XFX/Cross-functional excellence
physical, lunch,
project structure, transparency, “emergent
leadership,” “facebook,” etc

Prototype mania
“action bias,” “serious play,” “most
tries wins,” “execution is strategy”

Portfolio management
Score every project

Celebrate failures
“most mistakes wins,”
“Fail. Forward. Fast.”, mining pissed off customers

Decentralization
“attitude,” budgetary control/30%
to 80%, accountability, “spontaneous discovery
process”

Centralization
once in a blue moon—“culture
change”/HP-Fiorina; “Centers of Excellence”-GSK

Targeted-small acquisitions
need a strong retention
process

Alternate structures
“Skunkworks,” 1% “play
money,” “parallel universe,” internal “venture funds,”
partnership with lead vendors-customers,
“adhocracy” in general

Weed the portfolio
Wave “bye-bye” to old friends,
mastering “organizational forgetting”

Acknowledge-revel in the mess
logic behind “try it”
culture, champion inefficiency

Fight for simplicity, war on complexity
Drucker: “90%
of what we call ‘management, consists …”

“We  are what we eat”/ “hang out factor”
lead
customers, vendors, board, consultants, diversity
per se, mentor “freaks,” “crowdsourcing”—carefully
managed!

R&D equal all functions
e.g. systems innovation = new
product innovation

100% innovators
“What do you think?”, “culture” of
respect, HR’s lead role

Practice “nudgery”
bigger cart, +50% purchases

“Gandhi’s rule”
“You must be the change you wish to
see in the world,” “timid begets timid”

Diverse “team at the top”!

“Enthusiasm ‘machine’”
“I am a dispenser of
enthusiasm,” extreme language-“insanely great”

Passion for “cool”
“design mindfulness”

MBWA
Managing By Wandering Around—in touch with
the “coal face”

Women
“the market,” not a “market segment;”
micro-lending/Yunus-Cemex

“Boring” as well as/more than “sexy”
Jim’s Group,
Basement Systems Inc

Big stinks/SMEs rule
Mittelstand, Foster’s stats: 0 for 1,000

Infrastructure
eg, research universities, venture
capital, national initiatives such as Korea and design,
primary education

• • Blogging Innovation
  • Brainzooming
  • Innovating to Win
  • Innovation in Practice
  • Outside Innovation
  • Real Innovation
  • Stefan Lindegaard
  • Technology, Innovation & Entrepreneurship

An innovation team of about 10 people from IT, marketing, customer service and gaming evaluate idea submissions from employees. Harrah’s also taps the innovations of vendors and is considering enlisting the public in seeking new innovations in gaming and entertainment. To gather even more feedback, Harrah’s created an “Innovation Portal” where employees can vote for their favorite innovation. Top management (CEO Gary Loveman and VP of Innovation Chris Chang) then decides which ideas ultimately get funded.
Identify the areas of top priority to your firm, to help steer energy & momentum in the areas that will provide most value to your firm.
Use themes to look for the deeper, long-term enablers and platforms rather than shallow short-term gadgets and projects.
Ask employees for suggestions, feedback or votes on ideas within these areas
Consider involving vendors, customers and the public as well, to expand the pool of ideas. (This strategy will require thinking through the IP issues.)
For more information on Harrah’s: Network Computing article

Business strategy related blogs for further reading.

• Fast Company

• Guy Kawasaki
• Harvard Business Publishing
• Knowledge@Wharton
• McKinsey Quarterly
• Performance Controller
• Tom Peters
• Vijay Govindarajan: Strategy & Innovation
• William C. Taylor