The one-sentence summary

Everyone has the ability to innovate – curiosity, creativity and growth can be generated by following a rigorous programme.

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WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • This is a primer on how innovation works and how to instigate it.
  • It explains the history of innovation and then maps out a 28-day programme you can follow.
  • Innovation is defined as ‘Something different that has impact’ (note the absence of the words ‘creative’ and ‘never been done before’).
  • He nominates 12 masters of innovation, including:
    • Steve Blank: start-ups are temporary organisations searching for scale
    • Clayton Christensen: doing everything ‘right’ can lead to vulnerability
    • Peter Drucker: the customer rarely buys what the company thinks it is selling
    • Joseph Schumpeter: sometimes you have to destroy to create
    • A. G. Lafley: innovation is a process that can be managed and mastered
    • Roger Martin: managers need to take ors and turn them into ands
    • Bill James: looking at old data in new ways can highlight counterintuitive patterns
    • Michael Mauboussin: insight can come from applying lessons from ‘non-obvious’ fields to your problem

WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT IT

  • Attitudinally he draws from:
    • A.G. Lafley: Take an external viewpoint
    • Mike Tyson: Recognise that you are wrong (he famously said: “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.”)
    • Thomas Edison: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration
    • Robert Anthony: Fight the sucking sound of the core (this is his father commenting on the persistent drag of a company back to what it always does)
  • ·The seven deadly sins of innovation are:
    1. Pride: forcing your view of quality onto the market
    2. Sloth: letting innovation efforts slow to a crawl
    3. Gluttony: throwing too much resource at something
    4. Lust: getting distracted chasing too many bright shiny objects
    5. Envy: pitting the core business against innovation efforts
    6. Wrath: punishing risk takers severely
    7. Greed: impatience for growth, leading to pursuit of low potential markets

WHAT YOU HAVE TO WATCH

  • There’s nothing new here, but it would be a good starting place for anyone researching the area, or wanting a method for a first attempt.