Every year, companies spend billions of dollars on R&D. And yet, most products fail to make it past the first couple of years. What’s wrong? Why do great new ideas fail?
One reason could be that most organizations are simply not very good at innovation. They are not innovative at their core. Instead, they are hierarchical and slow – and innovation seems forced upon them.
Could it be that large incumbent organizations still don’t know what innovation really is and means, and what it takes to innovate?
We think so, and therefore we decided it was time to return to the basics. So, we compiled this list of the 15 best business innovation books ever written.
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The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators
In The Innovator’s DNA, its authors build on what we know about disruptive innovation to show how individuals can develop the skills necessary to move progressively from idea to impact.
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The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
In The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen claims that outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership, or worse, disappear completely. And he not only proves what he says, he tells others how to avoid a similar fate.
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The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
In The Innovator’s Solution, Christensen and Michael E. Raynor help all companies understand how to become disruptors themselves. They not only reveal that innovation is more predictable than most managers have come to believe, they also provide helpful advice on the business decisions crucial to truly disruptive growth.
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The Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do It
In The Little Black Book of Innovation, long-time innovation expert Scott D. Anthony draws on stories from his research and field work with companies like Procter & Gamble to demystify innovation.
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The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm
By Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman
In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.
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The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s Strategies for Defeating the Devil’s Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
In The Ten Faces of Innovation Kelley reveals the strategies IDEO, the world-famous design firm, uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity.
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Blue Ocean Shift: Beyond Competing – Proven Steps to Inspire Confidence and Seize New Growth
Drawing on more than a decade of new work, Kim and Mauborgne show you how to move beyond competing, inspire your people’s confidence, and seize new growth, guiding you step-by-step through how to take your organization from a red ocean crowded with competition to a blue ocean of uncontested market space.
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Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
The printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery–these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson’s answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines.
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The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
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The Myths of Innovation
How do we know if a hot new technology will succeed or fail? Most of us, even experts, get it wrong all the time. Scott Berkun pulls the best lessons from the history of innovation, including the recent software and web age, to reveal powerful and suprising truths about how ideas become successful innovations.
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Innovation to the Core: A Blueprint for Transforming the Way Your Company Innovates
In Innovation to the Core, Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson shares their accumulated wisdom from helping clients instil innovation into their very core. Drawing on a wealth of stories and examples, the book shows how companies of every stripe have overcome the barriers to successful, profitable innovation.
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Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire: A Roadmap to a Sustainable Culture of Ingenuity and Purpose
Want to recapture your organization’s original innovative spirit? Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire sets out to help you remove the obstacles that have crippled the innovation superpowers that made your organization successful in the first place.
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The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking
Contrary to popular belief, innovation is not some mystical art that’s forbidden to mere mortals. The Four Lenses of Innovation thoroughly debunks this pervasive myth by delivering what we’ve long been hoping for: the news that innovation is systematic, it’s methodical, and we can all achieve it.
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What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation
Hamel lays out an essential agenda in a world where old nostrums aren’t merely useless, but downright toxic. With brutal honesty, iconoclastic thinking, and cutting-edge examples, he outlines a clear approach for leaders everywhere who are eager to move ahead.
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Digital to the Core: Remastering Leadership for Your Industry, Your Enterprise, and Yourself
Digital to the Core makes the case that all business leaders must understand the impact the digital revolution will continue to play in their industries, companies, and leadership style and practices. Drawing on interviews with over 30 top C-level executives, this book delivers practical insights from those on the front lines of major digital upheaval.