Posts by Anthony Mills
Let’s Settle the Debate – Innovation Both Is & Is Not Everyone’s Job
The Debate There’s an insidious debate that’s bounced around for probably the better part of twenty years now. It’s the debate of whether or not ‘innovation is everyone’s job’. Some think that ‘innovation is everyone’s job’ because we have to bring the entire organization into the grand practice of innovation and engage them in finding…
Read MoreThe Secret Ingredient to High Energy Innovation Spaces
Innovation Spaces – which can refer to any space intentionally designed to foster and facilitate good innovation work – come in all sorts, shapes, and sizes. Perhaps the most commonly understood of these is the ubiquitous Innovation Lab. However aside from formal “labs” per se, Innovation Spaces can also be incorporated in many ways into…
Read MoreWisdom From Above The Clouds
Have you ever been on a flight where as you’re taking off all you can see out the window is hazy, overcast weather – only to at some time later have your flight break through and emerge above the clouds, where all of sudden the sun is shining bright and clear? If so, then you’ll know how…
Read MoreDesign Thinking Grows Up – Welcome to Experience Thinking
Prologue Design Thinking is an incredibly powerful way to approach the design of just about anything that involves an interaction with people (or other intelligent creatures). Its underlying philosophy of Human Centered Design requires that we develop a comprehensive empathic understanding of the customer and their situation in a particular context. This can only happen…
Read MoreThe Twelve Disciplines of Consistently Innovative Organizations
Ever notice that some organizations seem to be far more consistent at delivering new innovation than most? I have. Ever wonder why this is… what they do differently? I certainly have. Indeed, like so many others before me, I’ve spent my entire adult life working in and around organizations that were trying constantly to deliver…
Read MoreMeaning Making – How the Innovation-Driven Organization Imparts Purpose & Meaning
As I visit and observe what I call the “existential festivals” – events like Burning Man, SXSW, TED, Sundance, Bonnaroo, and ArtPrize, for example – I ask myself, “What are people really trying to accomplish here – besides just having fun?” The answer I’ve come away with – after quite a bit of pondering –…
Read MoreThe Undeniable Power of the “Garage Experience”
If you’re like me and a lot of other entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs around the world, then you’ve likely romanticized – at least at some point in time – about what it must have been like in great companies like Apple, HP, Google, and Cisco when they were just getting their start – in their founders’…
Read MoreThe Secret Formula for Achieving Market Leadership
As Jack Welch so skillfully demonstrated while he led GE, Market Leadership is the one real strategy that has long-term staying power. H mandated that GE would be No. 1 or No. 2 in every market it was in, or it would get out. It was a “Market Leader or nothing” strategy, and it served GE well.
Read MoreHow Companies Innovate Themselves Straight Into Oblivion!
There are a lot of businesses in the world – some estimate 500 million or more. They all provide some manner of product or service that makes our world work the way it does today.
Read MoreThe Only Three Swim Lanes that Matter to a Business
In the course of my training with business leaders, we inevitably come to the existential business question… “What is the purpose of a business?” This is a great question, and one with a very simple answer. The purpose of a business is to create value. That’s it. To create value. Plain and simple. That…
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