Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Brief article - Book review

Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation. By Gina O'Connor, Richard Leifer, Albert S. Paulson and Lois S. Peters. Jossey-Bass, 332 pages. $29.95.

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Creating breakthroughs can be literally as random as the authors' analogy of "grabbing lightning." But it doesn't have to be. In this thoughtful and well-researched book, they set up a kind of template for companies to approach the notion of repeated breakthroughs.

Essentially, they write, innovation rests on three central building blocks: discovery (recognizing opportunities); incubation (transforming opportunities into potential businesses); and acceleration (bolstering businesses to stand on their own). Too often, they note, established companies are hamstrung by fealty to their own reliable and repeatable processes.

The...