This article from Business Week highlights many of the challenges to rebuilding a business for innovation that we discussed in class. It provides advise to a turnaround CEO… much of the points align with our conclusions from class. Namely:
- Recruit Believers – As with Intuit case, the change required fresh talent with innovative thinking;
- Hire Objective Senior Managers – creating the right metrics and accountability measures is critical (as we saw in Donnelly);
- Fail Forward – encourage risk-taking; and,
- Control the Framing – this is an interesting idea that we did not discuss: “If you control the language, you control the expectations.”
I think these points are warranted, even if unsubstantiated with real-life examples in the article. I liked this perspective, because it is resonates with many of the themes we have discussed in class.
The article ends with some practical advise about immovable innovation obstacles — quit! What do you think about the idea of quitting when the going gets tough in innovation?
2 replies on “The CEO’s Innovation Nightmare”
Well, if you leave, you haven’t transformed anything. It may be easier in your own career (working for Google, not General Motors). If it’s at the beginning of your career, I would give it 2 years, then quit (why waste your life in a poor organization). If you’re CEO, you can’t just simply quit–your job is to transform. Morten
This was interesting. I do think the control the framing speaks to getting everyone to speak the same language which increases organizational alignment.
I’m struck by how these tips really focus on the idea generation portion of the IVC. It’s not clear that the author considered any steps beyond generating ideas and experimenting with them.
Joy