Chapter 1. MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR INNOVATION

Companies are clamoring for innovation—breakthrough innovation. Every executive we've spoken with in the past ten years wants it. The trouble is they don't know how to make it happen. "We've atrophied," a senior technical leader at GE's global research center told us four years ago. "We've been so focused on responding to our business units'immediate needs and on taking cost out of our products that we've forgotten how to turn advanced technologies into breakthrough products and businesses."