University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Innovation Mindset
Book

The Innovation Mindset

Eight Essential Steps to Transform Any Industry

Lorraine Marchand
Columbia Business School Publishing, 2022
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Effective innovations don’t fall out of the sky or appear as a light bulb over your head. They take hard work and patience, and require you follow the right steps for success. In this engaging text, executive and business school professor Lorraine Marchand offers expert insights into how to hone the innovation mind-set. Learn how to recognize a good idea, create a business plan and source funding to bring your product or service to market. Marchand emphasizes the importance of customer feedback and market research in creating products people actually want, and offers a host of real-life examples.

Summary

Innovation starts with identifying the correct problem.

Innovation isn’t a mystery, but many companies struggle with breaking it down into a manageable process. In fact, most innovators create a product without knowing who or what the product helps. Successfully selling a product means understanding the problem it solves. 

So what is the necessity for your product to succeed? Worthy innovation begins with analyzing the problem before jumping to solutions. Start with finding the right problem in four easy steps:

  1. Ask the right question – For example, ask: Is the problem worth solving? Who does the problem affect?For example, does the world need another type of Bluetooth headphones?
  2. Reframe the problem – Adopt the perspective of the customer, shareholders, supplier and manufacturer to understand how the problem will affect them.
  3. Use analogies – Gain insight from how others implemented solutions to similar problems. 
  4. Break it down – Deconstruct the problem into smaller parts, and identify its components based on customer input...

About the Author

Lorraine Marchand is Executive Managing Director of Enterprise Solutions and Strategic Partnerships at Merative. She is co-founder of four start-ups and an adjunct professor of management at Columbia Business School.

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