Dyer Jeffrey H, Gregersen Hal B, Christensen Clayton M
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.
Harv Bus Rev. 2009 Dec;87(12):60-7, 128.
"How do I find innovative people for my organization? And how can I become more innovative myself?" These are questions that stump most senior executives, who know that the ability to innovate is the "secret sauce" of business success. Perhaps for this reason most of us stand in awe of the work of visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple's Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, eBay's Pierre Omidyar, and P&G's A.G. Lafley. How do these individuals come up with groundbreaking new ideas? In this article, Dyer, of Brigham Young University; Gregersen, of Insead; and Christensen, of Harvard Business School, reveal how innovative entrepreneurs differ from typical executives. Their study demonstrates that five "discovery skills" distinguish the most creative executives: Associating helps them discover new directions by making connections among seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas. Questioning allows innovators to break out of the status quo and consider new ideas. Through observing, innovators carefully and consistently look out for small behavioral details--in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies -to gain insights about new ways of doing things. In experimenting, they relentlessly try on new experiences and explore the world. And through networking with diverse individuals from an array of backgrounds, they gain radically different perspectives.
“我如何为我的组织找到有创新能力的人？我自己又如何变得更具创新力？”这些问题难倒了大多数高级管理人员，他们深知创新能力是商业成功的“秘诀”。或许正因如此，我们大多数人都对苹果公司的史蒂夫·乔布斯、亚马逊的杰夫·贝索斯、易贝的皮埃尔·奥米迪亚以及宝洁公司的A.G.雷富礼等有远见卓识的企业家的工作充满敬畏。这些人是如何想出具有开创性的新点子的呢？在本文中，杨百翰大学的戴尔、欧洲工商管理学院的格雷格森以及哈佛商学院的克里斯坦森揭示了创新型企业家与典型高管的不同之处。他们的研究表明，五种“发现技能”区分出了最具创造力的高管：联想能帮助他们通过将看似不相关的问题、难题或想法联系起来，发现新的方向。质疑使创新者能够突破现状并考虑新的想法。通过观察，创新者会仔细且持续地留意小的行为细节——在客户、供应商及其他公司的活动中——以获取关于做事新方法的见解。在实验中，他们不懈地尝试新体验并探索世界。而且通过与来自不同背景的各种人建立联系，他们能获得截然不同的观点。
