The Innovator's Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation

Innovation is the ruling buzzword in business today. Technologycompanies invest billions in developing new gadgets; business leaders see innovation as the key to acompetitive edge; policymakers craft regulations to foster a climate of innovation. And yetbusinesses report a success rate of only four percent for innovation initiatives. Can wesignificantly increase our odds of success? In The Innovator's Way, innovationexperts Peter Denning and Robert Dunham reply with an emphatic yes. Innovation, they write, is notsimply an invention, a policy, or a process to be managed. It is a personal skill that can belearned, developed through practice, and extended into organizations. Denning and Dunham identifyand describe eight personal practices that all successful innovators perform: sensing, envisioning,offering, adopting, sustaining, executing, leading, and embodying. Together, these practices canboost a fledgling innovator to success. Weakness in any of these practices, they show, blocksinnovation. Denning and Dunham chart the path to innovation mastery, from individual practices toteams and social networks.

Robert P. Dunham founded the Institute for Generative Leadership and the consulting company Enterprise Performance.