Innovation Leaders: How Senior Executives Stimulate, Steer and Sustain Innovation

CHAPTER 3

STIMULATING BOTTOM-UP INNOVATION

[Google] sees its employees as the fount of innovation; they’re expected to generate ideas and then compete to move those into the product pipeline. In theory, the fittest - those that solve a user need - survive!

The 360 Techblog¹

 

Companies that manage to tap and exploit the creativity of all their staff enjoy a powerful competitive advantage over highly regimented ones, in which people are supposed to do only what they are told to do. Auto industry observers have frequently identified one of Toyota Corporation’s secret weapons against its Western competitors: its in-house suggestion scheme. Toyota’s version of the classic and often disregarded idea box system is said to generate over 2 million ...