Monday, May 23, 2011

Five common mistakes Business leaders make about innovation

In this excellent article, claritty is made about five main usual mistakes in managing Innovation in a strategic way. 
They show how "conventional wisdom" might be very conventional .. and not wise at all 
Here is a summary of this article 



1. Believe the numbers. One common mistake is to insist on “seeing the numbers” too soon.  If a CEO insists on hard numbers before the project is even started, it will by sheer definition kill off any truly innovative ones, simply because you cannot compute the size of a market that does not exist yet.
2. The success trap. When an organization becomes very good at something, it usually starts to focus on the thing (product, technology, or business model) that made its success–thereby crowding out other options and points of view. 
3. Believe they know the competition.The most threatening competition often comes from a completely different angle: an adjacent industry, innovative start-up, or substitute.  Thinking your biggest competitor is the company most like you will leave a company dangerously exposed to outside innovation.
4. Believe that because everybody had always done it this way, it is the best way of doing things. Industries are rife with habits and business practices from which no one can quite remember why we do them this way.  In many businesses, practices emerged with good reason, but once the circumstances changed, firms carried on using them for no reason whatsoever. The greatest innovations often come from challenging industry convention.
5. Asking the customers for their opinions. Consumer research often is useful but not for truly innovative ideas and markets that do not exist yet. In conclusion, if you want to be really innovative, you have to be leading the customers; not be led by them.

Find the complete version of this article 

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