SILION VALLEY COMPANIES (best practices, CASE STUDY). Innovation Drive, The Relentless Approach to Innovation in the Silicon Valley

* * *

Relentless Approach to Innovation in Silicon Valley Firms

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 culture of creative dissatisfaction and 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.

Achievement Attitude ▪ Constructive Competition

If you stop innovating, you stop creating history and become history.
~ Vadim Kotelnikov

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. Noble failures are treated as a primary vehicle of innovation and success.

Freedom to fail rules provide this it leads to failing forward. 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.'

Failures are Stepping Stones to Success
Disruptive Success is 99% Failure
Examples
Freedom to Fail

Successful Practices

Slides

Entrepreneurial Organization

Notes