Lean innovation

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Dee McCrorey

"A step-by-step guide to the 10 essential and practical skills a business needs to innovate and thrive in uncertain timesThe reinvented world of business will profoundly impact America's leaders and workers in the decade ahead. Companies capable of transforming their organizations during this period of "Great Disruption" will thrive in the reinvented world however, the reverse holds true as well. Innovation in a Reinvented World reveals how transformation occurs when business leaders and their organizations apply these 10 Essential Elements, providing both a road map and definitive blueprint for companies of any size looking to bridge the old world with the new world of business. Discusses the "new courage" required for innovating in a reinvented world Looks at 10 Essential Elements winning companies count on today Innovation in a Reinvented World helps executives and leadership teams navigate and manage their organizations' inflection points in designing, building, and sustaining innovation--even through the post-recession playing field"--

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Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein

" It's a paradox: as big companies get better at achieving operational excellence, actual breakthroughs seem to decrease. It's the scrappy little startups, with comparatively tiny budgets, that continue to be founts of innovation. Why is it that as industry leaders get better at what they do, they get worse at innovation? By conducting deep research within companies as diverse as Apple, Google, Pfizer, General Motors, Nike, and Sony, the authors have found the answer: the very pursuit of operational excellence--that is, making one's existing business as efficient as it can be--blinds managers to the kinds of disruptive business model changes vital for innovation. These changes could threaten all that hard work. It's why Nokia famously killed its smart phone--the company was too invested in "dumb phones." Nothing less than a complete redesign and rethinking of the corporation--down to how accountants capture innovation costs and overhead--is necessary to get companies moving again. The authors' new model, "the startup corporation," marries the strengths of corporate scale to the nimbleness of entrepreneurs. For a model of the new startup corporation, the authors return again and again to Apple, which doesn't have the usual corporate structure and accounting systems. Not every company can be an Apple, but all companies can learn to break the bonds of operational thinking if they'll take the authors' lessons to heart"-- "From the bestselling authors of Making Innovation Work (30,000 copies sold and translated into ten languages) comes a book that questions everything about how organizations innovate. Key takeaway: classical business management and corporate structures by their very nature will kill, not create, breakthroughs. The authors describe a new kind of organization--the startup corporation--that will make established companies as innovative as startups"--

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William Bonner and Addison Wiggin

In "The New Empire of Debt," financial writers Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin return to reveal how the financial crisis that has plagued the United States will soon bring an end to this once great empire. They clearly show how this has happened and discuss what you can do to overcome the financial challenges that will arise as the situation deteriorates.

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Tim Harford

"A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist. Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge-fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does. Enter Financial Times columnist and bestselling author Tim Harford. In this new book that demystifies macroeconomics, Harford strips away the spin, the hype, and the jargon to reveal the truth about how the world's economy actually works. With the wit of a raconteur and the clear grasp of an expert, Harford explains what's really happening beyond today's headlines, why all of us should care, and what we can do about it to understand it better. "--