Risk Taking

An innovation approach to address challenges by boldly pursuing radical new ideas and strategies to transform the status quo.

More Innovation Glossaries

Initiative

An initiative is a strategic action to drive change and achieve business goals.

Cross Functional

Cross-functional refers to a group that pools expertise from various specialties to achieve common goals effectively.

Innovation Maturity Model

Innovation Maturity Model

A framework that helps organizations assess their current level of innovation and identify areas for improvement.

Top Risk Taking Resources

Innovator Dilemma vs. Innovator Phenomena: The Theory of the Firm’s Phenomena

Established firms struggle with mastering the economics of choosing. The integration of technical-technological, economic, and social aspects within firms leads to unresolved relationships. The article proposes the unification of the Innovator Dilemma and Innovator Phenomena to reconcile candidate innovation methods.

Four Types of Innovation – part 1

The four types of innovation are: Transformational, Category, Marketplace, and Operational. In this article, we focus on Transformational Innovation, which is a disruptive breakthrough that changes society and the way we live.

The Tyranny of Today Blocks Innovation

Today's business focus is often on short-term goals and efficiency, creating a "tyranny of today" that hinders innovative thinking. Companies must balance this with a focus on future opportunities to stay nimble and flexible.

Can You Prevent Your Idea from being Rejected?

Innovative ideas may face opposition, but the key to success is checking if the idea aligns with the organization's goals early on in the innovation journey.

Innovative Strategy for Online Social Communities - Five Takeaways

Embracing the idea of a real community is a radical innovation strategy, and not every brand is going to win with a social community strategy.

Regain Focus with Kanban

Kanban is a way of managing work, by visualizing the workflow, that can help combat the negative effects of multitasking and bring more focus and discipline into your workday.

Tips for Approaching Rewards and Recognition Schemes

Rewards and recognition schemes are important in making changes stick. Here are some tips on how to plan and tie these schemes into your innovation strategy.

Discomfort is the key to innovation

Creating discomfort with the status quo is more effective than trying to make innovation easier, as humans are creatures of comfort.

Don't Believe the Social Media Hype, but Feel Free to Bemoan It

Mike Brown shares his thoughts on social media hype, innovation, and personal experiences.

Don't rock the boat innovation

Don't rock the boat innovation is when businesses play it safe with incremental improvements, rather than taking risks to create disruptive new products and services.

No HR, No Bureaucracy: Activating 100% Intrapreneurship

Intrapreneurship requires a tolerance for risk and a willingness to innovate. It's important to balance classic management styles with entrepreneurial skills for success.

Planting the Seeds of Innovation in Education

Don Wettrick, an innovation coordinator at Noblesville High School, is revolutionizing education by empowering students to take risks, celebrate failure, and think differently.

Scientific Management, Taylorism and how employees are prevented from innovating

Scientific Management or Taylorism is a management theory that prioritizes efficiency by removing unnecessary steps in a process. However, it can hinder innovation and autonomy of employees.

The Stereotypy Trap

JC Penney's former CEO, Ron Johnson, failed due to managerial bias called stereotypy, causing him to believe that what worked for him at Apple would work for JC Penney.

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The Sunk Cost Fallacy is a toxic mindset that keeps people and companies investing in failed projects even when they should be stopped.

The top 10 challenges of innovation and how to overcome them

Innovation is critical for business growth but poses several challenges. Here are ten internal problems that hinder innovation and the solutions to overcome them.

What is Employee Reward System?

Employee reward systems are a way to motivate and retain employees through various forms of recognition and incentives.

What is Incremental Innovation

Incremental innovation refers to gradual improvements in existing products, services and concepts based on customer feedback. Its importance lies in steady development and growth.

What kind of innovator are you?

Innovation management can be simplified by using metaphors, like the Matador, to explain the importance of examining ideas that threaten the status quo.

Where is the Crowdsourcing Movement Heading? [1/3]

Crowdsourcing can provide valuable insights for organizations but needs to be well understood and managed. This article looks at the potential of crowdsourcing as well as the challenges and pitfalls that need to be navigated.

Why Failure is So Important for a Successful Innovation Strategy

Failure is an important ingredient for success in innovation. Good failures can lead to learning and breakthroughs.

Why is Mother Nature the greatest innovator of them all?

Mother Nature is the greatest innovator, with over 4 billion years of experience in innovation and transformation. Applying lessons from nature, known as biomimicry, businesses can learn from her to solve modern problems.

Why Top Executives Do Not Get Innovation – and What to Do About It

Top executives talk about innovation but often fail to walk the walk. A lack of innovation education, risk aversion, and a focus on short-term gains all contribute to this.

You are what you innovate

You innovate what you already are, rather than being what you innovate. Innovation requires openness to change in familiar and unfamiliar areas.

Your Company Needs a Disruption Map

Open innovation is crucial for businesses to adapt to the new more porous and externalized environment. To stay competitive, companies need to collect data from sales staff and suppliers to create disruption maps that show how their products can remain relevant.

Innovation Dilemmas

Innovation creates dilemmas in business, which must be managed over time. Recognizing the difference between dilemmas and problems is key to managing and balancing these tensions.

Overton Window: How extreme ideas become mainstream

The Overton Window explains how extreme ideas become mainstream by describing a range of what society will accept, from policy to radical and unthinkable ideas.

The Value of Incremental Innovation

Corporate innovation leaders should focus on incremental innovation rather than disruptive innovation to drive significant business results in the long run.

Freedom to Fail, Freedom to Innovate

Innovation requires high tolerance for failure. Academic research suggests policies that incentivize employees to take risks and limit negative consequences of failure leads to increased commitment.

Guidelines to becoming a better innovator

Successful innovators share key traits such as thinking outside the box, taking risks, being curious, passionate, and persistent.

How a small change can have a big impact

The First World War has a lesson for leaders: small changes can have enormous impact, especially in complex systems, creating the Butterfly Effect. A small wins innovation approach can lead to cumulative impact.

Innovative Strategic Planning at Hyper-Speed

Traditional annual planning retreats are not effective in achieving strategic goals. Organizations must break down silos and focus on expanding goals to align with strategic plans.

Remember Value Stream Mapping?

The importance of value stream maps in identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks is highlighted, along with the need to manage these maps to reduce waste.

Removing the disincentives to innovate

Innovation managers should educate middle management and engage company celebrities to create momentum. Tackle IP concerns, and remove disincentives like single sign-on barriers.

The Pros and Cons of Remote Workers

Remote workers offer access to diverse skill sets, reduce costs, and increase scalability. However, managing and integrating them into a team can present challenges such as poor collaboration, security concerns, and productivity issues.

Unique Ways to Say “Thank You” to Your Team

Learn unique ways to say thank you to your hardworking team, from spa and wellness days to personalized stationery orders.

How can I reward employees for ideas?

How can I reward employees for ideas?

Rewarding employees for ideas is crucial for fostering a culture of innovation. Learn how to properly reward employees for ideas to strengthen your overall innovation strategy.

Innovator, Fast Follower or Me Too

Innovator, Fast Follower or Me Too

Microsoft's Zune is a me too player in the MP-3 market, revealing the importance of choosing between being an innovator, a fast follower or a me too player for business strategy.

Know about Radical Innovation Examples

Know about Radical Innovation Examples

Radical innovation leads to significant change in existing business models. Blockchain, Netflix and Apple are examples. Embrace uncertainty to develop an innovative mindset.

Lead Time Metrics: Why Weekends Matter

Lead Time Metrics: Why Weekends Matter

Excluding non-working days from time metrics can lead to problems. Here are three reasons why.

The Major Tenets to Designing a Basic Kanban System

The Major Tenets to Designing a Basic Kanban System

Learn the final two tenets of Kanban and how they can be applied to a basic system for IT Operations: measuring progress and communicating the work state.

How Creative Thinking Gets Killed by Team Members - 8 Fatal Blows

How Creative Thinking Gets Killed by Team Members - 8 Fatal Blows

Eight behaviors can kill creative thinking in a group setting. These include negativity, assumption-based thinking, talking excessively, rejecting others' ideas, and more.

Rewards for Remote Employees

Rewards for Remote Employees

Remote employees need recognition and rewards, especially during the lead-up to Christmas. Here are six ways to engage and reward remote employees.

Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points

Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points

The first prescriptive, innovative guide to seeing inflection points before they happen—and how to harness these disruptive influences to give your company a strategic advantage.

The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most

The Innovation Delusion: Innovation is the hottest buzzword in business. But what if its benefits have been exaggerated, and our obsession with finding the next big thing has distracted?

The Innovator’s Dilemma

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Understand how outstanding companies can do everything right and still lose their market leadership, or even disappear altogether.

You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake: How Biases Distort Decision-Making and What You Can Do to Fight Them

You're About to Make a Terrible Mistake: How Biases Distort Decision-Making and What You Can Do to Fight Them

Discover nine common business decisionmaking traps and learn practical tools for avoiding them.