Breaking Away - Innovation

It is my birthday today. So a time of reflection. Concerned I have much to do still and the clock is ticking (although I fight that also).

I read a great book yesterday by Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani called Breaking Away - How Great Leaders Create Innovation That Drives Sustainable Growth - And Why Others Fail.

I loved the title (although perhaps not the part about failing) since I think a large part of leadership is fostering innovation.

I am, of course, a great believer in innovation. I think one of my strong points is high creativity (not in the artistic sense but in the business innovation sense). I also see success as being tied to those that can innovate and that involves openness to change.

Early in the book, they make the distinction between innovation and discovery and invention which although they are "cousins" are not the same. By their definition, innovation has to be unique, valuable and worthy of exchange.

The authors use a 4 part model for innovation - Transformational, Marketplace, Category and Operational. Each innovation in these quadrants have their own characteristics.

One subsection that really resonated was "don't just listen - hear". Logical and should apply to almost everything in life.

And the book ends with how to create an innovation strategy for a company:

1 - Set Innovation Priorities (I know that setting goals in anything is the best way to accomplish things so this one makes total sense to me)

2 - Establish Success Metrics

3 - Develop Clear Communications

And it ends with GO - Just do it.