When Should An Innovator Quit Their Job?
There are a number of inspiring success stories when it comes to corporate innovation. A few examples include Frito Lay’s Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Google’s GMail, 3M’s Post-It Notes and McDonald’s Happy Meal. Despite these successes, being a corporate innovator or intrapreneur is not easy. It can be frustrating trying to navigate innovation projects through corporate […]
A Better Way To Think About Success With Innovation
In the corporate world, a lot of people feel that they should be putting their best foot forward. No one wants to admit failure. Such a culture is a problem for innovation. Leaders need to redefine what it means to put your best foot forward. In the best-selling book Originals, author Adam Grant illustrates that the […]
Is Your Innovation Project Condemned To Succeed?
The idea that any project might be condemned to succeed sounds like an oxymoron. But when it comes to innovation, the expectation that any one specific project should succeed can feel like condemnation. This is because the best way for companies to find good innovative ideas is for leaders to make small bets on multiple […]
Do Corporate Innovation Programs Produce Results?
There are very few companies that lack innovation programs. Innovation programs are often bigger than innovation projects and will house more than one innovation project. There are many different examples of corporate innovation programs including idea competitions, corporate incubators, innovation boards and corporate venture capital. The main challenge with corporate innovation programs is ensuring that […]
Three Signs That Innovation Has Power And Legitimacy In Your Company
A majority of leaders now view innovation as one of the top drivers of growth for their company. This means that company leaders can no longer treat innovation as a side show. To ensure that innovation succeeds in driving growth, it has to be accorded equal status to the core business. This is the perennial challenge that […]
Is Your CEO A World Class Innovation Leader?
Without leadership support, most corporate innovation programs are dead on arrival. Grassroots movements can have some early success. However, if they remain within the grassroots, their long term prospects are poor. The corporate antibodies that attack innovation programs are just too strong. Within established companies, the long term success of innovation depends a lot on […]
The Problem With Idea Competitions
Innovation success is, to a great extent, driven by having value propositions that resonate with customers and business models that are scalable and profitable. However, having cool breakthrough ideas is an important ingredient of the innovation process. To drive transformative innovation, you need to have people that can think outside the box of the existing […]
Value Propositions And Business Models Matter More Than Technology
In November 2015, Sony finally announced that it would stop selling Betamax video cassettes. By this time, its battle for dominance with the rival VHS format from rival JVC was already lost. The story of the rivalry between Betamax and JVC, and how JVC eventually won, is an example of how it takes more than […]
Five Ways R&D Panels Can Go Wrong When Deciding To Invest In Innovation Projects
It is virtually impossible for leaders to pick the winning ideas on day one. This is particularly the case when it comes to novel ideas that the company has never worked on before. The business world is filled with examples of business ideas that leaders passed on that later become huge successes. There are also […]
Can Innovation Teams Trick Leaders To Invest In Bad Ideas?
There has been a public fascination with the ongoing trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the now defunct blood testing startup Theranos. Indeed, social media users can’t decide if they love or hate Elizabeth Holmes. Part of the fascination arises from questioning how Theranos was able to raise so much funding before fully proving out their business model. But […]