Managing Leadership^®

Sramana Mitra is a successful businesswoman who has developed specific and focused ideas on how entrepreneurs can improve their chances, how this can help the economy, and how the economy itself might better be structured to encourage this worthwhile outcome. She promotes this thinking through her consulting, and then spins her carefully organized observations into a series of wonderful books on the theme. We have looked at two of these, Positioning (reviewed here) and Bootstrapping (reviewed here).

A particularly valuable characteristic of these books is that Mitra’s own thinking on the theme of each book is organized into a clearly-structured argument which is then expressed in brief, lucid essays, which are themselves then amplified with really informative and productive interviews she conducts with successful entrepreneurs whose experience in the area discussed is instructive. I have found that these interviews are also filled with terrific and hard-won insight into more generally important – even vital – aspects of management, making these books a real treasure to read.

The latest in this series is certainly no exception. It builds on the overall trend of the arguments in the book series, which began by describing the entrepreneurial process, moved on to discuss core managerial approaches for succeeding with it, to – in the current book, “Innovation” – analyzing the importance of the entrepreneurial function itself to a vibrant, healthy economy. In this context, innovation as an economic activity that produces groundbreaking advances is the focus, rather than the incremental process-improvement form of innovation that many managers concern themselves with.

Both forms are vital to an intelligent, productive economy that supports a dynamic, forward-moving society. Due to her entrepreneurial background, Mitra naturally sees most prominently and celebrates the groundbreaking style. Her essays and interviews explore the issue intelligently and thought-provokingly. You will find much of immediately practical benefit in them both as a manager and, surprisingly and pleasantly, even as a citizen.

What’s more, even though it isn’t specifically targeted, you will find that Mitra’s success in business and consulting result in expressions in the book of key clues to the link between the groundbreaking and incremental forms of innovation. After all, you don’t want merely to discover a profitable idea – you want to build an enduringly profitable business around it.

Pick up Sramana Mitra’s “Innovation” today, and enjoy!

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Today’s tips: Dan McCarthy’s Leadership Development Carnival is published, and what a great format he has chosen for displaying some really high-quality thinking from some of your favorite – and soon-to-be-favorite – writers on the topic. Please be sure to stop over to see it; an outstanding collection you will definitely want to spend some time with.

Speaking of innovation, Miki Saxon, of MAPping Company Success, has co-developed a very valuable tool, called Option Sanity, for designing and managing stock option plans for your business. I’ve taken a turn around the program, and it is a highly customizable, practical tool designed to intelligently integrate the needs and interests of employees, senior managers, owner representatives (boards), and owners (investors). The result is a fiscally responsible tool that will offer you truly meaningful help in solving one of your most intractable problems: how to integrate the interests of managers and owners (not to mention option grantees and directors). Stop over to the Option Sanity website and take a look.

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