Book Review: Winning through Innovation: APractical Guide to Leading Organizational Change and Renewal by Charles A. O’Reilly III (Author), Michael L. Tushman (Author)
“Nova” Ratings (out of 5):
- Uniqueness 3
- Clarity 4
- Readability 4
- Innovator’s Value 4 (Could provide real value to an innovator)
Synopsis: Tushman (business administration, Harvard Business School) and O’Reilly (Stanford U. Graduate School of Business) provide managers with the key principles of managing both for today’s requirements and tomorrow’s possibilities, to enable an organization to maintain long- term success. This reprint of the 1997 text includes a brief new preface by the authors, noting some of the dramatic changes in technology, markets, and competition over the past five years. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Review:
The book makes the normal assumption ‘innovation involves unpredictability, risk taking and non-standard solutions’. The authors then attempt to manage the randomness of innovation by developing new management processes, incuding cultural and organizational change.
a) Innovation is random
pg 111 “innovation involves unpredictability, risk taking and non-standard solutions”
b) Organizational change
pg 82 “Innovation in organizations always involves reciprocal interdependence.”
c) Cultural change
pg 35 “Organizational culture is key both to short-term succcess and, unless managed correctly, to long-term failure”
d) Management processes
pg 82 “Managing innovation demands linkages among customer requirements, technological possibilities, and manufacturing capabilities.”
Book Category:
- Innovation through management processes, cultural change, organizational change
Key Concepts:
- Congruence model – ‘congruence among organizational building blocks’
- Dynamic conservatism – ‘alignment that made them successful created the resistance to change that prevented them from adjusting rapidly’.
- Streams of innovations – incremental and discontinuous innovations – ‘handle existing products and services even as they create new ones’ – ‘exploit the past and discover the future concurrently’
- Ambidextrous structures and management – evolutionary and revolutionary change – managers and projects – decisions
- Organizational alignments – ‘short term success is a function of alignment’. Long term success requires multiple alignments.
- Innovation is incremental, architectural or discontinuous.
Writing style:
- historical examples of failure to implement new innovations
Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 The Tyranny of Success1
2 Ambidextrous Organizations: Leading Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change
3 Defining Problems and Opportunities: A Foundation for Success
4 Managerial Problem Solving: A Congruence Approach
A Practical Guide to Using the Congruence Model
5 Leveraging Culture for Innovation and Competitive Advantage
A Practical Guide to Diagnosing Culture
6 Shaping Organizational Culture
7 Managing Innovation Streams in Ambidextrous Organizations
8 Implementing Strategic Change
9 Winning through Innovation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Authors
