How does innovation succeed?

The +3 magazine asked, and Henning Breuer was among the professionals who answered the question how innovation succeeds, within 1440 characters: “The very concept of innovation (unlike the ones of product improvement or ideation, for example) implies an extraordinary level of ambition, success, and risk. There is no simple recipe for successful innovation. However, organizations can create the necessary conditions and a culture conducive to innovation. For this, they need resources that are not absorbed by everyday business. They need methods and experience to think ambitiously into the future and to handle risks in a learner’s manner. Above all, they should know why they want to be innovative at all. A short-lived hunt for new trends and market opportunities is neither efficient nor successful. Companies need to clarify their ideas of what is desirable, and important to customers, employees, managers and other stakeholders. These values offer a heuristic for the development of new business fields, orientation for their design and starting points for the integration of even contradictory interests. Values understood in this way help formulate visions and a mission that is worth working for. They do that especially well when it comes to shaping our future, developing new processes, products, services, business models, or designing new organizations and networks.”