The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times [Hardcover]

Scott D. Anthony (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 1, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1422139018 | ISBN-13: 978-1422139011 | Edition: Edition Unstated

Experts agree: The turbulence triggered by the economic shock of 2008 constitutes the "new normal." Unfortunately, too many managers have become paralyzed by it, capable only of slashing costs indiscriminately.

Though examining spending during recessions makes sense, the smartest executives do much more. As Scott Anthony reveals in The Silver Lining, these leaders continue innovating--by stopping ineffective initiatives, changing key business processes, and starting more productive behaviors. Result? Their companies emerge from downturns stronger than ever.

Providing a wealth of ideas, tools, and examples from diverse industries, Anthony explains how to safeguard your company's profitability during even the toughest recessions. You'll discover how to:

-Prune your innovation and business portfolio to liberate resources for more promising initiatives

- Adopt a radical new market-segmentation scheme that helps you re-feature your offerings to reduce costs while delivering new value to customers

- Reinvent your innovation process to drive fresh growth

- Mitigate innovation risks by conducting strategic experiments and forging alliances with customers and other external entities

- Appeal to increasingly value-conscious customers to fend off low-cost attackers

In today's brutal economic climate, executives must pare costs to the bone while planting and nurturing seeds for tomorrow's growth. The Silver Lining explains how to master this seemingly impossible challenge.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Scott D. Anthony is president of Innosight, an innovation consultancy, and lead author of The Innovator's Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work. At Innosight, he has worked with clients ranging from national governments to leading consumer-products, media, health-care, telecommunications, and software companies.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 145 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press; Edition Unstated edition (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1422139018
• ISBN-13: 978-1422139011
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #882,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Scott D. Anthony is the managing partner of Innosight, a global strategic innovation consulting and investment firm. Based in the firm's Singapore offices since 2010, he has led Innosight's expansion into the Asia-Pacific region as well as its venture capital activities (Innosight Ventures). He has worked with clients ranging from national governments to companies in industries as diverse as healthcare, telecommunications, consumer products, and software. He has authored "The Little Black Book of Innovation,""The Silver Lining" and "Building a Growth Factory" and coauthored "Seeing What's Next" and "The Innovator's Guide to Growth."

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just an innovation handbook for uncertain times, but an innovation handbook for all times. June 1, 2009

By Jeff Lippincott VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I liked this book. It wasn't particularly long, but it was simple and packed a powerful message for today's business leaders. Innovations a company create are the key to its success. It's innovations that keep existing companies in business. And its innovations that allow startups to get up and running. I found the book to be well organized and well written. Each chapter (9 in total) had a nice little summary which made skimming the book easy before reading it from cover to cover.

For some reason this book made its way to the B&N bookshelves about two or three weeks before its official release date of June 1 per Amazon. I read it back on May 19th along with The Future Arrived Yesterday: The Rise of the Protean Corporation and What It Means for You which I thought was a better book by a little. Both books talk about how business leaders have to stay ahead of their competition and be willing to give the customer what the customer wants, and be able to respond nimbly to change in the economy, the industry, and the market.

Whether change comes about gradually, abruptly in the form of a crisis, or somewhat quickly companies and their leaders need to always be thinking about innovations that can keep them competitive. Usually such innovations relate to some sort of convenience, accessibility, affordability, simplicity, or reinvention. As long as R&D is done strategically rather than haphazardly it shouldn't amount to a black hole for dumping company resources. And the smart and savvy business leader will realize that every forced change usually presents opportunities to be exploited.

The subtitle to this book says it is supposed to be an innovation playbook for uncertain times.... I'm not so sure "certain times" ever existed. And I'm pretty much positive that uncertain times are here to stay. So in my humble opinion this book is really an Innovation Playbook - period. I think this book should be required reading for all business leaders and entrepreneurs. 5 stars! Read more ›

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Will the Real Playbook Please Stand Up? June 11, 2009

By R. Keeler Cox

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wow.

This book, in my humble opinion, is all over the lot. On one hand, it has what I consider to be serious scholarship issues -- but on the other hand it's loaded with potentially useful information.

Thumbs down:

I don't think the book meets the high standards I associate with "Harvard Business". To me, the writing is dull and clunky; key concepts aren't sufficiently developed (the word `innovation' isn't even defined); and, many of the ideas I've seen somewhere else before. (Michael Porter's influence is in there, for example, but neither he nor "What is Strategy?" is cited.) Another bone of contention: contrary to what we're led to believe, the book really doesn't have much specifically to do with the current economic downturn.

Thumbs up (the book's silver lining):

At the same time, there's a lot to be applauded -- including the way the whole thing is "macro-organized" according to what business leaders should STOP doing, do DIFFERENTLY, and START doing. Mr. Anthony does a nice job of using this framework to explain what makes the innovation process work. I like his take on the use of *strategic experiments* for improving the process, among several other things.

Explanations are accompanied in each chapter by specific RECOMMENDATIONS (things companies can do to innovate better) in the various forms of step-by-step guides, self-diagnostic tools, checklists, and tips. Not unlike plays a football team might deploy in a game, these are real, practical tools I can envision real business people using.

Final analysis?

Someone was on the right track, I think, to call this a `playbook'. And I think The Silver Lining has the makings to be a FIVE-STAR playbook......but it falls short, it seems to me, because the author chose to try to be everything to everyone and ended up producing a mixed bag instead.

* * * * * * * *

What might nudge it in the five-star direction?

For starters, I'd consider ridding it of b-school buzz words, providing some space for doodling, and finishing it with a laminated cover and Wire-O binding. One Harvard Business blogger suggested earlier this year we should drop-kick the word `innovation' altogether and start talking more in terms of "making good things and creating organizations that reward the types of behaviors that ultimately lead to good ideas coming forward." I'd give that some thought, too. Read more ›

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The Silver Lining September 13, 2011

By kiwipuer

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I didn't find this book that useful or that it presented anything new or mentally enquiring. I also thought it was published quicky to take advantage of the current state of the economy. It's OK.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Innovation manual focusing on economic change October 26, 2009

By Rolf Dobelli HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

During economic downtimes, most corporate strategists feel like burying their heads in the sand and forgetting about innovating until the storm has passed. Scott D. Anthony recommends doing the opposite. In this fun, practical book on innovation, he explains how to maintain optimistic, entrepreneurial activities - including ongoing innovation - when the going gets tough. However, the lessons that Anthony draws from times of great economic upheaval are useful any time and anywhere. He focuses on the structural, strategic issues surrounding innovation, such as how to plan for it, organize it and make budget cuts in ways that still support it. His material on how to profit by innovating for the low end of the market is particularly apt. getAbstract recommends this accessible, applicable book to leaders who want to innovate now more than ever.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars What to do in a stormy day July 27, 2009

By Alvaro Gonzalez Alorda

Format:Hardcover

I didn't plan to spend the day reading The Silver Lining, but I happened to read it because of an unexpected -and by the way scary- storm in Miami, where I'm staying for a few weeks.

Thanks to God for the storm and thanks to Scott Anthony for the relatively short and insightful book he has written. It contains keys and methodology to allocate resources (people, time and money) for promising innovations that might help to transform the company.

Companies rarely transform themselves through cost cutting or improved operational effectiveness. Nowadays, they need a very special kind of leadership to dare to transform relatively successful -but declining- business models.

And since my job consists on helping management teams to unleash this transformation within the company, reading The Silver Lining has been a worth investment that I strongly recommend. Specially for those stormy days your company is going through, or shall go through in the future...

Posted in my blog: [...]