Biz Book: The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth With Innovation

Inc.:

Eureka moments are the stuff of entrepreneurial legend. But as A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan observe, you can’t build a growth plan on them. Innovation — the seed of organic growth — is a matter of process and culture and business strategy. The real payoff comes from people getting comfortable together and sparking off one another; innovation is chiefly a product of social interaction. You’ve got to manage people before you can manage their ideas.

Lafley is the chairman and CEO of new-product dynamo Procter & Gamble. Starting in 2000, he revived the fortunes and morale at this aging behemoth by systematically applying innovation techniques to product lines young and old. P&G now makes innovation the basis for budgets, compensation plans, and even risk management. Lafley’s co-author, Charan, an adviser to corporate titans, adds stories from Honeywell, Nokia, and DuPont to the mix.

Lafley starts sweating if more than 60 percent of new ideas succeed, because it means he’s playing too safe. The Game-Changer even provides a chart of P&G’s greatest flops. (Remember Fit Fruit & Vegetable Wash? Anyone?)

“The Customer Is Boss” (Chapter Three) sounds like a yawner. In fact, it is a powerful argument for research through immersion in customers’ lives. Also worthwhile is “Integrating Innovation Into Your Routine” (Chapter Seven), which limns an innovation program as though it were a manufacturing process, from inputs to outputs and all the stages in between.

Photo by Crown Business.

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