If you read nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you take your business into the future--the right way. This collection includes these exceptional HBR articles: "Innovation's Holy Grail" by C.K. Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar, "Stop the Innovation Wars" by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, "How GE Is Disrupting Itself" by Jeffrey R. Immelt, Vijay Govindarajan, and Chris Trimble, "The Customer-Centered Innovation Map" by Lance A. Bettencourt and Anthony W. Ulwick, "The Innovation Value Chain" by Morten T. Hansen and Julian Birkinshaw, "Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing?" by George S. Day, "Innovation: The Classic Traps" by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "Discovery-Driven Planning" by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, "The Discipline of Innovation" by Peter F. Drucker, and "Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things" by Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih.
This collection was previously published as "Harvard Business Review on Inspiring and Executing Innovation." We've moved it to HBR's 10 Must Reads series because the ideas are critical to the success of every manager and aspiring leader, meeting our high standards for must-read status.
For years we’ve been puzzling about why so many smart, hardworking managers in well-run companies find it impossible to innovate successfully. Our investigations have uncovered a number of culprits, which we’ve discussed in earlier books and articles. These include paying too much attention to the company’s most profitable customers (thereby leaving less-demanding customers at risk) and creating new products that don’t help customers do the jobs they want to do. Now we’d like to name the misguided application of three financial-analysis tools as an accomplice in the conspiracy against successful innovation. We allege crimes against these suspects:
The use of discounted cash flow (DCF) and net present value (NPV) to evaluate investment opportunities causes managers to underestimate the real returns and benefits of proceeding with investments in innovation.
The way that fixed and sunk costs are considered when evaluating future investments confers an unfair advantage on challengers and shackles incumbent firms that attempt to respond to an attack.
The emphasis on earnings per share as the primary driver of share price and hence of shareholder value creation, to the exclusion of almost everything else, diverts resources away from investments whose payoff lies beyond the immediate horizon.
Discovery-driven planning is a practical tool that acknowledges the difference between planning for a new venture and planning for a more conventional line of business. Conventional planning operates on the premise that managers can extrapolate future results from a well-understood and predictable platform of past experience. One expects predictions to be accurate because they are based on solid knowledge rather than on assumptions. In platform-based planning, a venture’s deviations from plan are a bad thing.
Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman (2005), "The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization"
Chris Anderson (2008), "The Long Tail, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More"
Brad Feld (2012), "Startup companies: building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city"
Q & A with Author Brad Feld What is the "Startup Revolution"? The vast majority of net new job creation in the last 30 years has come from new startups--specifically companies created during this time frame. As the global economy continues to struggle, entrepreneurs, through new startup companies, are leading the way in creating new innovations, new products and services, and new jobs.
J. Dyer, H. Gregersen, C. Christensen (2011), "The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the five skills of disruptive innovators"
Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators The Innovator's DNA emerged from an eight-year collaborative study in which we sought to uncover the origins of innovative-and often disruptive- business ideas. So we interviewed nearly a hundred inventors of revolutionary products and services, as well as founders and CEOs of game-changing companies built on innovative business ideas.
Noam Wasserman (2012), "The Founder's Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup"
A] seminal work. . . . Sure to be required reading in business school curricula, this illuminating and captivating read will also appeal to aspiring entrepreneurs or founders who want to make better decisions in existing ventures. (Publishers Weekly )[A] first-aid manual to help resuscitate ailing start-ups.
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation (2012) | HBR on Inspiring & Executing Innovation (2011)
If you read nothing else on inspiring and executing innovation, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you take your business into the future--the right way. This collection includes these exceptional HBR articles: "Innovation's Holy Grail" by C.K. Prahalad and R.A. Mashelkar, "Stop the Innovation Wars" by Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble, "How GE Is Disrupting Itself" by Jeffrey R. Immelt, Vijay Govindarajan, and Chris Trimble, "The Customer-Centered Innovation Map" by Lance A. Bettencourt and Anthony W. Ulwick, "The Innovation Value Chain" by Morten T. Hansen and Julian Birkinshaw, "Is It Real? Can We Win? Is It Worth Doing?" by George S. Day, "Innovation: The Classic Traps" by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, "Discovery-Driven Planning" by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, "The Discipline of Innovation" by Peter F. Drucker, and "Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things" by Clayton M. Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih.
This collection was previously published as "Harvard Business Review on Inspiring and Executing Innovation." We've moved it to HBR's 10 Must Reads series because the ideas are critical to the success of every manager and aspiring leader, meeting our high standards for must-read status.
Christensen, Kaufman and Shih (2008), Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things [HBR]
For years we’ve been puzzling about why so many smart, hardworking managers in well-run companies find it impossible to innovate successfully. Our investigations have uncovered a number of culprits, which we’ve discussed in earlier books and articles. These include paying too much attention to the company’s most profitable customers (thereby leaving less-demanding customers at risk) and creating new products that don’t help customers do the jobs they want to do. Now we’d like to name the misguided application of three financial-analysis tools as an accomplice in the conspiracy against successful innovation. We allege crimes against these suspects:
The use of discounted cash flow (DCF) and net present value (NPV) to evaluate investment opportunities causes managers to underestimate the real returns and benefits of proceeding with investments in innovation.
The way that fixed and sunk costs are considered when evaluating future investments confers an unfair advantage on challengers and shackles incumbent firms that attempt to respond to an attack.
The emphasis on earnings per share as the primary driver of share price and hence of shareholder value creation, to the exclusion of almost everything else, diverts resources away from investments whose payoff lies beyond the immediate horizon.
Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan (1995), Discovery-Driven Planning [Harvard Business Review])
Discovery-driven planning is a practical tool that acknowledges the difference between planning for a new venture and planning for a more conventional line of business. Conventional planning operates on the premise that managers can extrapolate future results from a well-understood and predictable platform of past experience. One expects predictions to be accurate because they are based on solid knowledge rather than on assumptions. In platform-based planning, a venture’s deviations from plan are a bad thing.
Scott Anthony, Mark Johnson, Joseph Sinfield and Elizabeth Altman (2008), Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work
Vijay Jolly (1997), Commercializing New Technologies
HBR (2011), Harvard Business Review on Rebuilding Your Business Model
Mark w. Johnson (2010), Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal
Chris Guillebeau (2012), The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
Saul Kaplan (2012), The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to Stay Relevant When The World is Changing
Nicholas J. Webb (2011), The Digital Innovation Playbook: Creating a Transformative Customer Experience
The Digital Innovation Playbook: Creating a Transformative Customer ExperienceThere are more than 3.5 billion pieces of shared content each week on Facebook alone; more than 700,000 businesses with active Facebook pages; 5.3 billion Facebook fans from purpose-built Facebook pages; 22 million LinkedIn users across Europe, with 100 million worldwide; 140 million Tweets per day; and 70 percentof bloggers talking about brands on their blogs.Whether you want them or not, there's a vast, untapped pool of naturally occurring conversations going on about your company right now.
Straker (1997), Rapid Problem Solving with Post-It Notes
David Sibbet (2011), Visual Teams: Graphic Tools for Commitment, Innovation, and High Performance
From the Book: Visual Teams in Meeting Settings Same Time/Same Place-Face-to-Face Meetings The traditional, and historically most familiar way to work as a team, is face-to-face at the same time and in the same place. Many kinds of work groups are still located in the same geographic area or building and can meet together this way.
Silverstein, Samuel and DeCarlo (2008), The Innovator's Toolkit: 50+ Techniques for Predictable and Sustainable Organic Growth
Webb and Toen (2010),The Innovation Playbook: A Revolution in Business Excellence
Maital and Seshadri (2007), Innovation Management: Strategies, Concepts and Tools for Growth and Profit
Innovation Management: Strategies, Concepts and Tools for Growth and Profit combines the extensive knowledge and international experience of authors Shlomo Maital and D. V. R. Seshadri. The book aims to teach readers in a systematic way how to effectively build winning business strategies and help companies achieve sustained growth and profit through innovation.
Davila, Epstein and Shelton (2005), Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It
Allan Afuah (2002), Innovation Management: Strategies, Implementation, and Profits
"I think this book is excellent and fills a big gap in the literature as it makes a bridge between the economics literature and the management literature. It will be an extremely useful book for students everywhere." -- Chris Freeman, University of Sussex"Afuah has written a first-rate text, which is exemplary in both its basis in academic research and its comprehensives.
Richard Razgaitis (2009), Valuation and Dealmaking of Technology-Based Intellectual Property: Principles, Methods and Tools
Touhill, Touhill and O'Riordan (2008), Commercialization of Innovative Technologies: Bringing Good Ideas to the Marketplace
"Unlike other recently published bio / technology entrepreneurship books that are either textbooks or provide a higher-level overview of technology commercialization, Commercialization of Innovative Technologies is a practical guide for technology commercialization practitioners, who want a perspective from the viewpoint of a technology commercialization consulting firm."
Speser (2006), The Art and Science of Technology Transfer
Poltorak, Lerner (2003), Essentials of Licensing Intellectual Property
Terwiesch and Ulrich (2009), Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities
Christian Terwiesch and Karl Ulrich are professors at The Wharton School, where they teach in the innovation and product development field. They have helped dozens of organizations in a wide range of industries - including consumer packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, financial services, and high technology - to become more innovative.
Christensen, Roth and Anthony (2004), Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change
Christensen and Raynor (2003), The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma) analyzes the strategies that allow corporations to successfully grow new businesses and outpace the other players in the marketplace. Christensen's earlier book examined how focusing on profits can destroy even well-run corporations, while this book focuses on companies expanding by being "disruptors" who are able to outpace their entrenched competition.
Clayton M. Christensen (2003), The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business