This document contains advice and quotes about innovation. It emphasizes that innovation is messy and experimental, requiring trying new ideas, failing, and trying again. It stresses getting started on innovation now through actions like prototyping ideas, decentralizing to encourage independent tries, and rewarding failures as well as successes in order to learn and move innovation efforts forward. The overall message is that continuous experimentation, action, and persistence are needed to drive innovation successfully.

1.
INNOVATE.
OR.
DIE.

2.
INNOVATION IS THE ONLY
EXCELLENCE YOU REALLY NEED
!
Peter Drucker

3. “To grow, companies need
to break out of a vicious
cycle of competitive
benchmarking and
imitation.” —W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne,
“Think for Yourself —
Stop Copying a Rival,” Financial Times

4.
EXCELLENCE. INNOVATION.
THE REAL STORY.

5. The Mess Is The
Message! Period!

6. What makes
GOD laugh?

7. People making
plans!

8. What makes !
me laugh?

9. “Gurus” (and once-famous CEOs) giving LLLs
(logical linear lectures) on “systems”* of
innovation!
*especially with lots of charts and graphs and Greek
mathematical symbols and little tiny numbers

10.
NOTE: few ideas are more important—and
more honoured in the breach. Innovation is
MESSY
to the extreme. Such an assertion (reality!)
determines the success of innovation
“strategies,” perhaps the wrong word. This
unfolding “story” is one of the most important
in my efforts to alter enterprise thinking.

11. try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Screw it up. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Screw it up. it. Try it.
Try it. try it. Try it. Screw it
up. Try it. Try it. Try it.

12. Get mad. Do
something about
it. Now.

13. The “5Ps” of Innovation Success:
Pissed-off-ed-ness
Passion
pals
Politics [Political skill]
Persistence

14. Innovation
Truths

15. “Acquisitions are about buying market share. Our
challenge is to create markets. There is a
big difference.”
—Peter Job, former CEO, Reuters

16. Characteristics of the “Also rans”*
“Minimize risk”
“Respect the chain of command”
“Support the boss”
“Make budget”
*Fortune, article on “Most Admired Global Corporations”

17. “Companies have
defined so much
‘best practice’ that
they are now more
or less identical.”
—Jesper Kunde, Unique Now ... Or Never

18. “It is not the strongest of
the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent, but
the one most responsive
to change.” —Charles Darwin

19. Innovation
Truths

20. try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Screw it up. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Try it. Try it. Try it.
Try it. Screw it up. it. Try it.
Try it. try it. Try it. Screw it
up. Try it. Try it. Try it.

21. What makes
God laugh?

22. People making
plans!

23. do things.

24. “We have a ‘strategic plan.’
It’s called doing things.”
— Herb Kelleher

25. do them.

26. A man approached JP Morgan, held up an envelope, and said, “Sir, in my hand I hold a guaranteed
formula for success, which I will gladly sell you for $25,000.”
“Sir,” JP Morgan replied, “I do not know what is in the envelope, however if you show me, and I like
it, I
give you my word as a gentleman that I will pay you what you ask.”
The man agreed to the terms, and handed over the envelope. JP Morgan opened it, and extracted a
single sheet of paper. He gave it one look, a mere glance, then handed the piece of paper back to the
gent.
And paid him the
agreed upon $25,000.

27. 1. Every morning, write
a list of the things
that need to be done
that day.
2. Do them.

28. !
drill.!!

29. !!
“This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people
really understand that you only find
oil if you drill wells.You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and
studying logs, but you have to drill.”
!
Source: The Hunters, by John Masters, Canadian O & G wildcatter

30. never, never forget the “it” !
(It’s the PRODUCT, Stupid.)

31. try things.

32. “Experiment
fearlessly”
“How to Hit a Moving Target”—Tactic #1

33. The True Logic* of Decentralization:
6 divisions = 6 “tries”
6 divisions = 6 DIFFERENT leaders = 6 INDEPENDENT
“tries” = Max probability of “win”
6 divisions = 6 very DIFFERENT leaders = 6 very
INDEPENDENT “tries” = Max probability of “far out”/”3-
sigma” “win”
*“Driver”: Law of Large #s

34.
SERIOUS PLAY

35. Culture of Prototyping
“Effective prototyping may be the most
valuable core competence an innovative
organization can hope to have.” —Michael Schrage

36. Think about It!?
Innovation = Reaction
to the Prototype
Source: Michael Schrage

37. “You can’t be a serious innovator
unless and until you are ready,
willing and able to seriously play.
‘Serious play’ is not an oxymoron;
it is the essence of innovation.”
—Michael Schrage, Serious Play

38. “Learn not to be
careful.”
—Photographer Diane Arbus
to her students (Careful = The sidelines, from
Harriet Rubin in The Princessa)

39. “The key to a great
painting is the nerve,
after weeks of effort,
to ‘bet the painting’ on
the next brush stroke,”
Master musician, San Francisco

40. Screw. things.

41. “FAIL, FAIL AGAIN.
FAIL BETTER.”
—Samuel Beckett

42. “Fail .
Forward.
Fast.”
High Tech CEO, Pennsylvania

43.
“Fail faster. Succeed Sooner.”
David Kelley/IDEO

44. Sam’s
Secret
#1!

45. “Reward excellent
failures. Punish
mediocre successes.”
Phil Daniels, Sydney exec

46. “If people tell me
they skied all day and
never fell down, I tell them
to try a different mountain.”
—Michael Bloomberg (BW/0625.07)

47. “In business, you reward people for
taking risks. When it doesn’t work
out you promote them-because they
were willing to try new things. If
people tell me
they skied all day and never fell
down, I tell them to try
a different mountain.”
—Michael Bloomberg (BW/0625.07)

48. Read This!
Richard Farson & Ralph Keyes: Whoever
Makes the Most
Mistakes Wins: The
Paradox of Innovation

49. “The secret of fast progress
is inefficiency, fast and
furious and numerous
failures.” --Kevin Kelly

50. try.
Miss.
try.

51. READY.
FIRE!
AIM.

52. Paul Allaire/Xerox: “We are in a brawl
with no rules.”
TP: “There’s [literally] only one
possible answer … Screw
Around Vigorously!

53. No try. No deal.

54. “You miss
100% of the
shots you never take.”
—Wayne Gretzky

55. “Intelligent people can
always come up with
intelligent reasons to do
nothing.” —Scott Simon

56. “Andrew Higgins , who built landing craft in
WWII, refused to hire graduates of engineering
schools. He believed that they only
teach you what you can’t do in
engineering school. He started off
with 20 employees, and by the middle of the
war had 30,000 working for him. He turned out
20,000 landing craft.
D.D. Eisenhower told me, ‘Andrew Higgins won
the war for us. He did it without engineers.’ ”
—Stephen Ambrose/Fast Company

57. Innovation:
Get mad. Start Doing
something about it.
Now.

58.
INNOVATE.
OR.
DIE.
!
END.