Innovate to grow with these innovation book recommendations.
Does your organization have a comprehensive innovation strategy or plan for the year? Are you interested in learning more about how to develop an innovative mindset and gain practical skills on developing creative new ideas for implementation? These innovation-focused book recommendations will help teach you the skills and techniques needed to grow your business and improve your company’s innovation efforts. Looking for even more literary choices to help you innovate? Check out our list of design thinking books to read.
New Releases in 2022
Here are the some of the new releases about innovation and innovative approaches in 2022:
1. Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs
This April 2022 release offers practical and creative advice from the most successful entrepreneurs and investors in the world. Great for business leaders as well as entrepreneurs and visionaries looking to make their own mark. Find it here.
2. Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
This book delivers a look at what it takes to transform an organization for growth and scale. Learn how leaders can improve organization’s performance by aligning people around what matters most. Find it here.
3. Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game
Innovation used to be seen as best left to entrepreneurs and startups. No more! This book offers practical guidance on how corporations and organizations can innovate and beat their competitors at their own game. Find it here.
4. Beyond the Startup: Sparking Operational Innovations for Global Growth
The author provides inspiration and learnings gleaned from his own journey to transform a startup from its early stages to a robust organization with a driving culture, leadership, and innovative operating methodologies. Find it here.
Books from 2021 & Earlier
These recent innovation books are just as useful and practical to professionals looking to learn innovative methodology and approaches. Find links to view them on Amazon below!
5. Experiencing Design: The Innovator’s Journey
This read from Jeanne Liedtka goes deep with design thinking to offer a guide for how to create better experiences at each stage of the design thinking journey, regardless of whether it’s for an individual, a team, or an organization. The book covers mindset shifts, different journeys taken by different personality types, and how to leverage the creativity and diversity of teams to create something new. Find it here.
6. Big Little Breakthroughs: How Small, Everyday Innovations Drive Oversized Results
Most people will never discover the “next big idea.” However, some of the best innovations actually come from small ideas that work over time. By cultivating a daily, small step innovation mindset, teams and individuals are better equipped to tackle tough challenges and seize new opportunities. This simple system is designed for anyone and everyone. Find it here.
7. RE:Think Innovation: How the World’s Most Prolific Innovators Come Up with Great Ideas that Deliver Extraordinary Outcomes
Carla Johnson’s June 2021 release features practical advice on how to tie individual abilities with innovation techniques to drive business outcomes. Sustainable innovation requires following a simple framework and living innovation within organizational culture, but it doesn’t need to be scary. Within this guide, the author will explore how to create a unified, idea-driven culture that’s built to provide more ideas in a smaller time interval. Organizations can expect to become more flexible, nimble, and innovative. Find it here.
8. Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change
In a world of fast-paced change, flexibility and adaptability is needed more than ever. Learn how to find calm and lasting meaning in the midst of enduring chaos. Find it here.
9. Innovation In Translation: How Big Ideas Really Happen
Entrepreneur Dave Ferrera sets out to debunk the myth that big ideas “just happen.” This guide takes readers through the process of bringing new solutions from the drawing board to the market itself by acknowledging that innovation is a team sport that requires everyone to play with skill, inspiration, and team spirit. Discover how to lead your own innovation team with real-world examples in action of how other organizations are succeeding through teamwork and innovation methodology. Find it here.
10. The Leadership Innovation Manifesto
This June 2021 release from Dr. Kim Hires is especially for innovation leaders and would-be leaders. In today’s world, management must be two things: better and different. Organizations that fail to adapt and innovate are often left behind. This “manifesto” will break down 7 core beliefs leaders need in order to move forward, embrace change, and secure their place at the top of their industry. Find it here.
11. Innovator’s DNA, Updated, with a New Preface: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators
This bestseller from Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen provides a deeper framework for individuals to develop the skills necessary to move from idea to impact. Using real world examples, the book outlines five discover skills that distinguish innovative executives from ordinary managers – with advice on how to use those five skills to generate ideas, collaborate with a team, and sharpen your organization’s competitive edge through implementation. Find it here.
12. The Invincible Company: How to Constantly Reinvent Your Organization with Inspiration From the World’s Best Business Models
This book explores how companies like Amazon and Microsoft have been able to create immensely successful businesses that disrupt entire industries. At the core of this success is innovative business models – and the ability to improve existing models while consistently launching new ones. Find practical tools for measuring, managing, and accelerating the process, as well as strategies to reduce risk when launching something new. Find it here.
13. Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation
Every business wants to grow, and leveraging new thinking and innovative methodology is how they can achieve it. Gary Pisano’s simple book outlines how to sustain this thinking throughout an organization as you grow and continue to use it power your organization forward. Find it here.
14. Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age
Find practical guidance and a simple easy-to-use framework for developing an optimal innovative strategy in this book. Filled with compelling stories from companies such as Google, IBM, Experian, and more, the author will show you step-by-step how to develop a playbook that works for your organization, your goals, and your industry in the disruptive 21st century. Find it here.
15. The Innovative Mindset
John Sweeney’s The Innovative Mindset: 5 Behaviors for Accelerating Breakthroughs takes you through how innovation is more than a process or theory – it’s a mindset. The book will teach you what it truly means to be innovative, and how you can develop a mindset for innovation and creativity in everything you do. This is a great one for those who want to help others learn and develop. Find it here.
16. The Innovator’s Method
This book by Nathan Furr covers tips and techniques learned from design thinking, innovation, and the lean startup business model which has grown in popularity in the last few years. With an innovator’s method, one can use these tools to change how ideas are created, refined, and brought to market. Whether you are an entrepreneur or an employee, this book is sure to offer something of value. Find it here.
17. Innovation Step-by-Step
Next up on our list of top innovation books is Darin Eich’s, creator of Innovation Training, book Innovation Step-by-Step. This simple how-to book will help you develop your innovative, strategic, and creative leadership skills. You’ll be guided through the innovation process step-by-step and learn how to develop your own innovation project for success. Find it here.
18. Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage in Human Consciousness
The way we manage employees and workplace culture is increasingly out of date. Employees are unengaged, unmotivated, and increasingly burned out. The solution to this problem lies in enlightened management and innovation culture. Great leaders inspire creativity, collaboration, and innovation. In this book, learn how organizations can improve their culture to foster employee growth and encourage innovative idea sharing. Find it here.
19. Making Ideas Happen
This classic by Scott Belsky asserts a difficult truth: people aren’t naturally born with the skill of execution. Instead, it must be developed by building your “organizational habits and harnessing the support of your colleagues.” This book outlines tips and techniques to creative organization and productivity. Find it here.
20. The Innovator’s Dilemma
The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton Christensen seeks to change your perceptions about playing it safe in business and instead challenges you to develop a business that is built for the revolutionary future. Find it here.
21. The Lean Startup
Eric Ries book focuses on startup culture and how companies can leverage human creativity and capital more effectively. This approach relies on rapid experimentation, collaboration, and agility, enabling companies to shift directions quickly and adjust before it’s too late. Find it here.
Innovation Books Conclusion
This list of innovation books is a great starting point when you want to learn more about innovative methodology and find real-world examples and strategies you can use for your own organizational challenge or personal obstacle. Whether you are an entrepreneur with a new idea looking to develop your own business, an employee looking to further contribute to your organization, or a leader in your industry interested in learning how to promote change, we have you covered.
Check out our innovation and design thinking resource blog for tips and techniques to grow your innovations today. Reach out if you need an innovation keynote speaker or innovation workshop.