Product and Innovation

Innovation

SPOTLIGHT ON

INNOVATION

Peter Crowther

Five “discovery skills” separate true innovators from the rest of us.

| by Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen

DNA

hbr.org

|

The Innovator’s

December 2009

|

Harvard Business Review 61

Innovation

SPOTLIGHT ON

INNOVATION

The Innovator’s DNA

“How do I find INNOVATIVE PEOPLE for my organization? And how can I become more innovative myself?”

These are questions that stump senior executives, who understand that the ability to innovate is the “secret sauce” of business success. Unfortunately, most of us know very little about what makes one person more creative than another. Perhaps for this reason, we stand in awe of visionary entrepreneurs like Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, eBay’s Pierre Omidyar, and P&G’s A.G. Lafley. How do these people come up with groundbreaking new ideas? If it were possible to discover the inner workings of the masters’ minds, what could the rest of us learn about how innovation really happens? In searching for answers, we undertook a sixyear study to uncover the origins of creative – and often disruptive – business strategies in particularly innovative companies. IN BRIEF Our goal was to put innovative The habits of Steve Jobs, Jeff entrepreneurs under the microBezos, and other innovative CEOs scope, examining when and how reveal much about the underpinthey came up with the ideas on nings of their creative thinking. which their businesses were built. Research shows that five discovWe especially wanted to examine ery skills distinguish the most inhow they differ from other execunovative entrepreneurs from other tives and entrepreneurs: Someexecutives. one who buys a McDonald’s franDOING chise may be an entrepreneur, » Questioning allows innovators but building an Amazon requires to break out of the status quo and different skills altogether. We consider new possibilities. studied the habits of 25 innova» Through observing,...