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To generate creative business ideas, breakthrough innovators must be fi ercely tested and wisely deployed.
1711 Cohn.indd 621711 Cohn.indd 62 10/30/08 2:23:42 PM10/30/08 2:23:42 PM
“T
Don
gyun
Lee
“THE REPORTS OF MY DEATH are greatly exaggerated,” asserted a
surprisingly lively Steve Jobs when a host of innovative new
Apple products were unveiled at an exhibition in September
2008. Quoting Mark Twain, Jobs was trying to nip in the bud
speculation that he was suffering severe health problems. By
all accounts he succeeded on that occasion. But the iconic
leader won’t be around forever, which presents Apple’s board
with a daunting challenge: how to groom the next Steve Jobs.
When it comes to innovation, few modern corporate execu-
tives are more closely associated with revolutionary change.
During his tenure at Apple, the company’s product introduc-
tions have altered not only how we talk but also how we live:
the Mac, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone 3G.
What should Jobs and Apple be doing now to ensure that
the next generation of “must-have” technology is not master-
inding and Grooming
by Jeff rey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach, and Gus Vlak
hbr.org | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 63
fBreakthrough
Innovators
1711 Cohn.indd 631711 Cohn.indd 63 10/30/08 2:23:51 PM10/30/08 2:23:51 PM
64 Harvard Business Review | December 2008 | hbr.org
Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators
minded elsewhere? It’s a valid question.
Ask anyone on Wall Street, on Main
Street, or certainly on Apple’s board,
and the reaction will be unanimous:
The issue is pressing.
Finding and developing break-
through innovators is a major challenge
for growth-oriented organizations of all
sizes, not just for Apple. According to
interviews conducted by the executive
search fi rm Spencer Stuart, more than
two-thirds of directors at the leading
global companies it advises cite innova-
tion as critical for long-term success. In-
deed, boardroom discussions often cen-
ter on just two questions: How can we
sustain innovation? and Do we have a
plan for developing future leaders who
can facilitate this goal?
Part of the problem is a talent short-
age. Truly innovative people are rare.
Perhaps 5% or 10% of the high-potential
managers within a company at any
given time have the skills and attri-
butes to become innovators. (Andrew
England, the chief marketing offi cer at MillerCoors, believes
the fi gure is actually closer to 1%.) But fi nding talent is not the
only issue; a bigger problem is what to do with it.
Most companies do a magnifi cent job of smothering the cre-
ative spark. Over the past fi ve years we have probed the inno-
vation strategies of 25 organizations in multiple industries and
countries. Our fi ndings are simple and somewhat disturbing,
given the acknowledged necessity for innovation: Companies
usually develop leaders who replicate rather than innovate.
Thus rising stars realize that to be promoted, they need to
mirror incumbent leaders. Even when stellar external talent
comes in, it is frequently drawn into the same anti-innovation
culture that has been squelching internal talent (see the side-
bar “The Dangers of Competency Modeling”).
The tendency is rooted in false beliefs about how innova-
tion works. Senior managers seem to assume that innovators
spontaneously generate new ideas much as a magician pulls
a rabbit from his hat – that if they simply leave these people
alone, golden ideas will spring forth. Then sales, marketing,
engineering, and fi nance people can decide how to implement
and profi t from them. In fact most revolutionary ideas evolve
quite differently. Innovators propose new ideas. Various ex-
perts within the company sort through enormous amounts of
information and often confl icting opinions. Then the innova-
tors home in on the most critical components, see connections,
and discern how to bridge different parts; they work hard and
effi ciently to recombine these pieces and cultivate internal
buy-in for the innovation. The iPod is a case in point. The idea
was originally conceived by Tony Fadell,
a consultant Apple hired to develop new
projects. An Apple engineering team as-
sembled it from off-the-shelf parts and
combined it with in-house design fea-
tures such as Apple’s user-friendly con-
trols. Having generated buy-in along the
way, Fadell had little diffi culty selling
the result to senior management.
In this article we’ll describe how suc-
cessful companies identify, groom, and
place people who can master the inno-
vation process. We’ll begin by consider-
ing what sets breakthrough innovators
apart from other star managers.
What Innovators Look LikeThe best innovators have very strong
cognitive abilities, including excellent
analytic skills. They zero in on the most
important points and waste no time
on peripheral issues. This is signifi cant,
given the sheer quantity of data, ideas,
and often confl icting customer pref-
erences that they (and all other high-
potential managers) must face. Once they have isolated the
key factors, they can quickly see how all the pieces might fi t
together in an integrated whole. They have the ability to think
strategically even in highly ambiguous situations.
But a host of additional attributes distinguish potential in-
novators. First, they never rest on their laurels. David Small,
corporate vice president of the Leadership Institute at McDon-
ald’s, asserts that innovators always say to themselves, “Just
because this has worked in the past doesn’t mean it will work
going forward.” He adds, “They are driven by a certain under-
lying insecurity to not rely on past success, and they evaluate
each new challenge with a clean slate.” They can frame and
reframe challenges from multiple vantage points and identify
which solutions are likeliest to be embraced by the infl uential
people in their organization. By contrast, many high-potential
managers become overconfi dent after a string of successes and
begin to believe their own performance reviews, hallway chat-
ter, and other evidence of their brilliance. They are reluctant
to reinvent the wheel when a specifi c approach has worked so
well in the past.
Second, potential innovators are, as Small puts it, “ridicu-
lously socially aware of their surroundings at all times.” At
McDonald’s innovators must be able to walk into a confer-
ence room full of diverse constituents, including colleagues,
customers, subordinates, bosses, vendors, and partners, and
quickly discern the underlying motivation of each one. They
leverage that information to craft and communicate a mes-
sage that resonates with every constituent. This is the art of
Finding and grooming the next »generation of innovators is one key to growth, but most companies smother their creative talent.
Successful companies have »intense talent-management pro-cesses in place and put identifi ed innovators in the line of fi re, where natural innovators thrive. Mentoring and peer networks are crucial for providing support.
Once rising innovators have been »developed and established in the middle of the organization – where they become “innovation hubs” – they can better see how existing products, ideas, people, or even en-tire businesses can be recombined in new, value-adding ways.
IN BRIEFIDEA
1711 Cohn.indd 641711 Cohn.indd 64 10/30/08 2:23:57 PM10/30/08 2:23:57 PM
hbr.org | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 65
bringing a diverse group onto the same
page – and it is absolutely essential to
transforming an interesting idea into
a companywide innovation. “If a high-
potential manager doesn’t have this
skill,” Small says, “there is little chance
that he can push a new idea, no matter
how promising, through our sprawling
global infrastructure. It takes a lot of
social intuition, savvy, and tenacity.”
Innovators are persuasive and often
charming. They know how to extract
information from specifi c areas of an
organization and then garner organiza-
tional support for potential projects. In-
novation cannot thrive when new ideas
simply die. Andrew England, of Miller-
Coors, explains it this way: “Our most
successful innovators are able to per-
suade our business unit and functional
leaders to share interesting insights
and ideas. They are extremely curious
and are always shopping for new ideas,
yet they don’t give off an intrusive vibe.
Then, on the fl ip side, our innovators
have to use their sales skills and charm
to push an unproven idea through our
corporate machinery. I can’t overstate
how important and how rare this sales
ability is.”
There is, of course, a certain tension
between an innovator’s independent
mind and his or her social involvement
with colleagues, but the ability to seam-
lessly shift between isolation and a
larger group is essential. By defi nition,
an innovator must access resources and
recombine ideas in ways that are unfamiliar to the organiza-
tion. Doing so means moving beyond conventional bound-
aries and the safety of existing positions, which can be a lonely
experience. At the same time, innovators must be able to bring
the knowledge they have gained back to traditional hierar-
chies, which can be frustrating. Kaye Foster-Cheek, the corpo-
rate vice president of human resources at Johnson & Johnson,
says these people have a “unique psychological mix,” because
they are able to work equally well in large cross-functional
teams and in extreme isolation. “They like being connected to
a greater whole, but by no means do they need it,” she says.
How to Find InnovatorsIn most large organizations, the future innovators we’ve de-
scribed are hidden from senior management and deeply em-
bedded in line jobs. You need to seek them out and at least
temporarily disengage them from their daily duties. There are
various ways to achieve this, but it takes time.
David Small – an avid golfer – refers to the effort and re-
sources needed to fi nd potential innovators at McDonald’s as
“mandatory green fees.” He contends that it takes discipline,
good data, and the right talent-management processes, em-
bedded in frontline activities rather than in centralized HR
departments, to surface those rare individuals. McDonald’s
executives comb through individual development plans semi-
annually, hold talent roundtables and succession planning
discussions, perform talent calibration (to make sure they
are comparing apples to apples, across divisions, businesses,
and even countries), and conduct systematic performance
reviews.
At Reuters (which merged with the Thomson Corporation
in April 2008) the initial mechanism used to identify potential
THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE any growing company faces is to iden-tify and foster the next generation of breakthrough innovators. Suc-cessful companies:
Scour the ranks for raw talent. » They look among their high poten-tials to fi nd people who are never content with following yesterday’s best practices and who display unusual skills.
EXAMPLE Reuters uses a “pre-dictive index” to help identify employees’ attributes, which allows executives to maintain a master list of potential innovators. The inno-vators undergo one-on-one inter-views with outside experts in which they learn to defend their ideas and recognize their weaknesses.
Test people with live ammuni- »tion. They give their innovators real projects and access to top management.
EXAMPLE At Starwood rising innovators build and manage cross-functional teams to develop their projects and then present full-fl edged marketing plans to the company’s top executives.
Encourage mentoring and peer »networks. Mentors equip rising innovators with information about the people they are most likely to en-counter and the interactions they are most likely to have. Innovators are encouraged to turn to peer groups for feedback.
EXAMPLES At Allstate the CEO personally makes sure that in-novators have access to mentors in functions relevant to the projects they lead. At Starwood “collabo-ration circles” of diverse experts help rising innovators navigate the grooming process.
Actively manage innovators’ »careers. They are careful to place innovators outside the regular structure, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will create wholly new businesses.
EXAMPLE At JPMorgan Chase the CEO and the head of human resources spearheaded “ascension plans” for breakthrough innova-tors, in concert with the innovators themselves. The company creates new positions for rising stars if appropriate ones don’t exist.
IDEA INPRACTICE
1711 Cohn.indd 651711 Cohn.indd 65 10/30/08 2:24:03 PM10/30/08 2:24:03 PM
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY MODELS can be found in virtually all major corporations. They seek to institutionalize managerial behaviors, knowledge, values, and mo-tivations to produce steady, predictable results. They provide a common language to help supervisors and HR discuss emerging talent in the organization. These are worthy goals – but overdepen-dence on competency models inevitably reinforces sameness rather than unity or cohesion, by eroding the conditions in which unique points of view and ulti-mately innovation itself can arise.
Training programs built on these models primarily teach participants how to manage within the organization as is and emphasize formal structures at the expense of informal ones. At the same time, they condition managers to mini-mize uncertainty and mitigate risk.
The organizational vetting process fi lters candidates for promotion according to well-known and widely communicated competencies that are ingrained in the company culture. As a result the fi eld of rising stars narrows to those who most closely resemble their peers and bosses. Unique attributes and a willingness to deviate from the norm, take real risks, and embrace different points of view are not cultivated or integrated. Rather, they are slowly and methodically squeezed out of the system.
66 Harvard Business Review | December 2008 | hbr.org
Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators
innovators is a “predictive index” survey. Beginning with a
checklist, it helps frontline managers identify the core driv-
ers, competencies, and motivations of their subordinates and
serves as the basis for compiling a master list of rising stars,
which can be narrowed to a list of potential innovators.
Once you’ve spotted the potentials, you need to determine
which ones actually have the innovator’s spark. Many of the
companies we explored, including Reuters, Pitney Bowes, and
Visa, do this through a series of one-on-one interviews, often
conducted by outside assessment and
leadership-development experts. In
these interviews candidates are pre-
sented with a series of complex but
engaging real-world scenarios from
which some key information is inten-
tionally omitted, to gauge whether
they can weed through ambiguity,
make realistic assumptions based on
the data available, reach a decision,
and articulate a clear, compelling ra-
tionale for any trade-offs involved in
it. The process does not stop there.
The candidates are gradually given
additional information. Can he evalu-
ate what has potential impact and
what does not? Can she turn that criti-
cal eye inward and change positions
when warranted by the evidence, or
does she cling tightly to past beliefs
and mental models? True innovators
never let pride or former success get in
the way of a better solution, no matter
where it originates. And once they re-
ceive valuable new information, they
are quick to connect it to the larger
whole. Furthermore, because poten-
tial innovators have strong emotional
intelligence, they always ask for feed-
back at the end of the assessment
process.
During these interviews Reuters
looks for the ability to clearly and con-
vincingly defend a decision and sell a
point of view. If a candidate cannot ar-
gue a case in an intense one-on-one in-
terview, in the absence of a supporting
team and infrastructure, it is unlikely
that he or she will ever be able to dis-
play the salesmanship and confi dence
necessary to move an innovative idea
forward within an organization as
complex as Reuters. In a fi nal series of
interviews, candidates must be able to
explain without reservation what they do badly. According to
Amanda West, the chief innovation offi cer at Thomson Reu-
ters, who administers this program, “Unless they immediately
jump to that answer, their level of self-awareness is not suffi -
ciently high for them to become successful innovators.”
Let Innovators Work with Live AmmunitionOnce identifi ed, potential innovators need to prove they can
recognize promising ideas, effectively lead cross-functional
teams of experts to develop them, and
sell them to top executives. Starwood,
the parent company of hotel chains
such as Westin, W, St. Regis, and
Sheraton, provides a good illustration
of how to do this systematically. After
identifying a midlevel product man-
ager as a potential innovator, Star-
wood assigned him to lead a team to
develop new in-room entertainment
services in addition to his full-time
responsibilities. He had very little
leadership experience, but because
of a successful track record within his
group, and because his division head
saw in him the attributes of an innova-
tor, he was given a chance.
The product manager had almost
complete freedom to choose his
team from different parts of the or-
ganization (negotiating with territo-
rial bosses along the way) and the
opportunity to set the tone, ground
rules, strategy, and goals for it. In very
short order he had to come up with a
fully developed marketing plan and
then defend it in front of Starwood’s
tough executive team, including the
CEO. He describes the experience:
“At fi rst I thought I was going to die.
But then slowly but surely I found
my footing, and I realized that I knew
more about this project than anyone
on the senior executive team that
was grilling me. In a way, I sort of put
them on the defensive, which they
respected. Not only did they sign off
on the plan – which became a huge
success for Starwood – but they also
gave me a lot more latitude, access to
other resources throughout the com-
pany, and, most important, confi dence
that I could handle the stress, manage
my way through complexity and am-
THE DANGERS OF
Competency Modeling
1711 Cohn.indd 661711 Cohn.indd 66 10/30/08 2:24:08 PM10/30/08 2:24:08 PM
hbr.org | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 67
biguity, and get others to really believe in the ideas I was
presenting.”
McDonald’s similarly provides would-be innovators with a
chance to prove themselves in front of top management. They
are encouraged to work with senior executives in key line posi-
tions to identify innovations that have the potential to affect
the entire organization. These ideas come in all shapes and
sizes and are not necessarily product related. The focus of a
recent effort, for example, was how to more effectively partner
with Wal-Mart. The rising innovator assembled and managed
a cross-functional team which explored various options and
ultimately zeroed in on a potential solution that was highly
scalable – an essential quality if an idea is to have traction at
McDonald’s.
The entire team engaged with senior managers in a no-holds-
barred discussion of the pros and cons of the solution. The man-
agers wanted to understand how the team interacted as well as
to fi nd a viable, scalable, and practical solution. Was the team
able to tackle a complex issue, take it apart, and focus on the
most salient issues? Was the team leader – the future innova-
tor – able to create, manage, and motivate a high-performance
team, through excellent communication and persuasion skills,
and develop a strong solution? In this case, yes.
One global industrial products company in the UK insists
that its rising innovators do a stint in the sales department. At
fi rst this decision was met with reluctance and skepticism. The
head of sales balked, saying, “They want to put guys with ab-
solutely no sales experience on my team – and we have major
accounts to close this quarter.” But senior management stood
fi rm, contending that the advantages were twofold: Future in-
novators could learn what makes customers tick and also how
to develop the salesmanship vital to spearheading large-scale
innovation efforts down the road. The CEO commented, “We
want the rising stars to work side by side with our experienced
sales team developing pitches, dissecting customer needs, ac-
companying the team on client calls, actually helping to close
the sale.”
With pressure from the CEO, the plan was implemented,
and despite the initial resistance, expectations were exceeded
on all fronts. Even the head of sales said, “Frankly, I was expect-
ing this one guy to fall fl at on his face and make us look bad
in front of a fairly large client. He was rough around the edges
at fi rst. But once in the room with the client organization, he
had a remarkable ability to see what was really making the key
decision makers tick. And he related to the client in a highly
effective, down-to-earth kind of way. In the end I think he
actually taught our guys a few new techniques.”
Testing doesn’t end with the fi rst project. Many companies
that tap and groom innovators are unfashionably intolerant
of failure. At Reuters, if prospective innovators fail, they are
returned to line positions. If they win, they are presented with
an even greater challenge, together with more resources, more
coaching, and more incentives.
Indeed, the development process (giving innovators a
chance and seeing how they respond) is part of the assess-
ment process. Innovation at Reuters “is like playing pinball,”
according to Tom Gros, the executive vice president and global
head of commodities and energy. “The better you get, the
more balls you get to play with. But when you lose, you’re out
of the game.”
Provide Multiple MentorsSmart organizations pair innovators with carefully selected
mentors who can continually educate them about the people
they are most likely to encounter and the interactions they are
most likely to have. When Allstate developed its well- regarded
Your Choice insurance plans, rising innovators driving the
product introduction were assigned to mentors who could
help them understand the motivations, goals, mind-set, and
budget constraints of managers in relevant functions such as
claims processing, product testing, and actuarial. The mentors
themselves were coached and supported by the CEO, which
strongly signaled the importance of the initiative. Mentoring
was the perfect supplement to the innovators’ natural mix of
intuition and curiosity.
In the best organizations a mentor is assigned so that the
protégé can test new ideas and assumptions with a seasoned
expert before introducing them to others in the company and
can better understand the underlying agendas of the senior
executives who must be won over. The mentor can share in-
formation that might be relevant to a particular course of
action (for example, someone else may have already tried it
and failed) and can “test-drive” and sharpen the protégé’s argu-
ment to build confi dence.
In traditional mentoring relationships, mentor and mentee
are often expected to stay together until one of them retires.
But successful companies encourage rising innovators to seek
out different mentors over time. That gives the innovators
access to more ideas and a wider range of infl uencers, and
more fl exibility to fi nd the advice that best fi ts a particular
situation.
An excellent instance of multiple mentoring comes from out-
side the business world. A few years ago at Vanderbilt University,
Nick Zeppos, a former Vanderbilt law professor, was brought to
the attention of Chancellor Gordon Gee as someone with the
potential to become an innovative leader. After further screen-
ing, one-on-one interviewing, and careful monitoring, Gee was
convinced that Zeppos was a potential successor. The chair of
Vanderbilt’s Board of Trust, Martha Ingram, was intrigued by
Zeppos but argued that he needed mentors from various parts
of the university that were critical to Vanderbilt’s future. Ingram
and Gee carefully selected a series of mentors to work with Zep-
pos, who proved to be a quick and appreciative learner and was
highly successful with alumni, donors, and students. In 2008
Zeppos was appointed chancellor after Gee assumed the presi-
dency of Ohio State University.
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68 Harvard Business Review | December 2008 | hbr.org
Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators
Foster Peer NetworksIf a few young stars are drawn from the ranks of the organiza-
tion and placed on a special innovation track, their experiences
will of course differ. It is often useful to create opportunities
for them to bounce ideas off one another. Peer networks that
meet regularly and have open channels of communication
provide a sense of solidarity and a uniquely fertile environ-
ment in which to exchange ideas, impart information, and
instill hope.
One rising innovator at a large U.S.-based entertainment
conglomerate articulated a key benefi t of peer networks: “The
most reassuring aspect was simply the process of talking to oth-
ers about how they personally coped with the added pressure
and time demands of spearheading new innovation projects
with inherently high expectations. Hearing how colleagues
in a similar situation managed the stress, or just that they
were able to get it all done, was incredibly reassuring.” Peer
networks also answer more-tangible questions, such as Which
parts of the organization are good sources of information,
ideas, and insight? and Where are the dead ends? Often a men-
tor who is not also an innovator cannot answer these questions.
Moreover, there is no doubt that peers will share with one
another information they might not reveal to a mentor, who
is typically a more senior member of the organization.
Starwood does a good job of using peer networks to fuel
innovation. Innovators can tap into what the company calls
a collaboration circle – a cross-functional group of diverse ex-
perts – at any time, simply by calling a
meeting. Because innovators in train-
ing have no formal authority over the
members of a collaboration circle,
who are usually proven innovators,
Starwood’s CEO monitors the process
to make sure it works.
A senior marketing executive and
innovator in the company recalls cre-
ating a unique interorganizational
team to develop a concept for an
entirely new, more affordable hotel brand to round out Star-
wood’s portfolio of luxury and midlevel offerings. The team
included not only specialists in marketing, operations, and
fi nance but also artists, photographers, and even opera singers
that the company had hired within the previous few years.
Once the team had been assembled, the marketing execu-
tive wondered how best to exploit it. His collaboration circle
advised him to present the team members with very simple
but direct questions and goals. He went to the group and
asked, “If Howard Johnson’s or Holiday Inn were reinvented
today, what would it look and feel like? If you took the per-
sonality of the W Hotel on the road and to the masses, what
would you get?” The team came up with a novel but highly
practical solution that would complement but not compete
against the W brand.
Once the idea had been fully fl eshed out, the marketing ex-
ecutive returned to his circle for advice on how to sell the idea
to senior management. The circle provided suggestions, on ev-
erything from designers to developers, that could convert this
vision into a reality and, equally important, convince those at
the top that the idea would fl y. Two weeks later the concept,
branded Aloft, had the full support of the CEO and the rest of
the executive team. (It was launched in June 2008.) Interact-
ing with other innovators in Starwood’s collaboration circles
was like “suddenly realizing that you have a twin brother on
the other side of the planet,” the marketing executive said. “I
came in contact with other individuals who were experiencing
the same thing I was. They have been a great resource for me,
and I think that through them I have a much better under-
standing of how to get things done around here.”
Replant Innovators in the MiddleWhen an organization’s innovators have been identifi ed, de-
veloped, and equipped with mentors and a peer network, the
grooming puzzle is still missing one important piece: where to
put them. Where will they have the most impact? Where are
the nodes in the shadow organization – those all-important
hot spots that don’t show up on formal organization charts –
where innovation can be sparked?
Organizations that excel at developing innovative leaders
often do something that may be regarded as heresy: They take
them out of well-defi ned, long-standing, revenue-generating
line positions and replant them in the middle of the organiza-
tional chart, where no formal boxes exist. There they become
“innovation hubs,” with easy access to infl uencers across the
organization, more autonomy, and broader albeit more am-
biguous job responsibilities, and can better see how existing
products, ideas, people, or even entire businesses can be re-
combined in new, value-adding ways.
Tom Gros’s history at Reuters offers an excellent example.
When Gros joined the company, in 2002, he quickly proved he
had all the requisite attributes to become an innovative man-
ager. He consistently cherry-picked the right personnel and
applied cost-saving techniques from other parts of the orga-
nization to his department. Based on his track record, Devin
Wenig, who is now CEO of the Markets Division of Thomson
Reuters, in 2006 made Gros the head of new markets, a hub po-
Peers will share information with one another that they might not reveal to a mentor.
1711 Cohn.indd 681711 Cohn.indd 68 10/30/08 2:24:18 PM10/30/08 2:24:18 PM
hbr.org | December 2008 | Harvard Business Review 69
sition, specifi cally to identify and develop opportunities. With
a modest budget but signifi cant autonomy and latitude, Gros
assembled a team that developed new businesses in commercial
real estate, environmental markets, and freight as a derivative
product. It created “rebel camps,” which provided other manag-
ers at Reuters with a chance to learn, get involved, and defi ne
further opportunities. The camps have become a great destina-
tion and the ultimate training ground for the company’s rising
innovators. For a global fi rm like Reuters, this strategy has the
added benefi t of being nearly impossible to replicate in smaller
companies, which lack people, ideas, and businesses on the scale
required for such recombinant innovation.
None of this means that companies should break down
their specialized business units, as many have tried to do over
the past decade. Silos are not all bad. In fact, they often provide
the insulation needed to build world-class pockets of highly
specialized know-how that have deep operational expertise,
consumer insight, industry experience, and so forth. Without
specialists the innovator has no chance of succeeding. So the
trick is to integrate a small group of innovators into these
units and thus give them access to fi rst-rate resources.
Finally, senior management, the CEO in particular, has a
responsibility to ensure that rising innovators land in the right
hub positions. At JPMorgan Chase, CEO Jamie Dimon and the
head of human resources spearheaded what they call “ascen-
sion plans” to chart a handful of possible career paths for fu-
ture innovators, in concert with the innovators themselves. It
is “foolish,” Dimon believes, “to think there’s only one possible,
ideal career path for our high-potential managers most likely
to one day orchestrate large-scale innovations.” If the right
position does not exist for one of JPMC’s innovators, Dimon
or another executive team member creates it. “Our biggest sin
would be to correctly identify future innovators, only to ignore
them by letting them sit and stew in existing positions,” Dimon
told us. He considers developing breakthrough innovators to
be one of his key responsibilities, and one in which his board
is highly interested.
• • •
Napoleon famously remarked that a general’s most important
asset is his luck. What he didn’t mention is that luck comes to
people who are well prepared and manage to be in the right
place at the right time. Napoleon’s brilliance lay in identifying
future commanders early in their military careers and giving
them access to resources, authority, and the opportunity to
prove their mettle. He always preached to his protégés the ne-
cessity of drawing upon good ideas and military tactics wher-
ever they arose. Despite his arrogance, he was smart enough to
recognize a good idea – and he wanted his commanders to be
so as well. The most promising among them fi gured out how
to combine good ideas and limited resources in a novel way to
conquer seemingly invincible adversaries.
The same is true for business innovation. Following the prac-
tices we’ve outlined can’t guarantee that another company
won’t surprise you with the innovation that blows you off the
map. It can, however, ensure that your organization nurtures
innovators, improving the likelihood that innovations will con-
tinue to emerge from within. And even if they don’t, you’ll be
better placed than your competitors to adjust to the changes
that breakthrough innovation inevitably brings in its wake.
Jeffrey Cohn ([email protected]) is an expert in leader-
ship assessment and succession planning at Spencer Stuart
in New York. Jon Katzenbach and Gus Vlak are partners at
Katzenbach Partners in New York. Both Cohn and Katzenbach
have written previously for HBR about leadership and talent
management.
Reprint R0812D To order, see page 135.
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