Working Smarter on Business Basics…Or…Time for a Rethink? HBR blogger Scott Anthony seems to think that the core problem is that business can’t seem to make money on ideas from Day 1 — an inability to capitalize and monetize ideas quickly.
For most companies, we don’t think that’s it. Although Biz Week does illustrate the power of capitalizing on innovation quickly with its story on how Google’s past employees have built, networked and invested in over 200 startups since 2005. (Key word: Past employees…The issue is retaining that innovation within companies.)
We think the core reason, for most companies, is closer to what innovation guru Clayton Christensen wrote in Biz Week: He’s writing about the healthcare debate, but substitute “business” for “healthcare” and “workforce” for “patients” and he’s made the perfect case for forbidden innovation…hacking work…
“The cause of runaway health costs is malpractice, but not the medical kind. Rather, we’re guilty of business model malpractice on a grand scale. Most caregivers in our system bring great talent and commitment to their patients. But the systems in which they work compromise quality and push up costs.”
The systems that we build to leverage people’s brilliance and innovations are broken: we think that’s what’s stopping innovation.
Tags: trends