Innovation Library
Our recommended books on innovation
1. The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change into Opportunity and Advantage, Dan Burrus, Greenleaf Press, 2017.
Fascinating book looking at macro trends that can help innovators plan for future disruptive breakthroughs. Trends are broken into categories depending on their level of certainty.
2. The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm,
Tom Kelley, Doubleday- Random House, 2002.
Everything I’ve read by the Kelley brothers is excellent. This book has great lessons from IDEO along with some really funny stories. This is a good book on creating environments and processes to foster innovation.
3. Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation, Tim Brown, Harper Collins, 2009.
Tim is a pioneer in Design Thinking and CEO of IDEO. This book makes “Design Thinking” relevant and very applicable to a broad range of issues; not just to product design.
4. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All, David Kelley and Tom Kelley, Random House 2013.
Great book that describes many of the methods that are part of Design Thinking. Wonderful stories that illustrate many of the methods are told as well.
5. Creative You: Using your Personality Type to Thrive, David Goldstein & Otto Kroeger, Simon & Schuster, 2013.
This is a book that uses the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to identify specific types of creativity that may be associated with your individual personality type.
6. Creativity Inc., Ed Catmull, Random House, 2014.
Super book on creativity and innovation from the inside of Pixar (now a Disney company). In particular, see how Pixar’s “BrainTrust” collaboration strategy helps develop an environment for successful innovation.
7. Cultures of Creativity – The Centennial Exhibition of the Nobel Prize, Editor Ulf Larsson, Science History Publications, 2001.
Stories of the cultures surrounding different Nobel Prize winners. While specific creativity or innovation principles are not necessarily specifically stated, the stories of the cultures abound with inherent innovation-oriented principles.
8. Discover Your Genius, Michael Gelb, Quill – Harper Collins, 2002.
This book is an overview of 10 historical innovators. The work is not tremendously scholarly in nature, but is very readable, insightful and enjoyable. The stories can provide principles for innovation. Parts of my technique labeled “Historical Innovators” come from this book.
9. Driving Honda: Inside the World's Most Innovative Car Company, Jeffrey Rothfeder, Penguin Group, 2014.
An in-depth look into Honda, both historically and in the present. This is a fascinating study of a corporation’s culture. In particular, the description of Honda’s use of the S-Curve of product evolution is tremendous.
10. Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation, G. Colarelli O'Connor, Wiley, 2008.
Best book I know on creating a corporate culture and strategy for enhancing innovation. This text is based on an on-going research study by a group at R.P.I. The work is detailed and somewhat academic, but tremendous in its precision and applicability.
11. Harvard Business Review on Innovation, Clayton Christensen et. al., Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
This book contains a number of articles from HBR on innovation. Most are from a management perspective, yet are very applicable to engineering situations in many cases.
12. How Google Works, Schmidt & Rosenberg, Grand Central Publishing, 2013.
Dive into the inner workings of Google from hiring, to ideation, to management structure, to physical environment. Lots of fun and informative stories are included.
13. How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Gelb, Quill – Bantam Dell – Random House, 2000.
This book provides 7 “Da Vincian Principles” that lead to creativity and innovation. In that sense, it provides a personal roadmap for learning to think more like Da Vinci.
14. The Innovator’s Dilemma, Clayton Christensen, Harper Business Publishers, 2003.
Great book on creating an environment (from a management and, to a lesser extent, engineering standpoint) that fosters innovation. This is also a great resource for understanding the differences between disruptive innovation and sustaining (incremental) innovation. He hypothesizes that understanding the difference between disruptive and sustaining innovation, and the environments that foster success in each of these, can save companies from financial disaster.
15. The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators, Dyer,
Gregersen, Christensen, Harvard Business Publishers, 2011.
In-depth study of a number of highly successful innovators and mapping of their characteristics into a set of 5 critical dimensions. These dimensions then form a proposed set of characteristics or skills needed to be innovative. Lots of fun and informative stories are included.
16. Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us about Innovation, Frans Johansson, Reed Business Information, 2004.
Johansson argues that innovation happens at the cross roads of two different fields of study or even two different cultures. This principle of introducing a new way of thinking about a problem is illustrated with numerous examples (both technical and nontechnical) in the book.
17. The Mind Map Book, Tony Buzan, Plumb Books, 1993.
This is a really fun book about mind mapping which is a visually oriented, category driven, method for organizing and displaying information. The method is uncovered in great detail with many great examples and various ways to use mind mapping to enhance creativity.
18. Mover of Men and Mountains, The Autobiography of R. G. LeTourneau, Moody Publishers, 1972.
This book is LeTourneau’s autobiography. It covers his business, personal and spiritual development in the context of his tremendous innovation in the field of mining/earth moving vehicles and equipment. Some of his creativity techniques are described in the book.
19. Outliers, Malcom Gladwell, Back Bay Books, 2008.
Really fun research of the impact of certain variables on the success of individuals. Not as much about innovation as competitive advantage.
20. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain, Random House, 2013.
Many companies (especially tech companies) are comprised of a large percentage of introverted scientists and engineers. This book helps to unleash the power of that group of people. Interesting ideas for creating physical spaces and communication patterns to enhance introverts’ innovation capability are included.
21. The Rainforest, The Secrets to Building the Next Silicon Valley, Hwang, V., Horowitt, G., Regenwald Publishing, 2012.
Study of cultural aspects of geographic innovation centers. Intriguing analysis of the reasons many attempts at creating innovation centers didn’t work.
22. Shoe Dog, A Memoir by the Creator of Nike, Phil Knight, Simon & Schuster, 2018.
A fun read full of innovation principles and great stories of how Phil Knight started Nike. This book is hard to put down as the stories of how Phil and his colleagues overcame difficulties are memorizing.
23. Six Thinking Hats, Edward DeBono, Little Brown & Company, 1985.
This is a book that identifies 6 patterns or strategies (hats) for group interaction that affect group dynamics. Much of it is applicable to development of group dynamics to enhance innovation. My colleagues and I have developed a “group communication typing instrument” and an associated “group interaction strategy” based on DeBono’s work.
24. SPRINT – How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days, Jake Knapp Simon & Schuster, 2016.
Great stories from one of the Google insiders on how they do rapid prototyping and how it increases innovation. Great customer focus embedded in this book as well. Many organizations are using this as a blueprint for running their own “design sprints”.