Since coming to the Tuck School in 2000,
Chris’ research has focused exclusively on the challenge
of making innovation happen inside established organizations. He has now co-authored four books on the topic.
The Other Side of Innovation - Solving The Execution Challenge
The foundational book, the culmination of ten years of research, is The Other Side of Innovation published in 2010. The book outlines a detailed prescription for executing innovation initiatives while simultaneously sustaining excellence in ongoing operations.
How Stella Saved the Farm (due from St. Martin’s Press in early 2012, but advance copies now available) is a simple story about a farm in trouble, and how it innovates to get out of trouble. In a very compact and readable form, it delivers the most fundamental principles in The Other Side of Innovation. It is a “one airplane ride read,” even if you are flying, say, from New York to Boston.
Ten Rules for
Strategic Innovators — from Idea to Execution Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators, published in 2005,is similar to The Other Side of Innovation but more specialized. It addresses a sub-class of innovation initiatives — high risk, high growth potential new ventures inside established organizations.
Reverse Innovation, forthcoming in 2012, shows why the most important innovations in the next few decades will be adopted first in emerging markets. This will create a complex innovation challenge for established multinationals, within which almost all innovations flow from home markets to the emerging markets.
The Other Side of Innovation - Solving the Execution Challenge
The guiding managerial model for innovation is just too simple. It reduces to: innovation = ideas. As a result, most corporations have more ideas than they can possibly move forward. Far too many promising ideas on paper never become anything more than . . . promising ideas on paper. Here is an improved equation for innovation: innovation = ideas + execution. The Other Side of Innovation is based on ten years of research into the best practices for executing an innovation initiative of any size or shape. It offers in-depth recommendations plus analysis of a wide variety of real-world examples of innovation inside of well-known companies like IBM, BMW, and Deere & Company.
How Stella Saved the Farm
How Stella Saved the Farm
A Wild and Woolly Yarn about Making Innovation Happen By: Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble
Due from St. Martin's Press, Winter 2012
The power of the fable as a teaching tool has been proven through the ages. How Stella Saved the Farm is grounded in the same decade of research as The Other Side of Innovation. The story is a composite of dozens of innovation initiatives we have studied in established organizations, and it delivers a handful of the most fundamental principles for managing an innovation initiative.
The Inside Innovation Workshop
This 1-2 day workshop is not about creativity, brainstorming, searching for ideas, or selecting the best. It is about execution. It is about moving from idea to impact. It is about achieving an idea’s full potential without getting run-over by the very organization that is trying to bring it to life.
The Inside Innovation Workshop details solutions to make innovation happen inside your organization. Workshop participants discover a straight-forward approach to executing an innovation initiative. The centerpiece: a special kind of team, and a special kind of plan.
