When I moved from Washington, DC to Boston two years ago, I asked myself — what can I do in Boston that I cannot do anywhere else in the world? The first obvious answer was to eat all possible kinds of cannoli. After all, Boston is famous for this Sicilian…

The lean startup is a methodology for developing a business applied to entrepreneurs everywhere: from stereotypical startups in a garage to innovators in big enterprises. It replaces the traditional management techniques for businesses operating in extreme uncertainty: Use experiments and the minimum viable product (MVP) to drive the crucial build-measure-learn…

“How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways” Remarkable organizations can make even the most ordinary industries, such as fast food, cleaning, or banking, extraordinary. These organizations have a “lighthouse” identity: they have a unique perspective, which is projected with great intensity and salience. To become a truly creative…

Innovation is often romanticized and surrounded by harmful myths. The reality is that it neither comes with epiphany nor by following a predefined established set of steps, but it from hard work and experiments. Find a problem, frame it, focus on it, and start exploring, designing, and prototyping. Significant innovations rarely start big — start small by examining your problem and finding solutions that could work; a world-changing product can come later and be in an unforeseen direction. Success can take years to come — learn from mistakes and find what motivates you to walk you through the most challenging time.

Producing loonshots and producing franchises are two separate phases of large-group behavior that usually can’t coexist. But an organization can achieve the right state of a phase transition by following the Bush-Vail rules: (1) separate the phases, (2) build a strong dynamic equilibrium, and (3) spread a system mindset. There…

A company’s capacity for innovation is defined by leadership and talent, not by its size or age. Innovations are risky and costly, but refusing to innovate can be catastrophic — therefore, a company must define its innovation strategy. Search, synthesis, and selection are necessary steps of the strategy’s development — these activities need collaboration, discipline, and following the rules, which are different for every company.

Are you creative? Not so long ago, I was considering myself to be the most uncreative person in the world. That’s why I went to Harvard to take an intensive course on Creativity and Organizational success. …