Author – Nicholas J. Webb
While reading this book, I also decided to check the author on the internet. In one of his speeches, he said something remarkable, ‘That, of all those that give thought leadership on innovations, he is the only that has several patents’. It is that extension of confidence and clarity that you will find in the book.
What is your organisation’s mandate? What is the most important thing to the organisation and its employees? For some, growth is their mandate, while for some, it is profit. To Nicholas, “making profit is nonnegotiable”. If profit is the topline nonnegotiable, then innovation is the underlying catalyst. You will find in the book that ‘if your organization doesn’t innovate, its headed for early demise’.
The history of the world is that of innovation. Successive generations have always sought to improve on the ways, products, services of the previous generation. It is what is defined as progress, growth and responsible for the increasing value creations we see today. But in the last 25 years, it has become even more desperate to innovate as a business.
Why?
The first is that we are seeing a rate of change never seen in the history of the world. Rapid technological advances have made value of ‘old’ innovations time value very limited. Imagine how long the world used the landline as the means of civil communication over distances before the mobile phone arrived. While the mobile is still with us, I am sure none of us can remember what the first set of mobile phones looked like, just in the space of a generation.
The second point is the severity of disruption is increasing. This is a major threat to businesses as it increases competition to levels and at speed never seen before now. Due to a variety of disruptions, new innovations can wipe out a company or reduce it to a shell of its old self. But never mind, Nicholas set out how you can make innovation the ‘rock solid’ mission of your organization, designing a process of innovation that ensures that your business always stays ahead.
