Note: this is a new feature on Read It For Me where we are summarizing the best articles from the top 10 business magazines on the planet. You know you should be reading them, but you just can’t make the time for them. Do you like it? Is it helpful? Let us know in the comments.
Forbes Magazine wrote a great article on the secrets behind the world’s most innovative companies, and crowned Salesforce.com as their champion. This is our summary of that article.
CEOs: Innovation is your lifeblood.
Innovation is on the top of the priority list for CEOs everywhere. If you are sitting in the corner office (or are on your way there someday soon), finding that next revolutionary idea may be the only thing keeping you and your company from extinction.
If it is so important, why is innovation such a misunderstood process? And why is it that there are seemingly few people – like Steve Jobs, for instance – who are incredibly good at it?
The 5 Skills of Disruptive Innovators
Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton M. Christensen have a new book called “The Innovator’s DNA” that explains the difference between “iSteve” and you and I. Fortunately for us, the difference seems to be in skills that we can all adapt and put to use for ourselves.
1. Questioning. Innovators always challenge the status quo and are thinking about new possibilities.
2. Observing. Innovators detect small details that suggest new ways of doing things. They look for these details everywhere – in the day to day activities of their customers, their suppliers and even (gasp!) other companies.
3. Networking. Innovators network with others from diverse backgrounds and experience, and low and behold they get diverse perspectives that drive new ideas.
4. Experimenting. Innovators know that they might not have the answer today, but it is only by testing their new ideas that they will have the answers tomorrow.
5. Associational Thinking. Innovators connecting the dots among questions and ideas from unrelated fields and draw parallels to their own.
Innovator Supreme: Mark Benioff from Salesforce.com
When the authors of “The Innovator’s DNA” wanted to quantify the boost innovation gives to a company’s stock price, they calculated what they are calling the “Innovation Premium”. It essentially looks at the net present value (NPV) of the cash flows, and attribute the rest of the value of the market capitalization to what the market expects the company to develop in the future.
The “Innovation Premium” for Salesforce.com is a whopping 75.1%. Why are the markets so pumped up about Mark Benioff and his gang of cloud-computing engineers?
Benioff seems to always be one step ahead of the competition. They led the charge into cloud computing in the corporate environment, and have left their competitors playing a never-ending game of catch up. Now, they are on to the “next big thing” which is helping their customers become “social enterprises”. They have built a social network into their salesforce.com offering and more than 100,000 companies have signed on to try the new service.
What are some of his secrets?
1. He stays connected with people in different industries, and also people from different generations. One person he’s closely connected to is the 28-year-old cofounder of Dropbox, an online file sharing service (that is rumoured to be valued at more than $10 billion dollars). Why? His explanation is simple. “He grew up in the Internet. I didn’t”.
2. He tinkers relentlessly (so he can connect the dots). Even on vacation, he’s playing with Google+, driving a new car (a Chevy Volt) and trying out four different tablet computers.
3. He sees the future, and demands that you come with him. Although this is contrary to much of the advice you’d get from business thinkers, Benioff forced his new social service down the throats of his workforce. Many didn’t think it was a good idea. Benioff made it happen anyways.
These are great lessons to learn, and think about how you could apply them to your work today.
Oh, and don’t forget to read the original article! Pick up a copy at your local bookstore (if you can find one).
