clair075

If you stick around innovation long enough you'll probably come to believe that we are all dead-enders.  After all, what group of people could willingly embrace as much failure with such a positive attitude?  Failure, you'll be reminded, is necessary for innovation.  I like to quote the saying that my ski instructor told me years ago - "if you aren't falling, you aren't trying hard enough". Many believe that failure is important for innovators because people learn from their failures.  That is, they will fail once and try again, only hopefully not repeating the same old mistakes as the previous time.  Others believe that failure makes an innovator more resolute, more willing to stick to an idea even more aggressively the second time around. Both of these reasons have some truth to them.  Every innovator is (hopefully) smart enough not to repeat the same mistakes again and again, but I'm sure some do.  Every innovator knows that innovation is difficult ...

I've been thinking a lot lately about innovation and how we may have emphasized one component at the expense of another.  Here I'm talking about something that should appear obvious - the focus of innovation in building new things.  We are constantly reminded that innovation is about building new products and services and experiences.  And this definition is entirely right and proper. But I think it neglects something very important.  I was reminded of this recently when at dinner with an executive from a large manufacturing concern.  This company makes many different products, one of them components for mattresses.  Now, all of us want far more innovation to make mattresses more comfortable, to make them last longer and so on.  But, strange to think, the internal coil mattress is actually a very complicated product, a virtual lasagna of layers of cover, cotton, and steel.  While that finished product is very comfortable, it is very d...

When a noted doyen of the Fortune 500 like Coca Cola talks innovation, your ears should perk up.  After all the consumer packaged goods conglomerate has been in business for a long time, and has been successful, but is facing a number of headwinds in its core business.  Selling sugary drinks seems passe, as bottled water, energy drinks and other health conscious foods and beverages seem to be taking over the "share of mouth" or "share of stomach" that food and beverage companies like to talk about. When a company that has both succeeded at innovation and failed utterly at new product development and launch (remember New Coke?) talks innovation publicly, it's worth listening to.  When the Chief Talent Officer talks about the skills that Coke needs in order to sustain innovation, it's worth listening even closer.  Stacy Panayioutou, Coke's Chief Talent Officer, was recently interviewed by CBS News .  What's interesting in the discussion is the types of...

Darwin teaches us that evolution is a long, slow process, gradually leading to new adaptive species that emerge over time with specialized capabilities.  Therefore, the change in species from generation to generation may be relatively small, but always purposeful and testing the best ways to win in a niche.  Just as both the Chihuahua and the Newfoundland emerged from evolution (and a fair amount of selective breeding) from the wolf, modern businesses are slowly emerging and adapting new forms and styles based on the first modern enterprises - the army and the railroads.  What Darwin acknowledged but didn't fully explore is that most evolution happens as described above, slowly, over generations, evolving to meet the opportunities and needs of environmental niches.  Evolution in this regard is based on a slowly changing environment and heavy but balanced competition.  What Darwin didn't spend as much time on is the discordant evolution that accompanied dramatic ...