An Inventor's Personal Principles of Innovation

Virtually all businesses set stretching growth goals. While the strategies on how to achieve those goals vary greatly, one underlying theme remains constant: game-changing innovation at all levels and across all functions and disciplines is essential. While there are no prescriptive checklists that guarantee success, efforts driven by personally derived innovation principles increase the probability that meaningful advances will occur. Every individual in the organization should be encouraged to develop such principles and then routinely exhibit what the author calls constructively deviant behavior. The author outlines ten fundamental principles that have guided his 34 years of upstream R&D work at Procter & Gamble.