Is There a Tweaker Driving Innovation On Your Team? - MIT Sloan Management

Innovators aren’t just the geniuses who come up with completely original ideas. More often than not, they’re the people who tweak the ideas already around them, making new things that are more useable or beautiful. In a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research last spring, economists Ralf Meisenzahl, of the Federal Reserve, and Joel Mokyr, of Northwestern University highlighted the historic value of “tweakers.” They argued that the Industrial Revolution took hold in Britain because of “the supply of highly skilled, mechanically able craftsmen who were able to adapt, implement, improve, and tweak new technologies and who provided the micro inventions necessary to make macro inventions highly productive and remunerative.”

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The Cultural Importance of the Leader Around Innovation - Robert Verganti - Author of Design-Driven Innovation

"When it comes to radical innovation of meanings, a product's culture reflects the culture [values, norms, beliefs, and aspirations] of the executive who has launched it." Is it that important? photo of Roberto VergantiRoberto Verganti: Not necessarily, but if I wish to be a good CEO, a good executive, the product design will be affected by the way I see the world. Coming back to the example of Steve Jobs and Apple, you can see that Apple's products reflect the way Jobs sees the world. It's the way he sees life. This is a good thing. One thing that I like a lot about Steve Jobs is that when he can – and the only restrictions has related to his health – he presents Apple's new products himself. He jumps onto the stage and introduces the products. He likes to say his nametag is on the product.

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