At a time when change is the rule and the ability to adapt is essential to the success of any business, a new book by Ben M. Bensaou, Professor of Technology Management and former Dean of Executive Education at INSEAD, offers a practical guide to implementing continuous innovation within your organisation.
Previous books on innovation have often focused on the brilliance of individual leaders like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. Less has been written about pragmatic ways of integrating innovative practices and ways of thinking throughout an organisation.
Built to Innovate looks to change that. It maps out a proven system for building constant innovation into your company’s DNA. Drawing on over twenty years of experience researching, teaching and consulting for some of the world’s leading organisations, Bensaou identifies the key processes and structures needed to constantly drive an organisation’s “innovation engine,” and explains why it is vital that people in every department and at every level of an organisation contribute to the process.
By detailing the working practices of a wide range of global companies from industries and markets not necessarily associated with innovation ― including BASF, AkzoNobel, Sabancı Group, Recruit Holdings, Ecocem, Starwood Hotels, Domino’s Pizza, Bayer, Marvel Studios, Allianz, and Fiskars ― Bensaou offers real-world solutions that you can leverage in your own organization.
Built to Innovate shows how to:
- Develop a culture of innovating
- Set up the three key processes essential to innovating
- Utilise existing tools and processes to integrate innovating into your organisation
- Involve everyone in the organisation in the innovating process, especially middle managers
- Generate ideas at all levels of your organisation
- Empower coaches to catalyse innovating
- Keep the ideas flowing
“Many books offer tools and techniques for creativity,” Bensaou says. “But my central purpose is to provide leaders with a conceptual framework that can guide them in designing and constantly nurturing an organisation built to innovate. Innovating can become a habit, one that gives an organisation a powerful advantage.”
