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The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity through Your Organization (精装)
by Thomas Kelley, Jonathan Littman
| Category:
Innovation |
| Market price: ¥ 308.00
MSL price:
¥ 288.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Eloquent, thought-provoking, and practical in spelling out steps to spread creativity within an organization. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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John T. Landry (Harvard Business Review) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
This second book from design firm IDEO will introduce you to some new thinking on new thinking... the book's detailed, often quirky examples will inspire some of those looking to expand their innovation horizons. |
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Kerry Hannon (USA Today) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
As you read through the many examples of innovative people with interesting jobs producing cutting-edge products, you find yourself stopping periodically to tell someone down the hall about something you just read, or e-mailing your college-age niece who is grappling with career choices. |
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Robert Morris (Amazon.com Top Ten Reviewer) (MSL quote) , USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
...offers a rigorous intellectual journey whose ultimate value will be determined, entirely, by the nature and extent of innovative thinking which each reader achieves...and who then uses the breakthrough insights to drive creativity throughout her or his own organization. |
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Bruce Nussbaum (Business Week) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
...this book delivers some tasty morsels to managers hungry to boost their companies' level of innovation. It is funny, insightful, and chock-full of surprising examples. If you take it on a flight from Los Angeles, you will have something to use at work by the time you land in New York. |
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Clayton Christensen (Harvard Business School) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
The Ten Faces of Innovation superbly maps how people and process can be managed to innovate successfully. It makes explicit the intuition and experience of the world's master innovator. Every business executive should read it. |
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Tom Peters (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
A consensus is emerging that innovation must become every firm's 'Job One.' 'Hurdle One,' however, is a doozer: estabishing a culture of innovation. IDEO thought leader Tom Kelley offers a thoroughly original and thoroughly tested approach to creating a 'culture of innovation.' Rigorously applying his 'Ten Faces' will get the innovation ball rolling... fast. Bravo! |
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Frank Jania (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
Kelley takes the reader on tour of the IDEO design studio through his explanations of the ten personas that he believes make innovation happen. I've never really thought of working anyplace else after I joined IBM, but the types of work and the culture he describes in the book make IDEO a real contender if I ever was to leave IBM.
The personas he describes are applicable to any environment, not just IDEO. They are personas, and not job roles. He makes this very clear. Someone can be a software engineer and also manifest a number of the personas described.
The Ten Faces are:
- The Anthropologist</strong> observes the way people behave with a "beginner's mind" to observe nuances that provide a deep understanding of how people interact with their environment.
- The Experimenter</strong> prototypes, and prototypes again. Often in real time drawing on diverse resources to build and test out ideas. This desire to prototype goes as much for objects as it does for services and experiences.
- The Cross-Pollinator</strong> explores other industries and cultures and then translates what they find into the fields they are responsible for. Cross pollinators are also called "t-shaped" people because they have depth in at least one area and breadth of knowledge in many fields.
- The Hurdler</strong> works to overcome obstacles and roadblocks by outsmarting them. Budgets, adversity, bureaucracies and failures are all challenges that The Hurdler may come up with ingenious ways to overcome.
- The Collaborator</strong> "often leads from the middle of the pack" to bring people together and build new solutions. Collaborators work with teammates, colleagues and even competitors. This is similar to Gladwell's Tipping Point notion of a 'connector'
- The Director</strong> brings together talented people and provides an environment and direction fo them to spark their creative talents. They give the spotlight to others and rise to tough challenges, using brainstorming as a way to let talented people shine.
- The Experience Architect</strong> looks to appeal to people's deep needs by developing compelling experiences. The focus on key elements of an experience that is crucial to its success. These trigger points can be as simple as the alarm clock and bed in a hotel room.
- The Set Designer</strong> creates environments that allow team members to do their best work. They realize that the work environment is an important element of what makes people productive. They make things like brainstorming lounges and dynamic work environments possible.
- The Caregiver</strong> looks to serve customers in a way that is beyond standard service. They anticipate what customers will need and plan for it in advance.
- The Storyteller</strong> carries on the tradition of sharing narratives that communicate fundamental emotions or values. They eschew the 'fast path' where a story would be more appropriate, avoiding 'cutting to the chase' when they can instead engage people in a dialog that moves them. This crowd is not a big fan of PowerPoint :-)
The book's attention aesthetic to detail is refreshing - from the glossy paper and color photos, to the cleaver use of color and pull quotes. The content does not fall short either. Not only is the book a great endorsement for IDEO, but for general innovation techniques that really appear to work. The personas described in the book are bolstered by a number of examples that bring them to life. |
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Robert Morris (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
With Jonathan Littman, Kelley provides in this volume a wealth of information and counsel which can help any decision-maker to "drive creativity" through her or his organization but only if initiatives are (a) a collaboration which receives the support and encouragement of senior management (especially of the CEO) and (b) sufficient time is allowed for those initiatives to have a measurable impact. There is a distressing tendency throughout most organizations to rip out "seedlings" to see how well they are "growing." Six Sigma programs offer a compelling example. Most are abandoned within a month or two. Why? Unrealistic expectations, cultural barriers (what Jim O'Toole characterizes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom"), internal politics, and especially impatience are among the usual suspects. That said, I agree with countless others (notably Amabile, Christensen, Claxton, de Bono, Drucker, Kelley, Kim and Mauborgne, Michalko, Ray, and von Oech) that innovation is now the single most decisive competitive advantage. How to establish and then sustain that advantage?
In an earlier work, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Kelley shares IDEO's five-step methodology: Understand the market, the client, the technology, and the perceived constraints on the given problem; observe real people in real-life situations; literally visualize new-to-the-world concepts AND the customers who will use them; evaluate and refine the prototypes in a series of quick iterations; and finally, implement the new concept for commercialization. With regard to the last "step", as Bennis explains in Organizing Genius, Apple executives immediately recognized the commercial opportunities for PARC's technology. Larry Tesler (who later left PARC for Apple) noted that Jobs and colleagues (especially Wozniak) "wanted to get it out to the world." But first, obviously, the challenge was to create that "it" which they then did.
In this volume, as Kelley explains, his book is "about innovation with a human face. [Actually, at least ten...hence its title.] It's about the individuals and teams that fuel innovation inside great organizations. Because all great movements are human-powered." He goes on to suggest that all good working definitions of innovation pair ideas with action, "the spark with fire. Innovators don't just have their heads in the clouds. They also have their feet on the ground." Kelley cites and then examines several exemplary ("great") organizations which include Google, W. L. Gore & Associates, the Gillette Company, and German retailer Tchibo. I especially appreciate the fact that Kelley focuses on the almost unlimited potential for creativity of individuals and the roles which they can play, "the hats they can put on, the personas they can adopt... [albeit] unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out."
Because individuals and organizations constantly need to gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and thereby grow, Kelley recommends three "Learning Personas": The Anthropologist, The Experimenter, and The Cross Pollinator.
Because organizations need individuals who are savvy about the counterintuitive process of how to move ideas forward, Kelley recommends three "Organizing Personas": The Hurdler, The Collaborator, and The Director.
Because organizations also need individuals and teams who apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen, Kelley recommends four "Building personas": The Experience Architect, The Set Designer, The Caregiver, and The Storyteller. Note both the sequence, interrelatedness and, indeed, the interdependence of these ten "personas."
I am reminded of comparable material in A Kick in the Seat of the Pants. Specifically, Roger von Oech's discussion of what he calls "The Four Roles of the Creative Process" (i.e. Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior). Also Six Thinking Hats in which Edward de Bono explains the need for a creativity "wardrobe" comprised of several hats. Specifically, white (rational, logical, and objective), red (emotional), black (negative), yellow (positive, hopeful, optimistic), green (creative and innovative), and blue (ordered, controlled, structured).
What Kelley achieves in this volume is to develop in much greater depth than do von Oech and de Bono what are essentially ten different perspectives. He does so, brilliantly, by focussing the bulk of his attention of those who, for example, seek and explore new opportunities to reveal breakthrough insights...and while doing so wear (at least metaphorically) one of de Bono's hats (probably the green one). Kelley devotes a separate chapter to each of the ten "personas," including real-world examples of various "unsung heroes who work on the front lines of entrepreneurship in action, the countless people and teams who make innovation happen day in and day out."
Two final points. First, most of those who read this book can more easily identify with "unsung heroes" such as those whom Kelley discusses than with luminaries of innovation such as Thomas Edison or with celebrity CEOs such as Andrew Grove, Jeffrey Immelt, Steve Jobs, and Jack Welch, all of whom were staunch advocates of constant innovation in their respective organizations. Also, presumably Kelley agrees with me that those who read and then (hopefully) re-read his book should do so guided by a process which begins with the curiosity of an anthropologist and concludes with the empathy of a caregiver. This is emphatically not an anthology of innovation recipes. Rather, it offers a rigorous intellectual journey whose ultimate value will be determined, entirely, by the nature and extent of innovative thinking which each reader achieves...and who then uses the breakthrough insights to drive creativity throughout her or his own organization. |
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Jennifer Snodgrass (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
Tom Kelley's book, The Ten Faces of Innovation, provides strategies for companies of any sort to boost their creative power in the marketplace through reinventing the roles of their employees. This book, through structured lessons filled with relevant case studies, chronicles ten characters that workers can assume to promote new avenues of innovation. These characters/ personalities are: The Anthropologist, The Experimenter, The Cross-Pollinator, The Hurdler, The Collaborator, The Director, The Experience Architect, The Set Designer, The Storyteller, and The Caregiver. Through each of these dynamic personalities, an organization can develop the individual creativity of its employees as well as the innovative techniques of the entire corporation.
I believe that this book is useful for practically any person who believes in the transforming powers of creativity and innovation within a company. Kelley definitely notes time and time again that the idea of the ten faces of innovation does not specifically apply to managers, low-level employees, or people who are working in a `creative' company or industry. I also began to believe, through Kelley's assertions, that his diverse readers could all profit from some bit of information or another that lends itself to their personal type of business. While I think that many of the main readers of the book may be organizational consultants, research and development workers, and upper-level employees, the most effective target of the book is the individual team member at any level of an organization. In fact, I think it is the kind of book that could/ should be handed to a new employee at the signing of their contract to emphasize the company's need for effort in innovation no matter through what department. The new employee entering a company that wants to undergo a rejuvenation in innovation can get a fresh and unusual perspective on their new work environment, and analyze its creative needs immediately.
The only aspect of this book that continually bothered me was the constant list of analogies drawn between creative teamwork efforts and the Olympics. While, yes, this sounds quite strange, Kelley does seem to favor Olympic sports as a way to emphasize a worker overcoming any type of creative obstacle. I found that the use of Olympic sports comparisons were overused, and thus the sharpness of the point the author was trying to make was occasionally lost on me. I felt that there are better comparisons with which to switch up idea explanations that may not necessarily be sports-oriented, which still could emphasize the point Kelley was trying to illustrate.
Overall, this is possibly the best business book I have yet read. The information is as equally informative as it is motivational. This may mainly be because Kelley's aim is to inspire small movements toward major shifts in viewpoint and operation, so his suggestions are never overwhelming and play to almost anyone's individual talents, whether they be scientific in nature or customer-oriented. I would also recommend the book to anyone entering a new corporate profession, as its motivational capacity gets the reader pepped to put their best foot forward, and gives tips that you can work with everyday... even the repetition of the book gets you in the mindset to make a creative environment for yourself. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-28 00:00>
Anyone within an organization that leads development efforts, particularly in a team environment, should read Kelley's book. Kelley provides insight as to how teams, composed of particular roles, can create new products and services. As a former team leader at one of the US's last remaining commercial airplane companies, I've seen the teams and issues described by Kelley. The "anthropologist" role focuses on observation; yet, the observation provides more than just the opinion of the observer. Rather, Kelley asks that the observation occur without prejudice or preconceived notions. Kelley provides vivid descriptions of the other key roles needed for teams, including the sponsor role. Again, any person engaged in development efforts, particular those efforts wherein problems must be addressed and solved, needs to read this book and apply the ideas. |
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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