#111 The Innovation 15: What we know so far... (163 ways to pursue excellence - Peters)

Innovation and leadership legend, Tom Peters has summarised his four decades of work on the subject of innovation to the top 15:
1. Try it, Repeat, Repeat - He who tries the most stuff wins.
2. Celebrate failure - not tolerate, but celebrate.
3. Relentlessly decentralise - more statistically independent tries
4. Parallel universe - when facing resistance to change, set up a separate "new world"
5. Searchers - forget reinventing the wheel, concentrate on your home grown wheel makers
6. Hang out axiom - hang out with 'interesting', get more 'interesting'...hang out with 'ordinary', get more 'ordinary'
7. "d"iversity - lowercase 'd' diversity means diversity on any dimension imaginable
8. Co-invent with outsiders - creating new inputs and a great test bed - the power of "everybody"
9. "Strategic" listening - core competence - harvest ideas from any and every source imaginable
10. Hire and promote innovators - the best test is a track record of innovation
11. XFX/Cross functional excellence - 90%of innovation requires or can immeasurably benefit from working across functional borders
12. Complexity and systems destruction officer - systems are imperative. Systems constrain and strangle
13. R&D Equality - may be the "value added Secret #1"
14. Fun! Self deprecation! - Innovation is about breaking the rules - often our rules.
15. Good luck! - Entropy rules! Performance deteriorates.

from "The little BIG things:163 ways to pursue excellence" by Tom Peters (2010)