Dartmouth College graduates are generally big supporters of our most famous alumni — Theodor Geisel (Class of 1925) known better as Dr. Seuss. On Sunday evening, my son pleasantly surprised me by picking one of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories, The Sneetches, from the shelf for his bed time reading. Reading the story helped me visualize why a company I recently visited was approaching innovation the wrong way.

For those of you who don’t remember the story, the sneetches (yellow characters that vaguely resemble ostriches) start the book as a divided crowd. One group of sneetches has stars on their stomachs. They consider themselves superior to the sneetches without “stars upon thars.” Then Sylvester McMonkey McBean arrives with a machine that can put a star on a sneetch’s chest. Much to the star-bellied sneetches dismay, the non-starred sneetches go through the procedure. Then, of course, the star isn’t special anymore, so McBean unveils a star removal machine. Hilarity ensues.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was 5 pm on August 9. I had just settled down for the three hour journey from Singapore to Manila. The seat next to me was empty, so after surreptitiously checking email one last time before takeoff, I switched my iPhone to airplane mode, and left it face down on the seat.

After I got through customs, it hit me. I hadn’t picked my phone back up (I use my U.S.-based BlackBerry when out of Singapore to avoid the ridiculous roaming bills you get with iPhones). Singapore Airlines of course handled the situation beautifully — letting me go back on the plane to look for my phone. But it was gone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Someone in India recently asked me what I thought about an innovation strategy featuring a heavy dose of “imitation.” My response was, “Innovation isn’t Olympic diving.”

What did I mean? An individual diver’s scores for an event are a factor of two things: how well they execute their dive, and the “degree of difficulty” of their selected dive. The more twists and turns you have, the more points you can earn.

Read the rest of this entry »

While in India last week, I gave two talks — one in New Delhi and one in Mumbai — as part of a “Thought Leadership Series” sponsored by Transearch and Harvard Business Publishing. I also visited Village Laundry Service, a business we launched in 2008 to provide affordable, high quality services for India’s booming middle class.

The week started with a successful, and somewhat controversial, IPO from SKS Microfinance, one of the leading lights in the microfinance industry. (The controversy relates to whether the social mission of microfinance can co-exist with profit-seeking enterprises). And it ended with New Dehli’s newspapers fielding questions about whether the city would be ready to host the Commonwealth games in October

Read the rest of this entry »

I read with interest David Simms’ recent post about the power of positive failure. I of course agree with the general perspective — given the probabilistic nature of innovation, failure isn’t always a bad thing, and all things being equal, you’d support someone who has tried, failed, and learned over someone who has never tried.

The interesting thing to me is that this isn’t a particularly new perspective. Failure has long been a badge of honor in Silicon Valley; thought leaders like Henry Mitnzberg, Rita McGrath, and Tim Brown note how failure is an essential part of successful innovation. Yet, in most organizations a fear of failure persists.

Read the rest of this entry »

It started at 4:30 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, last Saturday. The cell phone on my nightstand started ringing with a 336 area code. It was US Airways.

“We’re sorry, but last night’s weather meant the crew got in late. Your 8:20 a.m. flight from Martha’s Vineyard to LaGuardia is now leaving at 11 a.m.,” the representative said. “We’ve checked, and that still should give you enough time to get to Newark for your 3:15 p.m. flight to Hong Kong.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors issued stock to the public. Its charismatic CEO Elon Musk was once touted by Wired as a “triple threat” disruptor based on his previous experience with PayPal and Space Exploration Technologies. A successful stock market introduction led to Musk being worth millions, on paper at least.

Last week, a company called QlikTech issued stock to the public. The company is more than a decade old. Most people wouldn’t recognize CEO Lars Bjork if they ran into him on the street. A Google News search found 2,180 articles about Tesla, and 68 about QlikTech.

Read the rest of this entry »

With two older sisters and two younger brothers, I am a true middle child. Like many middle children, my natural tendency is to be a peace maker. I seek compromise and harmony between conflicting demands.

Reading through some of the ongoing dialogues around strategy and innovation makes me appreciate these tendencies. So many arguments are framed as either do this or do that. One example is an emerging “battle” between “East Coast” strategic thinkers and “West Coast” design thinkers. Another “either/or” is well summed up by this great blog post by Eric Paley (a Dartmouth classmate of mine who has had entrepreneurial success and writes a great blog).

Read the rest of this entry »

How would you identify the up-and-coming leaders in a company about which you knew nothing? You’d likely start by pinpointing the executives who control the most employees or revenues. You might give bonus points to relatively young mangers. If you had consulting DNA you might create a sophisticated ratio combining the span of control and age to identify the leader in the horse race to be the next big boss.

You are working off a simple hypothesis that’s right in almost every company — that size matters. Power flows from financial contributions and legions of employees. You groom leaders by giving them progressively larger, more challenging opportunities.

Read the rest of this entry »

“The Odds Are Increasing That Microsoft’s Business Will Collapse”

That’s a pretty good title if you (like Henry Blodget from Silicon Alley Insider, the writer of the article) are trying to grab eyeballs. It also provides a useful introduction to what I call the “Innovator’s Paradox.”

Read the rest of this entry »