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Interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore: seeking solutions to intractable problems

Strategy & Leadership

ISSN: 1087-8572

Article publication date: 11 September 2007

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Abstract

Purpose

This is an interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore, the author of five books that have gained an enthusiastic following among corporate managers pursuing market development. It offers a wide range of insights on innovation management.

Design/methodology/approach

Two Strategy & Leadership contributing editors, one a CEO of several startups and the other a senior academic who often writes about innovation, asked Moore about his experiences advising high tech companies.

Findings

Moore believes the best way of thinking about innovation is to put your company in service to an attractive target market to work on a solution to a seemingly intractable problem.

Practical implications

Moore believes the biggest innovation mistake large firms make is to have amodel for “childhood” (the incipient innovation) and “adulthood” (the mature innovation) but no model or patience for adolescence (the struggling innovation). Most innovations are killed during their adolescent stage.

Originality/value

Moore believes that Job #1 for a CEO is to declare what is core (that will contribute to long‐term competitiveness). The stronger that declaration, the easier it is to manage the execution effort downstream. CEOs are naturally reluctant to pursue this course because they want to maintain a portfolio of options. But large organizations become impossible to steer when there is insufficient commitment to taking a specific course.

Keywords

Citation

Davidson, A. and Leavy, B. (2007), "Interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore: seeking solutions to intractable problems", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 4-8. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878570710819152

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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