Quote

Author

Company

Organizations, by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environments for innovation.

Theodore Levitt

Harvard Business School

What we’ve done to encourage innovation is make it ordinary.

Craig Wynett

Procter & Gamble

Ideas are the engines of progress. They improve people's lives by creating better ways to do things. They build and grow successful organizations and keep them healthy and prosperous. Without the ability to get new ideas, an organization stagnates and declines and will eventually be eliminated by competitors who do have fresh ideas.

Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder

Ideas Are Free

We have focused on managing creativity and innovation, but that's not the only thing that matters at Google. We also have to manage day-to-day operations, and it's not an easy task. We are building technology infrastructure that is dramatically larger, more complex and more demanding than anything that has been built in history. Those who plan, implement and maintain these systems, which are growing to meet a constantly rising set of demands, have to have strong incentives, too. At Google, operations are not just an afterthought: they are critical to the company's success, and we want to have just as much effort and creativity in this domain as in new product development.

Eric Schmidt

Google

That's how we're going to stay innovative. We're going to continue to attract entrepreneurs who say, 'I found an idea, and I can go to Google and have a demo in a month and be launched in six.'

Google's 9 Notions of Innovation

Marissa Mayer

Google

To convert a solid performer into an aggressive competitor, you have to create an organization that not only values better performance but also sustains the commitment year after year. This means a major shift in values, not a slight step-up in the number of new ideas for the next year.

Andrall Pearson

Harvard Business School

The most important step I've taken to encourage innovation is to hire people who have experience outside of banking – creative people who can apply what they've learned in dynamic, customer-centric categories to our more traditional business.

Hal Tovin

Citizens Financial Group

To succeed in the long term companies must foster the right kinds of innovation-focused skills with leaders who operate at various levels in the organization.

Soren Kaplan

InnovationPoint

When you put people into a new structure, it stimulates them to rethink what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis.

Ronald T. Kadish

U.S. Department of Defense

Brought pretty smart people together. Infosys has given opportunity for youngsters to come out with new ideas. Infosys has created a platform where meritocracy has prevailed. Infosys has put premium on innovation; we have created incentives for people who are innovative. Infosys has been an enlightened democracy where the hierarchy of ideas prevails over hierarchy of men and women. Infosys has built-up a mindset where everybody makes short-term sacrifices because they see long-term benefit in that.

Narayna Murthy

Infosys

Many large enterprises are well equipped for innovation. These corporations display best practices in innovation management by systematically building it into their processes. They invite staff to move from one discipline to another so as to break down the silos that can isolate different departments. People are encouraged to move from manufacturing into sales or from research to finance. This is good for morale, but even better for developing understanding across departments. It stops sections of the company becoming to rigid and set in their ways. It encourages people to see things in different perspectives.

Paul Sloane

Ashton-Tate

The locus of corporate innovations has been product development. But in times of rapid and unpredictable change, the creation of individual products becomes less important than the creation of a general organizational aptitude for innovation.

John Seely Brown

Xerox

Welcome destruction. It's the first step to success in the creative process... More

Tom McConnell

New England Securities