Tag Archives | Human Resources

Digital Innovation Units: Recommendations, Trends and Conclusions

By on September 7, 2018

The business magazine Capital and Infront Consulting recently published their second joint annual study (in German only) on the Digital Innovation Unit landscape in Germany.  The study analyzed the units in terms of set objectives and their achievements, as well as of the following success criteria: Steering Themes / direction of impact Involvement of the company Methods / program […]

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Innovation is About Getting Beyond the Idea

By on September 2, 2018

Thomas Edison said it over a century ago: Genius is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. Unfortunately, no one listened. When companies launch innovation initiatives, they typically allot almost all of their time and energy to that initial 1 percent – the thrilling hunt for the breakthrough idea. The real innovation challenge, however, lies beyond […]

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Peer Group “Scaling-Up”: Initial Survey Results

By on October 1, 2017

This article was co-written with Frank Mattes.   As published in a recent post, we have initiated a Peer Group of leading European companies which share our view that Best Practices with respect to scaling up validated concepts (successfully emerging from the “Fuzzy Front End”) to business impact need to be in place to sustainably […]

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Bad Innovation Systems Beat Good Innovators (Almost) Every Time

By on March 26, 2017

W. Edwards Deming once famously stated: A bad system will beat a good person every time.  What was Deming trying to convey with this quote? It wasn’t an attempt to get people to give up trying because failure was certain. It was an attempt to get people to understand the importance of the system and […]

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Innovation and Serendipity

By on May 23, 2013

In a previous post, I have pointed out the importance of diversity for innovation and organizational adaptability. Diversity is a crucial precursor to serendipity. In the Power of Pull, John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison emphasize the rising need for serendipity: We need to find ways to attract relevant innovators and edge participants […]

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Integrative Innovation

By on February 19, 2013

Some people I’ve been collaborating with have recently encouraged me to open up an own blog. After having given it some thought, I decided to do so. I’m launching a new site and platform titled “Integrative Innovation” to share ideas and perspectives on innovation. You might ask: why “Integrative Innovation”? Is this yet another buzzword? I don’t think so. I rather […]

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Innovation and Diversity

By on February 3, 2013

Tomorrow’s management systems will need to value diversity, dissent and divergence as highly as conformance, consensus and cohesion. A while ago, I came across this tweet by Gary Hamel.  It reflects well the fact that businesses range in increasingly dynamic and complex environments, imposing accelerated and mostly unforeseeable change. The most promising way for organizations […]

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The Intersection of Human and Organizational Innovation Capabilities

By on February 3, 2013

One of my main interests is looking at the intersection of organizational and human capabilities. Business is accomplished through people, thus individual mindset, behavior and capabilities determine organizational performance. When it comes to innovation, a recently published research paper, titled ‘The Bias Against Creativity’ serves as a good example. The findings indicate a paradox that […]

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