Career Innovation

When Brigadier General John "Dragon" Teichert took command of legendary Edwards Air Force Base, it was characterized by a choking complacency. It was operating on autopilot when it needed to be in afterburner.

Niccolò Machiavelli famously wrote, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." That's what this book is about - innovation far more audacious than a new way to find a restaurant or a smart phone you can wear on your wrist. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson and journalist Susan Salter Reynolds explore how to bring into being systems that transform human experience and make the world more livable and sustainable.

What Matters Now is Gary Hamel's impassioned plea to rethink the fundamental assumptions we have about management, the meaning of work, and organizational life. He asks, "What are the fundamental, make-or-break issues that will determine whether your organization thrives or dives in the years ahead?"

Großartige Ideen entstehen nicht nur an der Spitze – sie entstehen dort, wo die eigentliche Arbeit passiert. Was, wenn der Schlüssel zur Innovation nicht in den Vorstandsetagen liegt, sondern an der Front? In Der Durchbruch – Wie Sie Innovationen von Grund auf vorantreiben zeigt Ihnen Rich Dunbar, wie eine gezielte Bottom-up-Kommunikation bahnbrechende Ideen entfesseln, Mitarbeitende stärken und nachhaltige Verbesserungen vorantreiben kann – ganz ohne riesige Budgets oder komplizierte Strategien.

In The Wise Company, legendary management experts Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi highlight how various companies have confronted the challenge of rapid change. The key: a relentless self-renewal process where companies realize the future they envision, rather than only responding to changes in the environment.

Written by world-renowned expert in transformation, best-selling author, and award-winning teacher, scholar, and global advisor Behnam Tabrizi, Going on Offense is a must-listen for any organization looking to stay innovative and competitive in today's rapidly changing market. Armed with this book, a company will be able to go on offense—continually improving its culture, adapting to new environments, and expanding into new territories.

There once was a small town and school in Oregon with a dream that began afresh with an eighth-grader who asked her parents, “Why can't we just have a real track?” As it happened, the community and school had been talking about creating an athletic complex for over 25 years, without even approaching to the starting line. Michael Bergmann and IncubatorU™ showed up to help the town realize their vision and embrace this young girl’s dream. They built a framework using IncubatorU’s 5-Step Methodology.

In The Very Best Bad Idea, Kirk Westwood steamrolls the long-held premise that right is good and wrong is bad. He paves the way to give anyone who sees situations differently the permission to be proud of their brilliantly unbridled “bad ideas”.

The Zero in Formula, Dennis Geelen's latest book, challenges business owners, CEO's, and leaders to think differently about their company. The stats don't lie. A large percentage of businesses do not make it past the first few years. Of the ones that do, only a small percentage end up surviving past 15 years. Many of those that survive have now plateaued or are in decline. You will learn what it means to be customer centric, with strategies and tools you can apply to your business. You will be guided through the recipe step-by-step to build your successful foundation.

Using real-life practical experiences, serial entrepreneur and thought leader Faisal Hoque teams up with journalist Drake Baer to provide a personal and professional playbook that is part philosophy, part business, and part history. Everything Connects offers the wisdom of 2,500-year-old Eastern philosophies and the interconnected insights of Leonardo da Vinci. Couple that with Fortune 100 corporate cross pollination for creativity and startup thinking for how to adapt with ease, and you'll quickly discover that everything connects.

Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms zeros in on the cutting-edge thinkers who repeatedly create and deliver breakthrough innovations and new products in large, mature organizations. These employees are organizational powerhouses who solve consumer problems and substantially contribute to the financial value to their firms.

Drawing on the knowledge and experience of working with hundreds the world's top social change leaders in all fields, Beverly Schwartz presents a model for change based on five proven principles that any individual leader or organization can apply to bring about deep, lasting, and systematic change. Rippling shows how to activate the type of change that is needed to address the critical challenges that threaten to destroy the foundations of our society and planet in these increasingly turbulent times.

Why do some programs deliver their product under cost, while others bust their budget? Why do some deliver ahead of schedule, while others experience endless delays? And most importantly, which products work better - the quick and thrifty or the slow and expensive? Which situation leads to superior equipment? In this story-filled blend of quirky pop culture and practical engineering insight, Dan Ward presents an entertaining and useful framework for pursuing rapid, frugal innovation.

There is perhaps no leadership challenge more daunting than managing creativity - and more urgent than delivering breakthrough innovation. How do you harness some of the most passionate, intelligent people in your organization without stifling them? How do you simultaneously unleash their energy and channel it into something tangible? Lina Echeverría offers seven proven principles through which new ideas come to fruition, from unleashing passion and drive, and embracing productive conflict, to emphasizing excellence and structure while living values that liberate creativity.

Everyone has the right to be well managed. And it is possible to be “just” at work - to treat others as you would be treated. These are radical propositions. When you live by them, the people you lead through your management hierarchy understand the context of the work they’re doing. They feel connected to the overall purpose of the enterprise and are aligned to its vision and values.

Innovation requires solving big problems from a new perspective, but many struggle to successfully innovate in their work or personal life when faced with a problem that requires innovative thinking. Author and researcher April Bell has zeroed in on the power of empathy and the ability to embrace risk when solving big problems in the unknown. In her book, The Fire Starter: Igniting Innovation with Empathy, Bell combines engaging personal stories with research to provide listeners with a simple framework helping them connect to greater human truths to solve big problems.

It’s not the iPhone, but VC, that is Silicon Valley’s greatest export—it’s the key ingredient of innovation and provides the toolkit for inventors and start-up founders around the world to become powerful, multibillion-dollar companies.

Part philosophy, part business, and part history, this book is a kaleidoscopic view of the way humans have been able to achieve greatness for themselves, their organizations, and the world at large. You'll learn from the wisdom of Eastern philosophies that are over 2,500 years old and the interconnected insights of Leonardo da Vinci. Couple that with Fortune 100 corporate cross pollination for creativity and startup thinking for how to adapt with ease, and you have Everything Connects. This isn't just a quick fix for your next quarter; this is how you succeed in the long run.

In the ground-breaking Innovation Thinking Methods, entrepreneur and tech CEO Osama A. Hashmi introduces the discipline of "innovation-thinking," based on the methods and techniques he's applied over the past 15 years to build strong innovation cultures in his award-winning tech companies, and to help entrepreneurs and enterprise companies refocus their thinking back towards ambitious goals and more meaningful pursuits.

In 1964, when Leon Wandler and Hank Barney established what is today L&H Industrial, Wyoming was still a frontier, a place where men and women tested themselves against the elements and learned persistence in the face of failure. As this history reveals, many of us at L&H have learned the hard way, but we have grown as individuals and as a company. Learning by doing, with a commitment to quality and innovation, we have made L&H what it is today—a global leader in the design, engineering, manufacturing, monitoring, and maintenance of the biggest machines on Earth.