Practical Innovation

Whether people want more government or less, everyone wants an efficient government. Traditional thinking is that this requires a government to be run more like a business. But a government is not a business, and this approach merely replaces old problems with new ones. In their six-year, five-country study of 77 government organizations—ranging from small departments to entire states—Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder found that the predominant private-sector approaches to improvement don’t work well in the public sector.

When you have an idea for a new product, it’s a pivotal moment. This device of yours will enhance the lives of the people who use it, earn you extra money, and have a significant impact on the world. However, there’s much more to a successful product than the quality of the original idea. Why do some products fly off the shelves and others not even reach the market? That’s what this book will explain.

In today’s changing world, where business leaders must navigate industry disruption, entrepreneurs struggle to push beyond initial success, and activists tackle hard challenges like climate change, there is a need for a more powerful way to do innovation. Too many innovators are trapped by the limits of common innovation practices. The way we’ve been taught to create and innovate for the past two decades is failing us. It’s time for a paradigm shift. To unlock the secrets to doing bigger things, this book introduces the pioneering concept of ecosystem innovation.

Despite the familiar limitations many User Experience teams face—budget and time constraints, lack of formal authority—UX practitioners are uniquely poised to provide strategic value to product organizations. This case study describes how we developed “Creative Bursts” to prove that our organization could look to its UX team for innovation leadership.

Miserable at Work? Why? You Don't Have to Be describes breakthrough thinking for having fun at work to deliver true innovation. We explore how to ideate and bring out the best in everyone! We focus on three major concepts. The first is bringing awareness to how we think our brains work and then discovering where we may have had misconceptions. The second is letting go of the powerful need to be right at the start of trying to achieve something new.

Leaders are under increasing pressure to ensure their businesses are gender-balanced and inclusive for the benefit of the economy and society. But how? And what does that mean for YOUR business? This pioneering book is a route map to help leaders get started and navigate the way to leading a high-performing gender-balanced business.