Book Titles

…by supporting, enabling, and nurturing new products and services, new production methods, and entry into new markets, hierarchy can be good for innovation.

Setting up special subunits with unique responsibilities is a feature, not a bug, of hierarchy.

…research suggests that innovativeness declines because of top managers’ cognitive blinders, which make them miss threats in the environment.

Successful companies similarly fail because of their past successes, which engineer overconfidence and thus produce hubris as well as complacency.

…hierarchical firms are sometimes more innovative than smaller, flatter firms, but not always. Context matters.

Strategies, no matter how carefully designed, are road maps to destinations we have never visited, over territory that has not been carefully explored.

…analysis implies that companies should empower middle managers to design and implement innovation programs and processes, while encouraging top managers to adopt a hands-off approach.

Companies cannot be good at everything, nor should they try to be.

Doing both exploitation and exploration well is difficult, and doing both well at the same time is exceedingly difficult.

…innovation is not just a matter of having the right people. Innovators need resources, financial support, encouragement, and a project champion.