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The Innovative Leader

Step-By-Step Lessons from Top Innovators for You and Your Organization

Stephen Wunker, Hari Nair and Jennifer Luo Law

Morgan James Publishing, 2024

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Consultant Stephen Wunker, innovation leader Jennifer Luo Law, and R&D executive Hari Nair offer strategies and tactics to help leaders encourage their teams to innovate. Discover how the “ABCs of Innovative Leadership” will help you “Aspire” to pursue a clear vision, “Build” systems for developing ideas, and “Cultivate” a culture that consistently seeks new ways of doing business. The authors include insights from interviews with 50 leaders across a wide variety of industries, along with a wealth of worksheets and surveys for planning innovation.

Summary

Model bold thinking and a collaborative mindset to inspire your team to pursue innovation.

Popular culture often links innovation with creative geniuses who rely on sudden inspiration for groundbreaking ideas. However, as with other aspects of business, most successful innovation results from collective effort and requires thoughtful planning. Leaders needn’t come up with every novel idea. Rather, leaders must nurture an environment where all employees feel energized and empowered to innovate continuously.

Innovative leaders help their organizations “CREATE” by demonstrating these behaviors:

“Connected” — Leadership must personally understand customer needs. Consider spending an afternoon chatting with customers about why they’ve had — or have not had — a top-notch experience with your company or its products. Ask your direct reports to do the same — taking a turn performing customer support duties, for instance — and shift to open-ended questions when conducting formal market research.
“Role model” — Demonstrate the innovative behaviors you wish to nurture within...

About the Authors

Stephen Wunker is the managing director of New Markets Advisors. Jennifer Luo Law leads innovative projects at Philips. Hari Nair serves as VP of Research and Development at Procter & Gamble.

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The Innovative Leader

Step-By-Step Lessons from Top Innovators for You and Your Organization

Read, Listen, or Discuss

Editorial Rating

getAbstract Rating

Recommendation

Summary

Model bold thinking and a collaborative mindset to inspire your team to pursue innovation.

About the Authors

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