A lively, thoughtful primer for generating solutions to a wide range of problems.
Wharton School professors Terwiesch and Ulrich present a compact guide to innovative problem-solving.
The authors explain that, in the business world, an innovation tournament “convenes opportunities for creating value. These opportunities might be ideas for new products, approaches to process improvement, names for a new venture, or candidates for entirely new lines of business. And they can originate from individuals, teams, or organizations.” Adapting the underlying concept to a broader context, Terwiesch and Ulrich contend that the concept of innovation is simply “finding a new match between a solution and a need.” They highlight the universality of this approach, which can be applied to everything from looking for a new romantic partner to getting more sleep to picking the right vacation. In all cases, the authors assert, the essence of the approach boils down to three principles: “Value is driven by the exceptional few,” “You do not know from the outset which opportunities will prove to be the most valuable,” and “You can invest a little to learn a lot.” The central idea is to start with a varied batch of raw possibilities and gradually winnow them down to those “exceptional few.” The authors take the reader through a series of practical applications of the “tournament” principle, such as crafting a watertight “problem statement” or setting out clear, practical goals. The authors employ a concise, extremely readable prose style and flesh out every concept they mention, with examples drawn from their experiences with businesses that have used the “tournament” approach, such as Proctor & Gamble. Although the book is primarily concerned with structuring and running actual innovation tournaments, most of the organizational advice in these pages will be equally applicable to businesses and entrepreneurs who’ve never held such an event.
A lively, thoughtful primer for generating solutions to a wide range of problems.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781613631706
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Wharton School Press
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sound insight, but not for beginners.
Ercetin and her co-authors offer a collection of essays and scholarly papers aimed at all types of organizations, hoping to inspire managers at all levels to assess and develop the organizational intelligence of their arena and, therefore, of their entire organization.
According to the author, organizational intelligence (OI), the ability to take in, analyze and respond to new information and changes, can determine the success or failure of an organization. Akin to the way a person’s IQ influences all aspects of life, an organization’s OI plays a role in everything, from employee satisfaction, to overall performance, to efficiency and streamlining. It is important that managers at every level–as well as the employees who determine actual workflow processes–are working toward a higher OI, whatever their sphere of influence. Toward this end, Ercetin and company put forth not only the concept of OI, but a scale for measuring it and instructions for applying that scale, as well as commentary on different applications for OI and metaphors for understanding its different aspects. Unfortunately, OI is a complex concept, and those who understand it well seem to speak a language different than that of the average employee or midlevel manager. That, combined with some English-language and/or translation difficulties, will make this book difficult for any novice to understand and thus extremely difficult to apply in a meaningful way. On the other hand, those with previous training in the language and concepts the book discusses will find interesting, compelling ideas for further inquiry. The authors explore different aspects of matter and liquid as a metaphor for OI and expand the usual concept of OI with their study of peace intelligence. It’s fascinating, but not straightforward or rudimentary.
Sound insight, but not for beginners.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4196-3582-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Though the administration may be remembered as the worst in American history, the people seem mostly silent. One wishes that...
New York Times columnist Rich delivers a savaging sermon on the US government’s “rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of ‘compassionate conservativism,’ the reckless lack of planning for all government operations except tax cuts”—and so much more.
Anyone who knows his work will know that Rich is no fan of either George Bush, a man “not conversant with reality as most Americans had experienced it,” or the Bush administration. In this blend of journalism and mentalités-style history—that is, the study of the mindsets that underlie and produce events—Rich looks closely and critically at the White House’s greatest hits, from the 2001 defense of gas-guzzling as essential to the American way of life to “Heckuva job, Brownie” to the ongoing morass of Iraq. By Rich’s account, of course, that parade of missteps is organic; Bush and company cannot help but err. In an effort to disguise that track record, the Republicans have exercised single-minded control of the grand narrative of the last five years, at least in part because they have exercised quasi-totalitarian control over the news media. (They are nearly forgotten already, but one needs to remember Judith Miller, Jeff Gannon, Karen Ryan and various columnists and commentators paid off to repeat the party line.) Not for nothing did a White House adviser reveal to one journalist that his bosses were set on creating their “own reality,” one that all Americans were expected to share; not for nothing did that reality include spinning amazing lies about everything from the death of football- and war hero Pat Tillman to the kidnapping of Jessica Lynch to the government’s preparedness for Katrina. And yet, and yet . . .
Though the administration may be remembered as the worst in American history, the people seem mostly silent. One wishes that Rich had explored that particular mentalité along with the others he so fluently discusses.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2006
ISBN: 1-59420-098-X
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
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