Grabbing Lightning Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation

The authors show how the management system for innovation is different from the traditional one in that it allows?and even encourages?mistakes and failures in order to promote learning. Grabbing Lightning outlines the three building blocks of breakthrough innovation (BI) and shows what it takes to become an organization that values the BI management system.

Preface ix

Introduction xv

1 Management Systems for Innovation 1

2 Assessing Your Organization’s Capacity for Breakthrough Innovation 23

3 The Discovery Competency 51

4 Incubation: The Long and Winding Road 81

5 Acceleration: Gathering Steam and Building Critical Mass 117

6 The DNA Innovation System 151

7 Incorporating the DNA: The Role of the Orchestrator 185

8 Getting Started: Initiating and Maturing an Innovation Management System 215

9 The Innovation Function 259

Appendix A: Companies Participating in the Breakthrough Innovation Research Study 275

Appendix B: Assessing Your Firm’s Breakthrough Innovation Competency 279

Notes 305

Acknowledgments 315

About the Authors 319

Index 323

The Authors

Gina C. O'Connor is associate professor of marketing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's (RPI) Lally School of Management and Technology. She currently serves as the director of the executive M.B.A. program and is also the academic director of the Radical Innovation Research Program.

Richard Leifer is an emeritus professor at the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Albert S. Paulson is Gilbreth Chaired Professor in the Technologies of Management at RPI andchief investment officer at Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments.

Lois S. Peters is associate professor, past-director of the Ph.D. program, and current director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy at Lally School of Management and Technology at RPI.