Comments

Among many others, I absolutely love these:

"Innovation is not pie-in-the-sky, 'let’s all have a blast, yo my man, cool, eh?' in nature. There is a compelling and disciplined "execution" thread that is central to the innovating organization. The innovating organization is focused on 'new stuff,' 'cool stuff'—but is pragmatic to a fault."

"There is as much accountability around screwing up as there is around inventory management in a traditional outfit; that is, the innovator takes responsiblity for the screw-up and for insuring rapid learning and dissemination of lessons learned and for mounting the follow-up experiment posthaste."

"Hire enthusiasts. Innovation is about active engagement. The more enthusiasts, the more people want to “opt in” and fully engage. Enthusiasts are innovators almost by definition. (Or, at the least, non-enthusiasts are guaranteed non-innovators."

"R&D/Practice 'Nudgery.' Small system nudges can cause grand behavior changes. Become a 'nudge aficionado.' Teach Nudgery."

"Pissed-off Customers Association. No group is more valuable than pissed off customers!! (Even, or especially, irrationally pissed of customers.) Make them part of the family. Shower them with love. Reward them for their contributions. Bring them into electronic and physical networks."

"If your organization chart 'makes sense,' then you probably don't have an innovative enterprise. Adhocracy requires letting go of linearity assumptions."

"The generic 'skunkworks' is, a 'band of brothers and sisters' who are contrarian in nature, determined to go their own way and do it their own way, and who stink-up-the-central-culture as they pursue what they believe is an earth-shattering dream."

"XF/All teams. Foster cooperative XF involvement in activities of all sizes and shapes by all sorts of folks, even, or especially, when the need is not obvious."

OK. I'll stop there, but not because I don't have more favorites. I'm a little sleepy. Night.

Thank you so much for making this available to us; it's very much appreciated, useful, and necessary. It will be very helpful for an upcoming consulting project.

Posted by Judith Ellis at January 13, 2009 2:02 AM

I'm still working my way through this fascinating collection of ideas -- but wanted to mention that #37 (bottom of page 6) is cut off in mid sentence - so the rest of the thought didn't make it to page 7.

Thanks a lot for putting this up -- the "hang out" section in particular (#17-32) is really making me reconsider a lot of my current job search tactics.

Posted by Caroline Lundy at January 13, 2009 5:51 AM

As always thanks for sharing this.

Posted by Patrick at January 13, 2009 10:57 AM