Richard Foster's Book, Innovation: The Attackers Advantage

Innovation, the ability to change and take risk; is a key attribute to success. No company has become successful by keeping their old ways, or staying to the “tried and true” (Foster, 1986). No successful business can stay successful regardless of how much money or technology they have, if they do not know how to keep evolving with time. Success isn’t built off one tool; it is built off a variety of tools. This book taught me that one must constantly adapt to the world around you, because it won’t slow down. We live in an ever-changing world. One must be willing and able to change. This book teaches how to be “unsafe” in the world of business, never stick with one way, never rely on one source of success; be ready to change it and find something better.

Business is not all about strictness and order. Sometimes one has to be creative and switch things up. For instance, after 87 years of going toe-to- toe, Coke finally altered its formula to match Pepsi, and that action alone is why Coke is one of the biggest soft drink companies in the world (Foster, 1986). One may be then, know what the customer wants, but the truth is not all customers know what they want. Never base an entire operation on what the customer wants. For example, when there were silent movies people wanted silent movies until “talkies” came (Foster, 1986). In addition the book talks about discontinuities. A discontinuity is a piece of technology that has reached its limits and then becomes obsolete. In our day of age, discontinuities are happening with increasing speed. Companies must be able to adapt.

Content

Richard Foster is the author of Innovation: The Attacker’s Advantage, which he published in 1986. He is the director of McKinsey & Company, a management...

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...ss world. Even the difficult S-curves, in the last couple of chapters, are explained well.

Weakness

This book in my opinon has one weakness. Being a technologist, Foster provides overly detailed advice for constructing S-Curves, including an extensive appendix. Also the descriptions of the organizational contexts at du Pont, Celanese, RCA, Procter & Gamble, Monsanto, were too extensive. The cases could have readily provided a much richer description of the important psychological and organizational forces that were at work in the companies.

Recommendations

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Innovation: The Attackers Advantage. I would recommend reading this book because it will help you become successful and stay successful. In addition, I think this book might be beneficial to CEOs, entrepreneurs or managers who want to remain relevant in an ever-changing world.