• strategy+business , Thursday, August 28, 2008 10:30 AM

The key factors covered in The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation include keeping a laser-sharp focus on the customer; establishing a disciplined, repeatable, and scalable innovation process; and creating organizational and funding mechanisms that support innovation. Following an excerpt from the new book about "game-changing innovation" by Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley and business advisor Ram Charan, Charan anticipates the feelings of managers who feel that it would be difficult to duplicate P&G's methods.

Charan says leaders of innovation take their game to another level through a particular set of practices: 1. Establish clear criteria and don't hesitate to shift resources. Great innovation leaders determine which projects to accelerate or cut on the basis of resource consumption as well as market potential. 2. Concentrate on possibility. Innovation leaders live with ambiguity as ideas are shaped and re-imagined; they don't let ideas die before they're fully formed or understood, but they are vigilant for indications that the project's market potential has diminished.

3. Cross boundaries and help others do the same. Leaders must ensure that communication channels between different disciples are open from the start and that conflicts are resolved by keeping individuals focused on their common goal: the customer. 4. Reward effort and learning. Failures represent opportunities to learn. Innovative leaders keep people energized by recognizing their earnest efforts and willingness to venture from the tried and true .

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