HBR: Innovating a Turnaround at Lego

This the first of several postings this week regarding the September 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review, which I highly recommend you purchase for your executives.

Innovating a Turnaround at Lego
By David Roberts on and Per Hjuler

Near bankruptcy, Lego decided to re-invent innovation—a bit like preparing to prepare. In essence, they distributed innovation across the company and directed the distribution by a cross-functional leadership team: The Executive Innovation Governance Group. This Group distributed resources to the following 4 types of groups:

--Functional Groups: to create core and enabling business processes.
-- Concept Lab: to create new products.
--Product and Marketing Development: to develop the next generation of existing products.
--Community, Education and Direct: to support customer communities.

Result: Lego’s revenues are up 19% and profit is up by 30%.