In many large corporations, there’s a painful and frequently repeated scenario of invention theft that we treat in several ways in the book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue. The invention theft I’m thinking of today is not from foreign spies or evil competitors. It is internal theft, wherein a powerful employee or team within a corporation takes …
Time Travel Is Easy: How to Send Your Company Back to the Dark Ages Read More »
The Summer 2010 issue of American Educator (a publication of the American Federation of Teachers) ably illustrates one of the lessons we teach in Conquering Innovation Fatigue: metrics to drive performance can have unintended consequences that may actually hurt rather than help. Indeed, unintended consequences are a major theme of our book, as we explore …
Death panels have been a hot topic for speculation from some folks worried about health care reform, but in the world of innovation, genuine death panels have long been in place in corporations. Innovation death panels, disguised as intellectual property review committees or IP review boards, have been sending great inventions and great business concepts to …
Death Panels for Innovation: How Are Your Corporate IP Review Boards Doing? Read More »
Recently I spoke to a group of engineers, scientists and managers about the challenges of innovation fatigue within corporate R&D. I condensed that presentation down to just 14 minutes and have made it available using Pixetell.com, a nice system for recording a presentation.A short URL for the presentation is http://tinyurl.com/jlpres1. Engineers and scientists are often …
Conquering Innovation Fatigue for Those in Corporate R&D Read More »
Is your innovation organization running on empty? Crushed, lacking creative juices? Time to add some fizz again with principles from the book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue. As part of the series on Magic and Innovation, today I’m using a simple effect to illustrate what can be achieved with an innovation organization. Available on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JVr017KZBw.
In our newly released book, Conquering Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, July 2009), we offer guidance for innovators, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policy makers. Today I’d like to speak to leaders of teams or organizations where innovation matters but seems to be less effective than it should be. Innovation fatigue can set into an …
The Analogy of the Soda Can: Overcoming Innovation Fatigue in Your Innovation Community Read More »
The world of many two-year-olds and far too many business leaders seems to be dominated by one word: “MINE.” Like the seagulls in the old Disney movie, Finding Nemo, everything within reach is a potential casualty for the chanters of “MINE, MINE, MINE.” Their business model seems to work: kids get what they want much …
Self-Defeating Selfishness: How Win/Lose Thinking Creates Innovation Fatigue and Failure Read More »
As I began writing this post, my wife was in a car a thousand miles away with a brand new smart phone. I received a call on someone else’s phone informing me that my wife’s smart phone had quit working completely after following the instructions she received from tech support to fix the GPS system …
The Palm Pre: How a Focus on Short-Term Results Can Destroy the Fruits of Innovation Read More »
We have emphasized the importance of strengthening “the will to share” as a key to having a culture of innovation in an organization. Breaking the will to share is one of the most dangerous innovation fatigue factors that we discuss in our book. Google, typically a hotbed of innovation, continues to show that they understand …
Strengthening the Will to Share: Google’s Approach Read More »
One of the nine major “Innovation Fatigue Factors” that we emphasize in the book is what we call “Breaking the Will to Share.” This describes the tenuous bonds of loyalty and trust that motivate innovators in an organization to bring forth their best ideas and breathe life into their work for the good of the …
Breaking the Will to Share: The Silent Innovation Killer Read More »