Leading a Company to Embrace and Capitalize on Innovation

Virtually every company that plans to remain viable throughout the ebbs and flows of the business cycle needs to be innovative in a way that's appropriate for its industry. "Innovation," therefore, can apply in many areas: construction methods, advertising techniques, Internet technologies. The whole process of innovating, however, is not without risks: that the changes will not work, that employees will not support them, that the marketplace will not embrace them. Because the success of an innovation is often dependent on the quality of the CEO's leadership, this ExecBlueprint examines the innovative process from the CEO's perspective. Here the authors describe some of their companies' successful innovations and the steps that were essential in their development, including knowledge of applicable technologies and target markets. Most importantly, however, they share how the CEO plays an invaluable role in the innovative process by fostering a work environment that is simultaneously creative, challenging, experimental, and supportive.