Innovation is about more than just having great ideas – a point we’ve made here repeatedly. To innovate, you also have to execute ideas relentlessly. For many people, this is actually the hard part. I’m currently reading Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky, and it has some of the most sensible advice on this topic […]
Three stories that caught my eye today: First up, Stowe Boyd found this quote about competing with internet research firms Gartner and Forrester: In our view, firms wishing to disrupt the Gartner and Forrester models must have two particular attributes. First, they need a significant differentiator. It can be in specialization, the business model, service […]
We keep hearing that the whole point of strategy is build a sustainable competitive advantage. This makes some sense, up to a point. The problem though is that the skills and routines that help us build one can also constrain us, and prevent us from responding to a changing environment. That change can be someone […]
Almost every single time you are offered a black or white choice, the real answer is grey. This is inconvenient, because we like things to either white or black, right or wrong, easy or hard, incremental or radical. But the simple fact is that all of these are false dichotomies. Nearly everything that is presented […]
One area of thinking around innovation that doesn’t get much attention is how ownership and governance affects the ability of an organization to be innovative. It’s an issue that’s been playing on my mind for a few years but a recent conversation has prompted me to write down some ideas. First. I’ll just outline the […]
Innovation is more than just generating ideas. Most organisations have more than enough ideas. They might need better ones, but usually they need to get better at selecting ideas, executing ideas, and diffusing ideas. The irony of this situation is that there are a lot of techniques around (and consultants that use them!) designed to […]
I had a chance to catch up with a friend last week who recently changed jobs. He is passionate about innovation, and his previous job title had been “Innovation Champion”, a position seemingly custom-designed for his skills and interests. So why did he switch jobs? That was one of the topics that we discussed. It […]
Here’s an exercise in connecting up ideas based on a few innovation-related quotes that have caught my attention over the past few days: If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you’re an idiot. That’s Umberto Eco, via Stowe Boyd. This reminded me of a point made […]
One of the long-term themes running through the blog is how to encourage people to be more innovative. This a really tough question because the foundation of innovation is what people believe, say and do. In other words, becoming innovative is about changing the culture of the organization and this is always a long haul. […]