Innovation to the Core

CHAPTER 3

Building a Foundation of Novel Strategic Insights

STEVE JOBS. RICHARD BRANSON. Bill Gates. James Dyson. Michael Dell. Brilliant innovators and entrepreneurs all. These are individuals for whom, it seems, innovation and wealth creation came naturally, almost “reflexively,” as Gary Hamel would put it.¹ The conventional view is that innovation is the exclusive province of creative geniuses and business leaders like these—people who are somehow “wired” differently from the rest of us, making them capable of innovating in ways that mere mortals, or ordinary companies—cannot possibly hope to match.

Clearly, intuition and creative ingenuity—as well as happenstance—may unquestionably be part of the innovation equation. But what if we could ...