A trailblazer in management, Peter Drucker believed in crafting the future through innovation, stating, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” He emphasized incremental growth and the need for large organizations to embrace change for survival, while his test of innovation’s success focused on value creation.
- “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
- “Effective innovations start small.”
- “The large organization has to learn to innovate, or it won’t survive.”
- “Systematic innovation requires a willingness to look on change as an opportunity.”
- “Innovation is not a technical term.”
- “The test of an innovation is whether it creates value.”
Visionary Amazon founder Jeff Bezos championed inventive solutions, stating, “One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.” He encouraged risk-taking and experimentation to enhance inventiveness, and outlined principles such as customer-first focus and patient growth as cornerstones of Amazon’s success.
- “One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”
- “If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.”
- “If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.”
- “Put the customer first. Invent. … We are stubborn on vision.”
- “We are comfortable planting seeds and waiting for them to grow into trees.”
- “There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less.”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs linked innovation with leadership, asserting, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” He saw value in the fusion of thinking and doing, embracing mistakes as part of innovation, and believed in consistently delivering value to customers as a driving force.
- “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
- “The doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person.”
- “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes.”
- “Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”
- “Things don’t have to change the world to be important.”
- “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.”
Known for leadership insights, Simon Sinek highlighted innovation’s origins in purpose-driven action, stating, “The only way to ‘find out if it will work out’ is to do it.” He celebrated dreamers who challenge norms, underlined the role of struggle in innovation, and stressed the power of a shared vision and progress-driven mindset in achieving extraordinary outcomes.
- “The only way to ‘find out if it will work out’ is to do it.”
- “Innovators are the ones whose dreams are clearer than the reality that tells them they’re crazy.”
- “Innovation is not born from the dream, innovation is born from the struggle.”
- “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
- “Progress is more important than perfection.”
- “A small team, committed to a cause bigger than themselves, can achieve absolutely anything.”