Here's the Review in Brief for Game-Changer: How you can drive revenue and profit growth with innovation by A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan. See below for the Review in Depth and for Additional Resources.
How this book is different:
A. G. Lafley has spent his career at P & G. But when he took over as CEO in 2000 he knew that things needed to change. This book gives you his perspective on what that change was and how it happened. The additional commentary by Uberconsultant Ram Charan adds richness, depth, and examples from outside Proctor and Gamble.
Strengths:
There are two big take-aways in this book.
Put the customer at the center of your business. That sounds like business 101, but it's easy to forget or to let slip. Chapter three on putting the customer at the center should be read and re-read.
Innovation should be a part of the way you do business. It shouldn't be an initiative. It shouldn't be the job of one part of the company. It should be part of the way you do business.
Warnings:
There are times when the buzzwords rise up and threaten to choke the life out of the book.
Bottom Line:
This is an idea book, not a how-to book. But the ideas are powerful and well expressed. If you want an innovation manual, pass this book by.
But if you want lots of ideas and examples to hold up against the way you do business now, plunk down your money. If you only read the chapter on putting the customer at the center, you'll get lots of return on your investment in this book.
Now for the Review in Depth.
In the early years of business on the web, I was on a panel that addressed marketing in the then mostly new Digital Age. There was a senior executive from Proctor and Gamble on that panel who told the assembled marketers that P & G wasn't going to change because "we've got it all figured out."
As we were packing up, one of the panelists said, "I don't know about you guys but I'm going home and sell my P & G stock. Any company with an executive that high up who thinks they've got it all figured out is going to go down sooner or later."
I remembered that incident while reading Game-Changer: How you can drive revenue and profit growth with innovation by A. G. Lafley and Ram Charan.
Lafley is the Chairman and CEO of Proctor and Gamble. Charan is neck-and-neck in the race with Warren Bennis for "Most Books Co-Authored by a Guru." Each writes parts of the book in his own voice. They are very different voices.
Lafley's voice is practical and down to earth. Here's a quote from chapter 1. "The Game-Changer is about what I have learned over the course of a lifetime in business, but particularly since I became CEO of P & G."
Charan has a more buzzword-rich style. "P & G is one of the few companies that has been able to break the chains of commoditization and create organic growth on a sustainable basis through implementing and managing the integrated process of innovation."
This is a book about the turnaround at P & G. Since Lafley took over, in June of 2000, the company has tripled profits, and improved revenue growth, cash flow, and operating margins. The stock price has more than doubled.
A significant part of the turnaround was the development of a process for managing innovation at P & G. This book is about that process and how it works.
Those are both Lafley's stories. But this is a better book because Ram Charan adds commentary and examples from other firms.
If you want to learn the back story, chapter one will set the stage for you. After Charan's comments in chapter two, Game-Changer is organized into three parts.
Drawing the Big Picture sets the stage for the other parts. The chapter titled The Customer is Boss is one of those chapters you copy so you can re-read it often.
Every company says they are customer-focused. P & G has been known as a customer-focused company for most of its history. And yet it was easy for the customer to slide from the center of the business to periphery.
Chapter three is the best explanation I've seen of what it means to put the customer at the center of your company. I'd love to see P & G or the publisher put this chapter out as a pamphlet.
Part Two is about the innovation process itself. It begins with a chapter on organizing for innovation. This chapter is one of several that include excellent material on innovation at other companies.
If you're not at a consumer products company, you'll get ideas about how innovation looks in other industries. If you don't think a P & G practice will work at your company, the book gives you some other models.
The next chapter, on integrating innovation into your routine, is one of the best in the book because it concentrates on a key point. For innovation to be a real game-changer, it can't be bolted on to day-to-day operations and responsibilities. It has to be part of the routine, even as it challenges the routine. There's great material here on how ideas get killed and the importance of a regular, social mechanism for approving ideas.
After a chapter on the risks of innovation, the authors move to the final part of the book which discusses the culture of innovation. You'll learn how innovation is a team sport and how a leader's job should include innovation.
This is an idea book, not a how-to book. If you want an innovation manual, pass this book by.
But if you want lots of ideas and examples to hold up against the way you do business now, plunk down your money for Game-Changer. Even if you only read the chapter on putting the customer at the center, you'll get lots of return on your investment in this book.
Additional Resources
Innovation at Proctor and Gamble didn't start with A. G. Lafley. He was able to build on a tradition that stretches back over a century. A few years ago I did a radio commentary called: Ivory Soap: It Still Floats and Sells. Follow the link to the interesting story of Ivory and more links to P & G history.
Here are two articles on innovation.
Getting Ideas is the Easy Part: Here's what you need for innovation
Masters of Innovation
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