Business Innovation

A renowned business innovation leader teams up with a social-personality psychologist to offer that something else—a collection of ten visionary principles to obliterate barriers to change and ignite a whole new level of creative problem-solving. Drawing upon decades of experience working with the world's best-known organizations and their teams, the authors provide practical advice that goes beyond "business as usual" for successfully tackling intractable challenges. The Breakthrough Manifesto explores why these principles are critical for the current times.

Do you want to create social impact, but feel there must be a better way? There is. So many problems the world faces go largely unaddressed because social entrepreneurs are unaware that they hold the power to design a better organization for creating more effective social impact. Not anymore.

The American dream continues to resonate with immigrants from around the world. Millions of people hope to come to the United States to build a better life for themselves and their families, often by creating and growing new ventures and companies. While not everyone succeeds, many do. Mei Xu is one of those successes. In Burn, entrepreneur and international business­woman Mei Xu tells her story of ingenuity, determination, and luck.

A moral dilemma gripped Anil K. Gupta when he was invited by the Bangladeshi government to help restructure their agricultural on-farm research sector in 1985. He noticed how the marginalized farmers were being paid poorly for their otherwise unmatched knowledge. The gross injustice of this constant imbalance led Gupta to found what would turn into a resounding social and ethical movement - the Honey Bee Network - bringing together and elevating thousands of grassroots innovators.

Kaizen, skills, integration: three words that 20 years ago didn't mean anything, today they mean a lot. Our economy and society rotate around these concepts. Which role do they play in our life? Furthermore, we all know that the globalization is making our system changing so fast that we literally have to run! And who wins the marathon at the end? The business with the best players. The most motivated, the most skilled-matching team.

Innovation on Tap is the story of innovation in America told through the eyes of 25 entrepreneurs, from Eli Whitney and his cotton gin to Lin-Manuel Miranda and his Broadway smash, Hamilton. The stories illustrate the sweep and impact of innovation. From razor blades, insurance, and baseball to smart cities, online running communities, and cybersecurity, innovators across three centuries gather in an imaginary barroom to discuss the essential themes of entrepreneurship, while emphasizing and reemphasizing the importance of community to their success.

We are terrible at managing creativity and innovation. But we're trying our best. Just beneath the ceiling of meeting rooms at night, everywhere around the world, from London to Lahore, Honolulu to Ho Chi Minh City, there is something sad happening. Above the long table and strewn chairs, amid the fluorescent light that has been left on despite the energy saving directive on the wall, there are a million little ideas just floating amongst the dust particles, drifting in the air.

You always knew digital was going to change things, but you didn’t realize how close to home it would hit. In every industry, digital competitors are taking advantage of new platforms, tools, and relationships to undercut rivals, get closer to customers, and disrupt the usual ways of doing business. The only way to compete is to evolve. James McQuivey of Forrester Research has been teaching people how to do this for more than a decade. He’s gone into the biggest companies, even in traditional industries like insurance and consumer packaged goods, and changed the way they think about innovation.

Life is not exactly a bed of roses for most innovation leaders and intrapreneurs - those assertive, innovative, corporate risk-takers who passionately turn ideas into profitable products. They take on corporate sacred cows and face down challenges that would cause less driven and less talented people to quickly throw their hands down in defeat. They struggle daily to unleash entrepreneurial thinking while dealing with an army of people fiercely dedicated to maintaining the status quo.

Flipping TVs is a business model that is often overlooked, but those who are getting involved and know what to look out for can make impressive additional incomes–with very little effort.

En este momento, todos los convencionalismos son cuestionados, lo mismo en el arte que en la ciencia, la tecnología, la política, la religión, la familia, la economía, la educación. Nada quedará fuera. Con todo y que la incertidumbre hace que el presente se parezca cada vez menos al futuro, no hay ninguna razón para que el miedo nos paralice. Lo importante es prepararnos. El mundo estuvo congelado en nuestras mentes por más de un siglo y ahora nos desafía para reinventarnos y pensar diferente. Hoy el imperativo no es crear o morir sino innovar y vivir.

After a successful career in the US Navy, retired rear admiral Danelle Barrett knows plenty about effective, motivational leadership, and now she’s sharing it with anyone who strives to be a bold change leader.

When I was growing up, I always thought there were only two ways to get rich. Number one: You were born rich. Number two: Some family member left you a bunch of money when they kicked the bucket. As much as people love to talk up the American dream, I grew up inside the American reality - raised inside a trailer in New Jersey, born to a 14-year-old mother. But now, things are a little different. I've done lots of cool things with my life, but most people know me as "the ab roller guy".

Today's leaders face so many challenges - employee retention, operational efficiency, culture, collaboration, leading across generations, and more - but communication is at the heart of every one of those issues. A clear message with a powerful delivery gets you halfway home. Leadership Language will help you to peel back the ineffective "business speak", so you can change the conversation. And change your results.

Over the last 5 years, we have seen the rise of Responsive Nonprofits who committed to drive innovation in the charitable sector. A new breed of growth-oriented nonprofit leaders are beginning to emerge. These innovative leaders are using new tactics and technology to drive exponential impact across their fundraising, marketing, program, and operations teams. Through hours of conversations with hundreds of the leading innovators in philanthropy, we’ve discovered 9 key practices that responsive nonprofits adopt in order to transform their operations.

Innovating Innovation! answers the trillion-dollar question, “What can large companies do to innovate as easily as their disruptive startup competitors?” Corporate executives will learn how they can catch up and unlock the same quick-to-market innovations startups use to rapidly disrupt whole industries.

RE:Think Innovation makes coming up with great ideas everybody’s business. People think innovation isn’t sustainable, so they make it much harder than it has to be. Experts portray it as confusing and complicated, so they can charge big fees. Executives make it intimidating and complex, so they appear smarter and important. Traditional innovators imply you need a special degree or training to know how to do it right. RE:Think Innovation answers the question of how to tie individual competence with innovation techniques to direct corporate outcomes.

Knowing how to correctly measure innovation is essential. It is essential since when you measure yourself correctly, then you put your focus on the right things, thus, accelerating your success. In the case of measuring innovation it's even more essential, because it allows innovation managers, who are establishing the credibility of unfamiliar innovation activities and their own professional credibility inside organizations, to demonstrate the value of their activities to the organization.

Leaders are under increasing pressure to ensure their businesses are gender-balanced and inclusive for the benefit of the economy and society.

Best-selling author Lynda Gratton - one of the top 20 management thinkers in the world according to the Financial Times - follows up her best seller Hot Spots (over 16,000 sold) by taking a deep look at people who GLOW - individuals in organizations who radiate energy and attract others to them - who are able to create, find, and flourish in hot spots of innovation.