Page 192 - Just Promoted A 12 Month Road Map for Success in Your New Leadership Role

Assessing Your Organization’s Health 177

costs in their supply chain have made their cost of manufacturing a compet-
itive disadvantage.
Apple has taken technology to a new level. Apple has become a benchmark
company by combining outstanding teamwork, a culture that fosters innova-
tion and the unique use of technology to produce breakthrough products such
as the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and their generations of unique and user-friendly
Mac computers that are popular around the world with near cult-like alle-
giance from their owners.
Walmart has become the largest retailer in the world for many reasons.
One of their distinctive competitive advantages is their world-class purchas-
ing and supply chain processes and technologies. They recruit talent from the
top engineering and supply chain universities and continuously build and
improve their capabilities. In turn, this gives them cost advantages that can
profitably be passed on to their customers.

TARGET 8. INNOVATION AND CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT
Sony, Apple, Genentech, Microsoft, Dell, Google, Amazon—what do they all
have in common? They are all highly successful companies with strong inno-
vative cultures. If you go to Sony’s Web site, the first thing you see as it is load-
ing is, “Believe that anything you can imagine, you can make real.” What a
tone setter! These and other innovative companies have forever changed soci-
ety through their products and services. Imagine today’s world without per-
sonal computers, high-tech audio products, and flat-screen televisions,
breakthrough and lifesaving drugs, high-mileage, energy-sparing hybrid cars,
the ability to instantly order products via the Internet. Organizations with high
innovation quotients typically act in the following ways:

■ Foster personal creativity
■ Value curiosity
■ Have a culture that seeks new solutions to both old and new problems
■ Encourage tinkering and experimentation
■ Scan the environment for customer needs and wants
■ Look at problems and challenges in new and different ways
■ Identify both cost-saving and revenue-generating opportunities
■ Take risks, sometimes reasonable risks and sometimes big risks that