Interdisciplinary Innovation: Being Innovative is a Way of Imagining, Perceiving, Expressing, Inventing & Inspiring

Innovators present creatively disruptive traits, disrupt old ways, and inspire better ways to do things. They are passionate to connect, to learn, and to explore by understanding commonalities and appreciating uniqueness. Being innovative is a growth mindset and a proactive attitude. You cannot wait for something to happen---keep curious, always think profoundly, learn fresh knowledge, and acquire new capabilities.

Leveraging Alien Thinking: Exclusive Interview with Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade

For the past decade, Cyril BouquetJean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.

The Key to Success In 2021: Building a Creative and Innovative Culture

In this article by Jeff DeGraff, he presents the four types of innovative cultures and four best practices for building a culture of innovation.

Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!

In a time when uncertainty reigns, the fear of being disrupted can brutally hurt any business. Responsible leaders who dare to anticipate disruption and take steps to self-inflict it to their organization in a smart and controlled way are best positioned for the future.

Five Perspectives of Innovation Management Maturity

The success of innovation management is never an accident; it’s a holistic management process with an iterative thought-out planning and execution continuum.

Intrapreneurial Success: Leading Disruption, Managing Change

Embracing an intrapreneurial mindset, which intentionally disrupts things from the inside out and often from the bottom up, is a radical concept for companies that thrive on stability and predictability. However, if an enterprise is committed to developing its innovation capability through intrapreneurship, three groups of people must be mobilized to make it happen: leadership, stakeholders, and innovation support.

Reviving the Swiss Watch Industry: The Remarkable Story of Swatch with Elmar Mock

Elmar Mock is the Founder of Creaholic, but he began his career as an engineer in a deteriorating watch industry. Elmar approached top-level management within his company with an insane idea, a new way to completely innovate the industry and improve sales. Everyone thought he was crazy and his co-workers distanced themselves from him, but that turned out to be a good thing.

The Untold Story Behind Switzerland’s Success with James Breiding

Switzerland – a tiny country with few natural advantages – has become incredibly successful in the world of banking, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and more. James Breiding, author of the bestselling book, Swiss Made, explores the enabling factors for innovation in Switzerland. He makes the point that when an entrepreneur comes up with a new and innovative method or product, there will be resistance from those who have accepted the status quo. Entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs need to have thick skin if they wish to disrupt the market.

Sensing is Exploring Uncharted Territory

Where do you start when you want something new? Whether the aim is just an improvement, a small incremental change or something more unique, disruptive and breakthrough, the start will probably determine where you end up. Do you start jotting down ideas? Do you grab a whiteboard and Post-Its, get a few people in the room, and start brainstorming?

Are You Focusing on the Right Pilot?

Piloting in business innovation means testing an idea effectively. This is not a straightforward process and requires addressing the right questions: What idea should we test? Which aspect of it? How should we go about testing? How should we measure the results? What do we allow these results to mean and what do we do afterwards?

Systematizing Breakthrough Innovation: Study Results

Most companies recognize the need for breakthrough innovation – it can change the fundamental bases of competition, “rewrite the rules” of an industry and transform the prospects of the successful innovator. There is no one-size-fits-all model for how best to respond to this challenge. Arthur D. Little surveyed over 80 large organizations to explore how to deliver a consistent pipeline of radically new products, performance features, business models and market space.

How to Avoid Robot-Zombie Innovation

In order to create Breakthrough Innovations, you need to abandon the corporate robot-zombie talk, says Andrew Benson. By cultivating an open and free form innovation culture organizations can avoid the idea logjams created by formal innovation processes.

The Critical Lead Time to Eruption in Brainstorming Sessions

Dr. Stephen Sweid has conducted more than a hundred structured group brainstorming sessions in recent years, as well as many one-to-one discussion sessions as a consultant and trainer. He has observed a number of common patterns related to timing and evolution of the brainstorming process.