Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.
Interpretation
Innovation is vital for relevance and long-term success in business.
In this quote, Gary Hamel emphasizes the critical role of innovation in maintaining competitiveness and relevance in today's fast-paced world. He argues that without continuous innovation, businesses risk becoming irrelevant, lose customer loyalty, and may struggle to thrive in a poor economic environment. Thus, innovation is presented not only as a strategy for growth but as a necessary foundation for enduring success.
In practice
During a business seminar, to highlight the need for continuous improvement.
The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors.
The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs.
To create an organization that's adaptable and innovative, people need the freedom to challenge precedent, to 'waste' time, to go outside of channels, to experiment, to take risks and to follow their passions.
If customer ignorance is a profit centre for you, you're in trouble.
It doesn't matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is - what matters is its relative 'share of customer value' in the final product or solution, and its cost of producing that value.
The single biggest reason companies fail is they overinvest in what is, as opposed to what might be.
When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.
Innovative ideas are rarely rejected on their merits; they’re rejected because of how they make people feel. If you forget people’s concerns and feelings when you present an innovation, or neglect to understand their perspectives in your design, you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Most innovation is not done by research institutes and national laboratories. It comes from manufacturing - from companies that want to extend their product reach, improve their costs, increase their returns. What's very important is in-house research.
Innovation happens when people are given the freedom to ask questions and the resources and power to find the answers.
To be an inventor, you have to be willing to live with a sense of uncertainty, to work in this darkness and grope towards an answer, to put up with anxiety about whether there is an answer.
Surprise drives progress because innovation depends on the sort of knowledge no one can gather in a central place.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.