… what they wanted, it would have been a faster horse. A simple yet intriguing statement from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Judy Estrin (Wikipedia for more) in an interview about her new book, Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy. Innovation is the business topic of today. Estrin says innovation is how we are going to close the gap in energy, climate and healthcare, and grow our economy. We have been trained to get close to our customer, to understand what they want and to give it to them. These are all “today” needs. Future growth, which is what Henry Ford did, depends on innovation.

Innovation is the subject of another book in 2008, The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation by A.G. Lafley, Chairman, Proctor and Gamble, and business author, Ram Charan.

Lafley and Charan write that small companies can be effective at innovation because they are nimbler and have a more coherent sense of purpose. Large companies have advantage in having scale, resources and management capabilities. They list principles of innovation to include: motivating purpose and values, stretching goals, choiceful strategies, unique core strengths, enabling structures, consistent and reliable systems, a courageous and connected culture and inspiring leadership.

I work with small service businesses; and would like to hear your thoughts about what innovation means to you as a small business leader.