To generate creative business ideas, breakthrough ... · PDF fileTo generate creative business ideas, breakthrough innovators must be ... Apple products were unveiled at an exhibition

To generate creative business ideas, breakthrough innovators must be fi ercely tested and wisely deployed.

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“THE REPORTS OF MY DEATH are greatly exaggerated,” asserted a

surprisingly lively Steve Jobs when a host of innovative new

Apple products were unveiled at an exhibition in September

2008. Quoting Mark Twain, Jobs was trying to nip in the bud

speculation that he was suffering severe health problems. By

all accounts he succeeded on that occasion. But the iconic

leader won’t be around forever, which presents Apple’s board

with a daunting challenge: how to groom the next Steve Jobs.

When it comes to innovation, few modern corporate execu-

tives are more closely associated with revolutionary change.

During his tenure at Apple, the company’s product introduc-

tions have altered not only how we talk but also how we live:

the Mac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone 3G.

What should Jobs and Apple be doing now to ensure that

the next generation of “must-have” technology is not master-

inding and Grooming

by Jeff rey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach, and Gus Vlak

hbr.org | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 63

fBreakthrough

Innovators


64 Harvard Business Review | December 2008 | hbr.org

Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators

minded elsewhere? It’s a valid question.

Ask anyone on Wall Street, on Main

Street, or certainly on Apple’s board,

and the reaction will be unanimous:

The issue is pressing.

Finding and developing break-

through innovators is a major challenge

for growth-oriented organizations of all

sizes, not just for Apple. According to

interviews conducted by the executive

search fi rm Spencer Stuart, more than

two-thirds of directors at the leading

global companies it advises cite innova-

tion as critical for long-term success. In-

deed, boardroom discussions often cen-

ter on just two questions: How can we

sustain innovation? and Do we have a

plan for developing future leaders who

can facilitate this goal?

Part of the problem is a talent short-

age. Truly innovative people are rare.

Perhaps 5% or 10% of the high-potential

managers within a company at any

given time have the skills and attri-

butes to become innovators. (Andrew

England, the chief marketing offi cer at MillerCoors, believes

the fi gure is actually closer to 1%.) But fi nding talent is not the

only issue; a bigger problem is what to do with it.

Most companies do a magnifi cent job of smothering the cre-

ative spark. Over the past fi ve years we have probed the inno-

vation strategies of 25 organizations in multiple industries and

countries. Our fi ndings are simple and somewhat disturbing,

given the acknowledged necessity for innovation: Companies

usually develop leaders who replicate rather than innovate.

Thus rising stars realize that to be promoted, they need to

mirror incumbent leaders. Even when stellar external talent

comes in, it is frequently drawn into the same anti-innovation

culture that has been squelching internal talent (see the side-

bar “The Dangers of Competency Modeling”).

The tendency is rooted in false beliefs about how innova-

tion works. Senior managers seem to assume that innovators

spontaneously generate new ideas much as a magician pulls

a rabbit from his hat – that if they simply leave these people

alone, golden ideas will spring forth. Then sales, marketing,

engineering, and fi nance people can decide how to implement

and profi t from them. In fact most revolutionary ideas evolve

quite differently. Innovators propose new ideas. Various ex-

perts within the company sort through enormous amounts of

information and often confl icting opinions. Then the innova-

tors home in on the most critical components, see connections,

and discern how to bridge different parts; they work hard and

effi ciently to recombine these pieces and cultivate internal

buy-in for the innovation. The iPod is a case in point. The idea

was originally conceived by Tony Fadell,

a consultant Apple hired to develop new

projects. An Apple engineering team as-

sembled it from off-the-shelf parts and

combined it with in-house design fea-

tures such as Apple’s user-friendly con-

trols. Having generated buy-in along the

way, Fadell had little diffi culty selling

the result to senior management.

In this article we’ll describe how suc-

cessful companies identify, groom, and

place people who can master the inno-

vation process. We’ll begin by consider-

ing what sets breakthrough innovators

apart from other star managers.

What Innovators Look LikeThe best innovators have very strong

cognitive abilities, including excellent

analytic skills. They zero in on the most

important points and waste no time

on peripheral issues. This is signifi cant,

given the sheer quantity of data, ideas,

and often confl icting customer pref-

erences that they (and all other high-

potential managers) must face. Once they have isolated the

key factors, they can quickly see how all the pieces might fi t

together in an integrated whole. They have the ability to think

strategically even in highly ambiguous situations.

But a host of additional attributes distinguish potential in-

novators. First, they never rest on their laurels. David Small,

corporate vice president of the Leadership Institute at McDon-

ald’s, asserts that innovators always say to themselves, “Just

because this has worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work

going forward.” He adds, “They are driven by a certain under-

lying insecurity to not rely on past success, and they evaluate

each new challenge with a clean slate.” They can frame and

reframe challenges from multiple vantage points and identify

which solutions are likeliest to be embraced by the infl uential

people in their organization. By contrast, many high-potential

managers become overconfi dent after a string of successes and

begin to believe their own performance reviews, hallway chat-

ter, and other evidence of their brilliance. They are reluctant

to reinvent the wheel when a specifi c approach has worked so

well in the past.

Second, potential innovators are, as Small puts it, “ridicu-

lously socially aware of their surroundings at all times.” At

McDonald’s innovators must be able to walk into a confer-

ence room full of diverse constituents, including colleagues,

customers, subordinates, bosses, vendors, and partners, and

quickly discern the underlying motivation of each one. They

leverage that information to craft and communicate a mes-

sage that resonates with every constituent. This is the art of

Finding and grooming the next »generation of innovators is one key to growth, but most companies smother their creative talent.

Successful companies have »intense talent-management pro-cesses in place and put identifi ed innovators in the line of fi re, where natural innovators thrive. Mentoring and peer networks are crucial for providing support.

Once rising innovators have been »developed and established in the middle of the organization – where they become “innovation hubs” – they can better see how existing products, ideas, people, or even en-tire businesses can be recombined in new, value-adding ways.

IN BRIEFIDEA



bringing a diverse group onto the same

page – and it is absolutely essential to

transforming an interesting idea into

a companywide innovation. “If a high-

potential manager doesn’t have this

skill,” Small says, “there is little chance

that he can push a new idea, no matter

how promising, through our sprawling

global infrastructure. It takes a lot of

social intuition, savvy, and tenacity.”

Innovators are persuasive and often

charming. They know how to extract

information from specifi c areas of an

organization and then garner organiza-

tional support for potential projects. In-

novation cannot thrive when new ideas

simply die. Andrew England, of Miller-

Coors, explains it this way: “Our most

successful innovators are able to per-

suade our business unit and functional

leaders to share interesting insights

and ideas. They are extremely curious

and are always shopping for new ideas,

yet they don’t give off an intrusive vibe.

Then, on the fl ip side, our innovators

have to use their sales skills and charm

to push an unproven idea through our

corporate machinery. I can’t overstate

how important and how rare this sales

ability is.”

There is, of course, a certain tension

between an innovator’s independent

mind and his or her social involvement

with colleagues, but the ability to seam-

lessly shift between isolation and a

larger group is essential. By defi nition,

an innovator must access resources and

recombine ideas in ways that are unfamiliar to the organiza-

tion. Doing so means moving beyond conventional bound-

aries and the safety of existing positions, which can be a lonely

experience. At the same time, innovators must be able to bring

the knowledge they have gained back to traditional hierar-

chies, which can be frustrating. Kaye Foster-Cheek, the corpo-

rate vice president of human resources at Johnson & Johnson,

says these people have a “unique psychological mix,” because

they are able to work equally well in large cross-functional

teams and in extreme isolation. “They like being connected to

a greater whole, but by no means do they need it,” she says.

How to Find InnovatorsIn most large organizations, the future innovators we’ve de-

scribed are hidden from senior management and deeply em-

bedded in line jobs. You need to seek them out and at least

temporarily disengage them from their daily duties. There are

various ways to achieve this, but it takes time.

David Small – an avid golfer – refers to the effort and re-

sources needed to fi nd potential innovators at McDonald’s as

“mandatory green fees.” He contends that it takes discipline,

good data, and the right talent-management processes, em-

bedded in frontline activities rather than in centralized HR

departments, to surface those rare individuals. McDonald’s

executives comb through individual development plans semi-

annually, hold talent roundtables and succession planning

discussions, perform talent calibration (to make sure they

are comparing apples to apples, across divisions, businesses,

and even countries), and conduct systematic performance

reviews.

At Reuters (which merged with the Thomson Corporation

in April 2008) the initial mechanism used to identify potential

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE any growing company faces is to iden-tify and foster the next generation of breakthrough innovators. Suc-cessful companies:

Scour the ranks for raw talent. » They look among their high poten-tials to fi nd people who are never content with following yesterday’s best practices and who display unusual skills.

EXAMPLE Reuters uses a “pre-dictive index” to help identify employees’ attributes, which allows executives to maintain a master list of potential innovators. The inno-vators undergo one-on-one inter-views with outside experts in which they learn to defend their ideas and recognize their weaknesses.

Test people with live ammuni- »tion. They give their innovators real projects and access to top management.

EXAMPLE At Starwood rising innovators build and manage cross-functional teams to develop their projects and then present full-fl edged marketing plans to the company’s top executives.

Encourage mentoring and peer »networks. Mentors equip rising innovators with information about the people they are most likely to en-counter and the interactions they are most likely to have. Innovators are encouraged to turn to peer groups for feedback.

EXAMPLES At Allstate the CEO personally makes sure that in-novators have access to mentors in functions relevant to the projects they lead. At Starwood “collabo-ration circles” of diverse experts help rising innovators navigate the grooming process.

Actively manage innovators’ »careers. They are careful to place innovators outside the regular structure, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will create wholly new businesses.

EXAMPLE At JPMorgan Chase the CEO and the head of human resources spearheaded “ascension plans” for breakthrough innova-tors, in concert with the innovators themselves. The company creates new positions for rising stars if appropriate ones don’t exist.

IDEA INPRACTICE


LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY MODELS can be found in virtually all major corporations. They seek to institutionalize managerial behaviors, knowledge, values, and mo-tivations to produce steady, predictable results. They provide a common language to help supervisors and HR discuss emerging talent in the organization. These are worthy goals – but overdepen-dence on competency models inevitably reinforces sameness rather than unity or cohesion, by eroding the conditions in which unique points of view and ulti-mately innovation itself can arise.

Training programs built on these models primarily teach participants how to manage within the organization as is and emphasize formal structures at the expense of informal ones. At the same time, they condition managers to mini-mize uncertainty and mitigate risk.

The organizational vetting process fi lters candidates for promotion according to well-known and widely communicated competencies that are ingrained in the company culture. As a result the fi eld of rising stars narrows to those who most closely resemble their peers and bosses. Unique attributes and a willingness to deviate from the norm, take real risks, and embrace different points of view are not cultivated or integrated. Rather, they are slowly and methodically squeezed out of the system.



innovators is a “predictive index” survey. Beginning with a

checklist, it helps frontline managers identify the core driv-

ers, competencies, and motivations of their subordinates and

serves as the basis for compiling a master list of rising stars,

which can be narrowed to a list of potential innovators.

Once you’ve spotted the potentials, you need to determine

which ones actually have the innovator’s spark. Many of the

companies we explored, including Reuters, Pitney Bowes, and

Visa, do this through a series of one-on-one interviews, often

conducted by outside assessment and

leadership-development experts. In

these interviews candidates are pre-

sented with a series of complex but

engaging real-world scenarios from

which some key information is inten-

tionally omitted, to gauge whether

they can weed through ambiguity,

make realistic assumptions based on

the data available, reach a decision,

and articulate a clear, compelling ra-

tionale for any trade-offs involved in

it. The process does not stop there.

The candidates are gradually given

additional information. Can he evalu-

ate what has potential impact and

what does not? Can she turn that criti-

cal eye inward and change positions

when warranted by the evidence, or

does she cling tightly to past beliefs

and mental models? True innovators

never let pride or former success get in

the way of a better solution, no matter

where it originates. And once they re-

ceive valuable new information, they

are quick to connect it to the larger

whole. Furthermore, because poten-

tial innovators have strong emotional

intelligence, they always ask for feed-

back at the end of the assessment

process.

During these interviews Reuters

looks for the ability to clearly and con-

vincingly defend a decision and sell a

point of view. If a candidate cannot ar-

gue a case in an intense one-on-one in-

terview, in the absence of a supporting

team and infrastructure, it is unlikely

that he or she will ever be able to dis-

play the salesmanship and confi dence

necessary to move an innovative idea

forward within an organization as

complex as Reuters. In a fi nal series of

interviews, candidates must be able to

explain without reservation what they do badly. According to

Amanda West, the chief innovation offi cer at Thomson Reu-

ters, who administers this program, “Unless they immediately

jump to that answer, their level of self-awareness is not suffi -

ciently high for them to become successful innovators.”

Let Innovators Work with Live AmmunitionOnce identifi ed, potential innovators need to prove they can

recognize promising ideas, effectively lead cross-functional

teams of experts to develop them, and

sell them to top executives. Starwood,

the parent company of hotel chains

such as Westin, W, St. Regis, and

Sheraton, provides a good illustration

of how to do this systematically. After

identifying a midlevel product man-

ager as a potential innovator, Star-

wood assigned him to lead a team to

develop new in-room entertainment

services in addition to his full-time

responsibilities. He had very little

leadership experience, but because

of a successful track record within his

group, and because his division head

saw in him the attributes of an innova-

tor, he was given a chance.

The product manager had almost

complete freedom to choose his

team from different parts of the or-

ganization (negotiating with territo-

rial bosses along the way) and the

opportunity to set the tone, ground

rules, strategy, and goals for it. In very

short order he had to come up with a

fully developed marketing plan and

then defend it in front of Starwood’s

tough executive team, including the

CEO. He describes the experience:

“At fi rst I thought I was going to die.

But then slowly but surely I found

my footing, and I realized that I knew

more about this project than anyone

on the senior executive team that

was grilling me. In a way, I sort of put

them on the defensive, which they

respected. Not only did they sign off

on the plan – which became a huge

success for Starwood – but they also

gave me a lot more latitude, access to

other resources throughout the com-

pany, and, most important, confi dence

that I could handle the stress, manage

my way through complexity and am-

THE DANGERS OF

Competency Modeling



biguity, and get others to really believe in the ideas I was

presenting.”

McDonald’s similarly provides would-be innovators with a

chance to prove themselves in front of top management. They

are encouraged to work with senior executives in key line posi-

tions to identify innovations that have the potential to affect

the entire organization. These ideas come in all shapes and

sizes and are not necessarily product related. The focus of a

recent effort, for example, was how to more effectively partner

with Wal-Mart. The rising innovator assembled and managed

a cross-functional team which explored various options and

ultimately zeroed in on a potential solution that was highly

scalable – an essential quality if an idea is to have traction at

McDonald’s.

The entire team engaged with senior managers in a no-holds-

barred discussion of the pros and cons of the solution. The man-

agers wanted to understand how the team interacted as well as

to fi nd a viable, scalable, and practical solution. Was the team

able to tackle a complex issue, take it apart, and focus on the

most salient issues? Was the team leader – the future innova-

tor – able to create, manage, and motivate a high-performance

team, through excellent communication and persuasion skills,

and develop a strong solution? In this case, yes.

One global industrial products company in the UK insists

that its rising innovators do a stint in the sales department. At

fi rst this decision was met with reluctance and skepticism. The

head of sales balked, saying, “They want to put guys with ab-

solutely no sales experience on my team – and we have major

accounts to close this quarter.” But senior management stood

fi rm, contending that the advantages were twofold: Future in-

novators could learn what makes customers tick and also how

to develop the salesmanship vital to spearheading large-scale

innovation efforts down the road. The CEO commented, “We

want the rising stars to work side by side with our experienced

sales team developing pitches, dissecting customer needs, ac-

companying the team on client calls, actually helping to close

the sale.”

With pressure from the CEO, the plan was implemented,

and despite the initial resistance, expectations were exceeded

on all fronts. Even the head of sales said, “Frankly, I was expect-

ing this one guy to fall fl at on his face and make us look bad

in front of a fairly large client. He was rough around the edges

at fi rst. But once in the room with the client organization, he

had a remarkable ability to see what was really making the key

decision makers tick. And he related to the client in a highly

effective, down-to-earth kind of way. In the end I think he

actually taught our guys a few new techniques.”

Testing doesn’t end with the fi rst project. Many companies

that tap and groom innovators are unfashionably intolerant

of failure. At Reuters, if prospective innovators fail, they are

returned to line positions. If they win, they are presented with

an even greater challenge, together with more resources, more

coaching, and more incentives.

Indeed, the development process (giving innovators a

chance and seeing how they respond) is part of the assess-

ment process. Innovation at Reuters “is like playing pinball,”

according to Tom Gros, the executive vice president and global

head of commodities and energy. “The better you get, the

more balls you get to play with. But when you lose, you’re out

of the game.”

Provide Multiple MentorsSmart organizations pair innovators with carefully selected

mentors who can continually educate them about the people

they are most likely to encounter and the interactions they are

most likely to have. When Allstate developed its well- regarded

Your Choice insurance plans, rising innovators driving the

product introduction were assigned to mentors who could

help them understand the motivations, goals, mind-set, and

budget constraints of managers in relevant functions such as

claims processing, product testing, and actuarial. The mentors

themselves were coached and supported by the CEO, which

strongly signaled the importance of the initiative. Mentoring

was the perfect supplement to the innovators’ natural mix of

intuition and curiosity.

In the best organizations a mentor is assigned so that the

protégé can test new ideas and assumptions with a seasoned

expert before introducing them to others in the company and

can better understand the underlying agendas of the senior

executives who must be won over. The mentor can share in-

formation that might be relevant to a particular course of

action (for example, someone else may have already tried it

and failed) and can “test-drive” and sharpen the protégé’s argu-

ment to build confi dence.

In traditional mentoring relationships, mentor and mentee

are often expected to stay together until one of them retires.

But successful companies encourage rising innovators to seek

out different mentors over time. That gives the innovators

access to more ideas and a wider range of infl uencers, and

more fl exibility to fi nd the advice that best fi ts a particular

situation.

An excellent instance of multiple mentoring comes from out-

side the business world. A few years ago at Vanderbilt University,

Nick Zeppos, a former Vanderbilt law professor, was brought to

the attention of Chancellor Gordon Gee as someone with the

potential to become an innovative leader. After further screen-

ing, one-on-one interviewing, and careful monitoring, Gee was

convinced that Zeppos was a potential successor. The chair of

Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust, Martha Ingram, was intrigued by

Zeppos but argued that he needed mentors from various parts

of the university that were critical to Vanderbilt’s future. Ingram

and Gee carefully selected a series of mentors to work with Zep-

pos, who proved to be a quick and appreciative learner and was

highly successful with alumni, donors, and students. In 2008

Zeppos was appointed chancellor after Gee assumed the presi-

dency of Ohio State University.




Foster Peer NetworksIf a few young stars are drawn from the ranks of the organiza-

tion and placed on a special innovation track, their experiences

will of course differ. It is often useful to create opportunities

for them to bounce ideas off one another. Peer networks that

meet regularly and have open channels of communication

provide a sense of solidarity and a uniquely fertile environ-

ment in which to exchange ideas, impart information, and

instill hope.

One rising innovator at a large U.S.-based entertainment

conglomerate articulated a key benefi t of peer networks: “The

most reassuring aspect was simply the process of talking to oth-

ers about how they personally coped with the added pressure

and time demands of spearheading new innovation projects

with inherently high expectations. Hearing how colleagues

in a similar situation managed the stress, or just that they

were able to get it all done, was incredibly reassuring.” Peer

networks also answer more-tangible questions, such as Which

parts of the organization are good sources of information,

ideas, and insight? and Where are the dead ends? Often a men-

tor who is not also an innovator cannot answer these questions.

Moreover, there is no doubt that peers will share with one

another information they might not reveal to a mentor, who

is typically a more senior member of the organization.

Starwood does a good job of using peer networks to fuel

innovation. Innovators can tap into what the company calls

a collaboration circle – a cross-functional group of diverse ex-

perts – at any time, simply by calling a

meeting. Because innovators in train-

ing have no formal authority over the

members of a collaboration circle,

who are usually proven innovators,

Starwood’s CEO monitors the process

to make sure it works.

A senior marketing executive and

innovator in the company recalls cre-

ating a unique interorganizational

team to develop a concept for an

entirely new, more affordable hotel brand to round out Star-

wood’s portfolio of luxury and midlevel offerings. The team

included not only specialists in marketing, operations, and

fi nance but also artists, photographers, and even opera singers

that the company had hired within the previous few years.

Once the team had been assembled, the marketing execu-

tive wondered how best to exploit it. His collaboration circle

advised him to present the team members with very simple

but direct questions and goals. He went to the group and

asked, “If Howard Johnson’s or Holiday Inn were reinvented

today, what would it look and feel like? If you took the per-

sonality of the W Hotel on the road and to the masses, what

would you get?” The team came up with a novel but highly

practical solution that would complement but not compete

against the W brand.

Once the idea had been fully fl eshed out, the marketing ex-

ecutive returned to his circle for advice on how to sell the idea

to senior management. The circle provided suggestions, on ev-

erything from designers to developers, that could convert this

vision into a reality and, equally important, convince those at

the top that the idea would fl y. Two weeks later the concept,

branded Aloft, had the full support of the CEO and the rest of

the executive team. (It was launched in June 2008.) Interact-

ing with other innovators in Starwood’s collaboration circles

was like “suddenly realizing that you have a twin brother on

the other side of the planet,” the marketing executive said. “I

came in contact with other individuals who were experiencing

the same thing I was. They have been a great resource for me,

and I think that through them I have a much better under-

standing of how to get things done around here.”

Replant Innovators in the MiddleWhen an organization’s innovators have been identifi ed, de-

veloped, and equipped with mentors and a peer network, the

grooming puzzle is still missing one important piece: where to

put them. Where will they have the most impact? Where are

the nodes in the shadow organization – those all-important

hot spots that don’t show up on formal organization charts –

where innovation can be sparked?

Organizations that excel at developing innovative leaders

often do something that may be regarded as heresy: They take

them out of well-defi ned, long-standing, revenue-generating

line positions and replant them in the middle of the organiza-

tional chart, where no formal boxes exist. There they become

“innovation hubs,” with easy access to infl uencers across the

organization, more autonomy, and broader albeit more am-

biguous job responsibilities, and can better see how existing

products, ideas, people, or even entire businesses can be re-

combined in new, value-adding ways.

Tom Gros’s history at Reuters offers an excellent example.

When Gros joined the company, in 2002, he quickly proved he

had all the requisite attributes to become an innovative man-

ager. He consistently cherry-picked the right personnel and

applied cost-saving techniques from other parts of the orga-

nization to his department. Based on his track record, Devin

Wenig, who is now CEO of the Markets Division of Thomson

Reuters, in 2006 made Gros the head of new markets, a hub po-

Peers will share information with one another that they might not reveal to a mentor.



sition, specifi cally to identify and develop opportunities. With

a modest budget but signifi cant autonomy and latitude, Gros

assembled a team that developed new businesses in commercial

real estate, environmental markets, and freight as a derivative

product. It created “rebel camps,” which provided other manag-

ers at Reuters with a chance to learn, get involved, and defi ne

further opportunities. The camps have become a great destina-

tion and the ultimate training ground for the company’s rising

innovators. For a global fi rm like Reuters, this strategy has the

added benefi t of being nearly impossible to replicate in smaller

companies, which lack people, ideas, and businesses on the scale

required for such recombinant innovation.

None of this means that companies should break down

their specialized business units, as many have tried to do over

the past decade. Silos are not all bad. In fact, they often provide

the insulation needed to build world-class pockets of highly

specialized know-how that have deep operational expertise,

consumer insight, industry experience, and so forth. Without

specialists the innovator has no chance of succeeding. So the

trick is to integrate a small group of innovators into these

units and thus give them access to fi rst-rate resources.

Finally, senior management, the CEO in particular, has a

responsibility to ensure that rising innovators land in the right

hub positions. At JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon and the

head of human resources spearheaded what they call “ascen-

sion plans” to chart a handful of possible career paths for fu-

ture innovators, in concert with the innovators themselves. It

is “foolish,” Dimon believes, “to think there’s only one possible,

ideal career path for our high-potential managers most likely

to one day orchestrate large-scale innovations.” If the right

position does not exist for one of JPMC’s innovators, Dimon

or another executive team member creates it. “Our biggest sin

would be to correctly identify future innovators, only to ignore

them by letting them sit and stew in existing positions,” Dimon

told us. He considers developing breakthrough innovators to

be one of his key responsibilities, and one in which his board

is highly interested.

• • •

Napoleon famously remarked that a general’s most important

asset is his luck. What he didn’t mention is that luck comes to

people who are well prepared and manage to be in the right

place at the right time. Napoleon’s brilliance lay in identifying

future commanders early in their military careers and giving

them access to resources, authority, and the opportunity to

prove their mettle. He always preached to his protégés the ne-

cessity of drawing upon good ideas and military tactics wher-

ever they arose. Despite his arrogance, he was smart enough to

recognize a good idea – and he wanted his commanders to be

so as well. The most promising among them fi gured out how

to combine good ideas and limited resources in a novel way to

conquer seemingly invincible adversaries.

The same is true for business innovation. Following the prac-

tices we’ve outlined can’t guarantee that another company

won’t surprise you with the innovation that blows you off the

map. It can, however, ensure that your organization nurtures

innovators, improving the likelihood that innovations will con-

tinue to emerge from within. And even if they don’t, you’ll be

better placed than your competitors to adjust to the changes

that breakthrough innovation inevitably brings in its wake.

Jeffrey Cohn ([email protected]) is an expert in leader-

ship assessment and succession planning at Spencer Stuart

in New York. Jon Katzenbach and Gus Vlak are partners at

Katzenbach Partners in New York. Both Cohn and Katzenbach

have written previously for HBR about leadership and talent

management.

Reprint R0812D To order, see page 135.


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