You're walking down the street and that little light bulb flashes above your head, and you know you're about to revolutionize your life or the future of the company you run or work for. Alas, you get home and your core life intercedes--the kids need help with their homework, or there's a leak in the kitchen sink. By morning, you've forgotten that great idea. Or you bring the idea to work and it ends up being ground up and left for dead by the everyday forces of running the business.
Sadly, a lot of truly innovation proposals amount to nothing for business because "life gets in the way." As Dartmouth/Tuck School of Business Professor Vijay Govindarajan puts it in Five Warning Signs Your Innovation Efforts Are Going Off the Rail (HBR Blog 8/16/10), "Execution is the poor stepchild of the innovation challenge. People love to engage in the hunt for the big ideas, but, let's face it, without execution capability, an idea on paper is....just an idea on paper." Successful innovating companies institute an innovation process that ensures those ideas get off the paper without undermining the day-to-day function of the core business--that is, they develop a "dedicated team for the innovation initiative that partners rather than fights with the core business." But even with that team in place, Govindarajan says things can go horribly awry. His five warning signs point out the tensions, jealousies and turf wars that occur when innovation process meets core business.
It seems that what businesses need to innovate is their innovation processes. That's why WBF10 is excited to present today's leading voice on the subject, Govindarajan, who will bring his unique views on how to build a highly innovative business within an already profitable business to World Business Forum 2010 on October 6. The Business Week"Top Ten Business School Professor in Corporate Executive Education" will also discuss the three forces driving constant strategy redefinition and and how breakthrough strategies should be executed, among other topics. For a sneak preview, here is Govindarajan on "strategy as transformation."
So, it all boils down to what's inside box number one, box number two, and box number three. Monty Hall would probably get a kick out of that; your business could, too.
I see companies all of the time block innovations because they can’t get their heads around the benefit of a new way of doing something--- the status quo police are out to get you. See this posting in Forbes magazine http://bit.ly/c7mPoT
Posted by: Ryan | September 10, 2010 at 02:33 PM