innovation review

Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret by Larry Osborne is a short book on how to succeed in organizations while really trying.  Larry sounds like he has a deep friendship with hard work and is not above doing it again.  He also is not above listening to others who might usually not be listened to in deciding what an individual organization should do.  The most important thing that I got from the reading of his book was that before starting to work one must figure out what your vision is and from that make a mission statement.  This statement must be short, concrete, and easy to remember and then repeated often so that all in the company are not only aware of the mission of the organization but can recite it if asked without reading it.  Everyone working in the organization should be working toward this same vision if the organization is to be a success.  Larry looks at the people who are what he calls serial innovators and recognize the difference in when these successful innovators take a risk on creativity as well as rely on stability as opposed to the ones who while thinking outside the box and taking risks seem to be constantly failing as businessmen and women.  He points out how to encourage new ideas and changes that grow your organization without running your business into the ground paying for new concepts that don’t work.  He gives tips on trying new ideas before jumping in and putting the company at risk financially. 

Larry is a senior pastor at a magachurch in California but states that running a church has many similarities with running a business especially when the church is as big as North Coast Church is.  Though he has been successful in taking his much smaller church through its growing pains to becoming a megachurch he is quick to acknowledge his failures and states that any leader must be transparent and honest with their successes as well as shortcomings.  He points out that one needs to develop a small core group to bounce ideas off of which is not the same as your board group. 

This book is a must read for anyone planning on opening a new business.  It will help to avoid many of the pitfalls which any new business will have.  It will not guarantee success but it will help to avoid some of the biggest problems.

I received this book in a giveaway from Brave Reviews. (submitted by CB)