11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Innovative thinking about innovative thinking, April 30, 2009
This review is from: Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates (Hardcover)
I am among those who agree with Michael Porter that "the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do" and with Peter Drucker that "there is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." These two observations are directly relevant to the material that Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson present as they respond brilliantly to questions such as these:
1. How to create the preconditions for innovation?
2. How to establish a foundation of "novel strategic insights"?
3. How to generate a "torrent" of new opportunities for innovative thinking?
4. How to ask the right questions at the right time?
5. How to construct an "innovation architecture"?
6. How to select, schedule, manage, and leverage investments in innovation?
7. What does "driving to innovation" involve?
8. When doing so, how to balance supply and demand?
9. How to build a "systematic innovation capability"?
10. How to sustain innovation?
The Porter and Drucker observations correctly stress the importance of knowing what not to do as well as knowing what to do. There are countless examples throughout the history of business when brilliant execution had catastrophic consequences. I suspect this is what Gary Hamel had in mind when suggesting in the Introduction that in a world of ever-accelerating change, "innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance. In an environment of steadily decreasing friction and crumbling entry barriers, innovation is the only antidote to margin-crushing competition. And in a global economy where knowledge advantages dissipate ever more rapidly, innovation is the only brake on commoditization."
However, as Skarzynski and Gibson so skillfully explain in this book, decision-makers in organizations that aspire to be more innovative, who now seek answers to questions such as those previously listed, must be innovative in how they think about the innovation process, not merely producing clever new products or devising intriguing new services. Hence the importance of what Skarzynski and Gibson characterize as creating the preconditions for innovation, establishing a foundation of "novel strategic insights," and constructing an "innovation architecture." They cite and examine exemplary companies such as GE, P&G, Whirlpool, and CEMEX to illustrate how they took somewhat different approaches to achieve these preliminary objectives. I agree with them that the new mindset must be developed at all levels and in all areas of an organization.
I commend Skarzynski and Gibson on their skillful use of various reader-friendly devices that facilitate, indeed accelerate frequent review of key points later. For example, at the conclusion of most chapters they provide (in combination) "innovation challenges" and "leadership imperatives" relevant to the chapter's subject. Here are brief excerpts from Chapter 5, Innovating Across the Business Model, found on Page 122:
Innovation Challenge: "How do I keep my current business model fresh and innovative?"
One of four Leadership Imperatives provided: "Challenge each of the core assumptions of your current business model. Are yesterday's assumptions still valid, or have they become today's orthodoxies? Are they blind spots that your competition could exploit?"
These end-of-chapter sections summarize key points and should also be viewed as "gut checks" or "reality checks." The questions posed should be frequently asked and then answered with both rigor and candor. I also appreciate Skarzynski and Gibson's provision throughout the narrative of a series of several "Ask Yourself" checklists as well as various Figures that illustrate key points about "Hierarchy versus diversity" (Page 29), "Divergent phase of innovation architecture process" and "Convergent phase of innovation architecture process" (Page 141), "Experimentation matters - not `trial and error'" (Page 193), and "Whirlpool's infrastructure" (Page 233).
Of course, all of the material provided in this book is essentially worthless if it remains ignored in a book that remains unread or unused on a shelf or atop a credenza. Moreoever, as Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson would be the first to point out, it would be a fool's errand to try to apply everything that they recommend without making appropriate modifications. That said, I know of no other single source that offers more valuable information and counsel than does this one to those who are determined to transform the way their company innovates.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book about innovation with a focus on people, September 20, 2008
This review is from: Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates (Hardcover)
Innovation to the Core is an excellent book! I can recommend this book to anyone working in large enterprises on innovation, innovation processes or business strategy. While not going deep into the question why innovation is important, the authors role out an extensive plan how to make innovation a core capability of your organization. It is assumed that successful application of this "blueprint" will ultimately lead to sustained competitive advantage through continuous breakthrough innovation both in products and in the business model. The examples of Whirlpool, P&G, IBM, GE and others are used to proof this assumption.
The book is very much focused on the importance of people behind innovation and discusses a wide array of business elements that may need to be changed in order to implement and operate a holistic, seamlessly integrated innovation process. The transformation process and key issues are repeatedly compared to the development of TQM many years ago. An idea that I like because it allows us to learn from experience in the past where companies were challenged with a focus on quality similar to a focus on innovation today.
While this book is great when read with a focus on the key issues surrounding cultural change, values and corporate learning, I can not agree that it is a complete blueprint for making innovation work. The key topic of IT and processes did not get the attention it should have received to complete this book. According to my own experience with global organizations and also to other authors like Prahalad in his latest book on innovation, are IT systems and processes two of the key success factors to a sustainable system of innovation inside the enterprise. Skarzynski & Gibson devote several chapters to processes and IT but only at a very high level without making clear that infrastructure transformation is a key challenge of large enterprises with their zoo of grown systems and millions of dollars wasted every year in efforts to transform these systems into something efficient. If the authors could upgrade the chapter on IT to show how the architecture can be transformed in a workable way this book would be just perfect!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good insight on how to create an innovation mindset, November 5, 2009
This review is from: Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates (Hardcover)
The book is a guide on how to develop an innovation culture inside an organization. Industry agnostic, and with a lot of good examples, it illustrates the main steps an organization should take to gain a competitive advantage through innovation. Its focus is on new concepts like crowd sourcing and openness to customers, employees and even competitors rather the traditional secrecy of the R&D department, and has a broad perspective on innovation, not simply NPD. I recommend it to anyone interested in innovation management.
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