Break down the hypothesis 6. Seek the truth. The Other Side of Innovation codifies this staged approach in a variety of contexts. It delivers a proven step-by-step guide to executing (launching, managing, and measuring) more modest but necessary innovations within large firms without disrupting their bread-and-butter business.




The Other Side of Innovation


Book Description

The authors reveal how to execute an innovation initiative. Regardless of the type of initiative, the crux of the challenge is that business organizations are not designed for innovation; they are designed for ongoing operations. And there are deep and fundamental conflicts between the two.




Reverse Innovation


Book Description

The gap between rich nations and emerging economies is closing. As a result, the global dynamics of innovation are changing. No longer will innovations traverse the globe in only one direction, from developed nations to developing ones. They will also flow in reverse. Authors Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth explain where, when, and why reverse innovation is on the rise, and why the implications are so profound—for nations, for companies, and for individuals. The authors focus in particular on a traditional pillar of rich-world economic vitality: successful and long-established multinational corporations. All are now seeking explosive growth in emerging economies, and all must learn new tricks in order to succeed. Reverse Innovation shows leaders and senior managers how to make innovation in emerging markets happen, and how such innovations can unlock opportunities throughout the world. The book highlights the tribulations and triumphs of some of the world’s leading companies (including GE, Deere & Company, P&G, and PepsiCo), illustrating exactly what works and what does not. The new reality is that the future lies far from home. Whether you are a CEO, financier, strategist, marketer, scientist, engineer, national policymaker, or even a student forming your career aspirations, reverse innovation is a phenomenon you need to understand. This book will help you do that.




The Human Side of Innovation


Book Description

PepsiCo's award-winning chief design officer reveals the secret to creating life-changing innovations: putting human needs at the center of any design process. Innovation is an act of love-or at least it should be. Always. It is a gesture of empathy, respect, generosity, of one human being's devotion to another, writes Mauro Porcini at the beginning of this extraordinary book. It is in part a memoir by one of the world's leading designers-the first chief design officer at both 3M and Pepsi. But even more, it is a manifesto for a genuine, authentic, and deeply humanistic approach to design, one that aims to create personal and social value first and financial and economic value afterward. In every industry, new technologies have lowered the barrier to entry like never before. Either you design exceptional products or somebody will beat you to it. Porcini shows, through example after example and story after story, that the key to real, world-changing innovation is to put people first-not only the people we innovate for but also the people who lead the innovation process. Putting people first requires what Porcini calls unicorns: people who are in love with people, who have a genuine fire in them to create meaningful solutions for actual human beings. In this book, he describes them, celebrates them, and details their superpowers so you can find them, hire them, grow them, and retain them. Some are qualities you might expect-the ability to dream combined with the ability to execute. But when was the last time you heard an executive ask prospective hires if they were kind, optimistic, curious, or humble? Porcini uses his journey across startups and multinational corporations, through successes and failures, to create a handbook for modern innovators.




The Little Black Book of Innovation


Book Description

Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today, in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It is the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. No longer. In this book the author draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation. He presents a simple definition of innovation, breaks down the essential differences between types of innovation, and illuminates innovation's vital role in organizational success and personal growth. This unique hybrid of professional memoir and business guidebook also provides a powerful 28-day program for mastering innovation's key steps: (1) Finding insight, (2) Generating ideas, (3) Building businesses, and (4) Strengthening innovation prowess in workforces and organizations. Using several illustrative case studies and vignettes from a range of companies around the globe, this playbook teaches people how to turn themselves or their companies into true innovation powerhouses.




The Dark Side of Innovation


Book Description

This book is a reaction to popular assumptions that innovation is always a force for good. While the popular press and politicians often take the view that "the more innovation, the better", the chapters in this edited volume reflect on the harmful effects of innovation on society and the environment. The book begins with a broad discussion of the dark side of innovation, followed by contributions by various experts in the area. It is a critical reply to the innovation optimists, complementing the list of indicators that show steady human progress with a list of indicators that show sustained deterioration (largely due to innovation). The volume outlines some relevant dimensions of harmful innovation, before distinguishing between the types of harm brought on by innovation. The various contributed chapters focus on the following themes: a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature on the harmful consequences of innovation; harmful side-effects from solar photovoltaic waste; harmful consequences of process innovations on working practices in areas such as accountancy; the difficulties of transferring innovations from research to practice in clinical healthcare; and the harmful consequences of social innovations. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Industry and Innovation.




How Stella Saved the Farm


Book Description

How Stella Saved the Farm is a simple parable about making innovation happen. Written by the authors of the New York Times bestselling Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble. This story resonates in organizations of all types—public sector, private sector, and social sector, from mammoth corporations to small organizations employing just a few dozen people. The parable is about a farm in trouble. Bankruptcy, or the grim prospect of being acquired by a hostile competitor, threaten. The farm succeeds only if the team pulls together and innovates. The main characters in the story—Stella, Deirdre, Bull, Mav, Einstein, Rambo, Maisie, and Andrea—are all like people you know, maybe even yourself. The tale includes an unexpected leadership challenge, an ambitious call to action, a bold idea, countless internal obstacles and conflicts, fears, joys, triumphs, and even a love interest. It's a story that can be enjoyed by anyone. How Stella Saved the Farm delivers eight simple lessons to guide innovation initiatives to success. It prepares business leaders to avoid some of innovation's most toxic myths, teaches how to build the right kind of team, and shows how to learn quickly from experience.




From the Other Side of the World


Book Description

Elmira Bayrasli's colourful narrative takes readers through the world of high-growth entrepreneurs as they overcome vexing obstacles to build businesses that create jobs and economic growth and, perhaps most important, shift mindsets. Here are the people who personify the transformative force of entrepreneurship from parts of the world that will be the source of the overwhelming amount of economic growth over the next twenty-five years.Bayrasli takes us on an extraordinary journey, with fascinating eyewitness accounts of courage, endurance and ingenuity, as people in some of the world's most challenging societies build globally competitive products and services that garner international praise and investment.




The Three-Box Solution


Book Description

How to Innovate and Execute Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. And it is well understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally different management challenges. The real problem for leaders is doing both, simultaneously. How do you meet the performance requirements of the existing business—one that is still thriving—while dramatically reinventing it? How do you envision a change in your current business model before a crisis forces you to abandon it? Innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan expands the leader’s innovation tool kit with a simple and proven method for allocating the organization’s energy, time, and resources—in balanced measure—across what he calls “the three boxes”: • Box 1: The present—Manage the core business at peak profitability • Box 2: The past—Abandon ideas, practices, and attitudes that could inhibit innovation • Box 3: The future—Convert breakthrough ideas into new products and businesses The three-box framework makes leading innovation easier because it gives leaders a simple vocabulary and set of tools for managing and measuring these different sets of behaviors and activities across all levels of the organization. Supported with rich company examples—GE, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hasbro, IBM, United Rentals, and Tata Consultancy Services—and testimonies of leaders who have successfully used this framework, this book solves once and for all the practical dilemma of how to align an organization on the critical but competing demands of innovation.




Innovating


Book Description

Discover the MIT-developed, “doer’s approach” to innovation with this guide that reveals you don’t need an earth-shattering idea to create a standout product, service, or business—just a hunch that you can scale up to impact. Innovation is the subject of countless books and courses, but there’s very little out there about how you actually innovate. Innovation and entrepreneurship are not one and the same, although aspiring innovators often think of them that way. They are told to get an idea and a team and to build a show-and-tell for potential investors. In Innovating, Luis Perez-Breva describes another approach—a doer’s approach developed over a decade at MIT and internationally in workshops, classes, and companies. He shows that innovating doesn’t require an earth-shattering idea; all it takes is a hunch. Anyone can do it. By prototyping a problem and learning by being wrong, innovating can be scaled up to make an impact. As Perez-Breva demonstrates, “nothing is new” at the outset of what we only later celebrate as innovation. In Innovating, the process—illustrated by unique and dynamic artwork—is shown to be empirical, experimental, nonlinear, and incremental. You give your hunch the structure of a problem. Anything can be a part. Your innovating accrues other people’s knowledge and skills. Perez-Breva describes how to create a kit for innovating, and outlines questions that will help you think in new ways. Finally, he shows how to systematize what you’ve learned: to advocate, communicate, scale up, manage innovating continuously, and document—“you need a notebook to converse with yourself,” he advises. Everyone interested in innovating also needs to read this book.