Innovation to the Core

CHAPTER 11

Building a Systemic Innovation Capability

THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK we’ve argued that companies really can and must take a more systemic approach to innovation. Indeed, we have outlined the efforts of a very diverse set of companies—such as Whirlpool, CEMEX, W. L. Gore, Google, GE, P&G, and Best Buy—to make innovation a sustainable enterprise capability. What you have probably noticed is that, while all of these companies share a common view about the importance of innovation, each one actually manages innovation in a very different way—and correctly so.

Truth is, there is no single right way to organize an enterprise for innovation. For example, a highly centralized organization would likely not be very successful at applying Google’s ...