Skimmers Guide to the Latest Business Books

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The book: The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth With Innovation. Crown Business; April 2008.

The big idea: Eureka moments are the stuff of entrepreneurial legend. But as A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan observe, you can't build a growth plan on them. Innovation -- the seed of organic growth -- is a matter of process and culture and business strategy. The real payoff comes from people getting comfortable together and sparking off one another; innovation is chiefly a product of social interaction. You've got to manage people before you can manage their ideas.

The backstory: Lafley is the chairman and CEO of new-product dynamo Procter & Gamble. Starting in 2000, he revived the fortunes and morale at this aging behemoth by systematically applying innovation techniques to product lines young and old. P&G now makes innovation the basis for budgets, compensation plans, and even risk management. Lafley's co-author, Charan, an adviser to corporate titans, adds stories from Honeywell, Nokia, and DuPont to the mix.

Intriguing subplot: Lafley starts sweating if more than 60 percent of new ideas succeed, because it means he's playing too safe. The Game-Changer even provides a chart of P&G's greatest flops. (Remember Fit Fruit & Vegetable Wash? Anyone?)

Does it scale? P&G is the Disney World of innovation, of course, with assorted in-house think tanks and labs. But Lafley describes a few humble tools that any business can afford, such as science-fair-style innovation reviews. Teams gather in a room, outline their new-product ideas on simple posters, and present them to managers who walk from station to station.

Rigor rating: 9 (1=Who Moved My Cheese?; 10=Good to Great). Lafley knows P&G and is generous with details of his career. Charan gets the skinny on other corporations straight from their leaders.

If you read nothing else: "The Customer Is Boss" (Chapter Three) sounds like a yawner. In fact, it is a powerful argument for research through immersion in customers' lives. Also worthwhile is "Integrating Innovation Into Your Routine" (Chapter Seven), which limns an innovation program as though it were a manufacturing process, from inputs to outputs and all the stages in between.

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Leigh Buchanan

Leigh Buchanan is an editor at large for Inc. Magazine. A former editor at Harvard Business Review and founding editor of WebMaster magazine, she writes regular columns on leadership and workplace culture, and she contributes Inc.'s capsule book reviews, "A Skimmer's Guide to the Latest Business Books."

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