‘The Innovator’s DNA’ by Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen, Harvard Business Review, December 2009

This article is based on six years of research at Harvard, looking at the most successful senior level innovators and finding out what it is that makes them so successful. This immediately raised an objection in my mind, particularly when the name of Steve Jobs of Apple was mentioned in the first paragraph. I have read several biographies of this amazing man and note how he does things that other lesser mortals could never get away with; he seems to achieve the blind loyalty of his staff, despite treating them appallingly by most standards. To quote one of his biographers - ‘you can admire him but should never try to copy him’.


Nevertheless, despite this reservation, the article does have much to commend it. It starts by making a statement that should be of interest to those CEOs who see their role as facilitating innovation by others; the evidence of the research is that the CEOs of the most innovative companies like to do it themselves. It’s the one thing they don’t delegate.

There are five skills that are seen as fundamental to executives who want to be creative, what the research classifies as ‘discovery skills’ on which the most successful spend 50% of their time.

These are:

• Associating, making connections between different concepts and ideas
• Questioning, asking challenging questions, always why and what if, rather than how (Michael Dell tries to ask the questions that people don’t think he will ask)
• Observing, particularly how actual and potential customers behave in their everyday lives, small insights that can lead to new opportunities.
• Experimenting, trying out new ideas, not being afraid to launch pilots and test markets
• Networking, meeting people from lots of different fields (one particularly interesting insight was that the more countries you have lived in, the more likely you are to be innovative)

Other insights are that the really successful entrepreneurs have more than just these five skills. They also have a desire to change the world, to challenge the status quo, to take risks and to be unafraid of mistakes. Perhaps the other factor that allows this to happen is the ability to create a business that does not rely on risk averse colleagues and shareholders; it is interesting that most of those who are mentioned in the article started off with close private ownership.

The authors believe that ordinary mortals can develop the five skills by practice and I am sure that this will improve whatever qualities are being displayed now. However, I remain unconvinced that this would make me, or any other mere mortal, into a Jobs or a Dell. But, for those who want to encourage innovation, there is a lot to be learned from the article and the research on which it was based.

To read this article go to

http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/12/the-innovators-dna/ar/1