Innovation Capital
Work on your image as project owner to gain support more effectively.
Author(s): Jeff Dyer, Nathan Furr, Curtis Lefrandt
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Date of publication: 2019
Manageris opinion
How do innovators convert their ideas into achievements? There has been much written about the improvements in innovation processes, notably design thinking or lean start-up, which allow an idea to be refined in “agile” mode, by benefiting from early customer feedback. More importantly so, you must be able to rally around your idea. Failing this, it will be difficult to obtain the required financing and resources, or yet the indispensable approval to continue developing your idea.
For the authors of Innovation Capital, this capacity to rally goes well beyond the “art of pitching”. It is intimately linked to the way the project owner is perceived. And this perception is based on three dimensions: personal capital (who he/she is); social capital (who he/she knows); and reputation capital (what he/she is known for). Each of these dimensions is clearly explained and illustrated by numerous examples and the returns of experience of the greatest innovation leaders. Thomas Edison thus meets several contemporary leaders—Satya Nadella (Microsoft), Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), Tom Kelley (IDEO), etc.—to feed everyone’s thinking on the way to support innovative ideas.
A thorough and enlightening book.
