Succeeding with Innovation

Posted on August 25, 2011

    Today I read an article by Bob Goldfarb titled, “Succeeding with Innovation.”  What I liked most about it was the four tips that businessman Howard Stevenson gives for any individual or organization, which I am putting below for your reading pleasure.
“Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson, who retired at the end of the last academic year, virtually created the school’s curriculum on entrepreneurship. He has distilled his long experience into four key “ingredients” necessary for success:
1. A careful definition of available opportunities
Is there a demand out there that’s not being recognized or addressed, and what product or service can I offer that meets it?
2. The motivation to pursue those opportunities to achieve some desired future state
Do I have the long-term will and endurance necessary to stick with it, until that product or service is fully implemented and available?
3. An understanding of the resource requirements for achievement of that desired future state
Do I fully comprehend what human, financial, material, and other assets I will need? Is it feasible for me to launch, and succeed with, that product or service?
4. A skill in negotiating for access to the required resources
Even if I don’t possess all the assets I need, can I get other people to believe in and contribute to the opportunity to the extent that success can be achieved?
Source: Harvard Business School Alumni Bulletin”
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