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Successful Practices of Leading Firm

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Relentless Approach to Innovation in Silicon Valley Firms

 

 Successful practices of innovative companies from Silicon Valley

 

 
Attributes of Effective Innovation of Silicon Valley Firms People Innovation Relentless Growth Attitude Gain Sharing Daring Innovation Portfolio Silicon Valley firms secrets of relentless innovation  

"Silicon Valley innovators have uniquely learned how to define, design, and deliver innovation with a massive degree of flexibility and concurrency."

~ Christopher Meyer, author of Relentless Growth

  

 
   

4 Distinctive Features of the Silicon Valley's Economy

① Growth in the Valley is driven by innovation

② The Valley is a knowledge economy – knowledge work is the foundation of innovation

③ High competitive intensity – "A year here is worth seven years in other industries," say some executives

④ A combination of a new work spirit – the Growth Attitude – and a new approach to innovation

 

  

 

 
 

Adaptive Organizational Structures

In traditional firms organizational structure defines the framework within which work occurs.

Silicon Valley firms use the work to define organization's structure and create climate for innovation. These structures are best described as flat, flexible, permeable, and fluid.

"Reorganization is a way of life in the Silicon Valley. Organizations mimic nature's most adaptive organisms as they constantly reformulate themselves to meet the latest challenge," writes Christopher Meyer, the author of Relentless Growth.

  

Attributes of Effective Innovation in Silicon Valley

Corporate Innovation System at Silicon Valley Firms

Stretching Innovation Portfolio

Relentless Growth Attitude

Gain Sharing

The Fun Factor

  

 

Slides

  

Innovation Process A-Z/ 360

 

Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relentless Growth Attitude

Leaders in the Silicon Valley inject the Relentless Growth Attitude into the firms. "This attitude establishes a context within which corporate executives lead by setting direction, developing entrepreneurial strategies, securing resources, defining organization architecture, and ensuring that learning occurs."

The competitive environment in the Valley literally demands → Innovation. "Without it, you don't grow – and in the Valley, if you don't grow, you die. Relentless growth is a requirement, not a choice," says Chiristopher Meyer.

Relentless Venturing Attitude

Too many companies are consumed with what they have done and where they've been. "In contrast, Silicon Valley companies are excited about what they haven't done and where they haven't been."

→ Failure in the Valley is understood to be an integral aspect of the growth process. VC investors, venturepreneurs, and technologists will readily abandon a company or technology that looks unlikely to thrive, using what they have learned to jump-start the next innovation effort.

        

Failure as a Primary Vehicle for Success

What makes Silicon Valley so successful as the engine of high-tech growth is the Darwinian process of → failure Case Studies. Commentator and author Mike Malone puts it like this, 'Outsiders think of Silicon Valley as a success, but it is, in truth, a graveyard. Failure is Silicon Valley's greatest strength. Every failed product or enterprise is a lesson stored in the collective memory. We don't stigmatize failure, we admire it. Venture capitalists like to see a little failure in the résumés of → Entrepreneurs .'... More