Editor’s Choices for Week Ending Aug 10, 2012

Article of the Week
The Seven Deadly Sins of Innovation Leaders  (Management Innovation Exchange)
Big Idea:  Leading innovation efforts is difficult and completely different from most everything else done within organizations.  This article discusses seven key underlying issues that can stifle innovation and numerous ideas for addressing and overcoming these innovation limiting challenges.

Editor’s Choice Articles
Blank Checks: Unleashing the Potential of People and Businesses (Strategy + Business)
Big Idea:  Kraft Foods Inc. utilizes an unusual management technique called “blank check” to inspire business teams to envision and achieve breakthrough results.  Instead of defining budgets and resources, business leaders focus on defining ambitious goals while leaving it to their managers and their teams to ask for whatever resources they need to achieve these goals.

Pricing Lessons from New England’s Lobster Glut (HBR Blog Network)
Big Idea:  This current situation in New England where Lobster prices have recently reached 40 year lows illustrates a key pricing concept — value-based pricing — that all companies can learn from.

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (HBR Blog Network)
Big Idea:  If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials. Living by this principle differentiates successful people and organizations from the very successful ones.

Mothers of Invention: How Moms Help Huggies Innovate  (Fast Company)
Big Idea:  All around the world, mothers are inventing new child-care products–so Kimberly-Clark thought, why not collaborate with them (and save the R&D budget in the process)?