Productive Tensions

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Leaders can transform the toughest trade-offs in innovation—efficiency vs. flexibility, consistency vs. change, product vs. purpose—into productive tensions. In today’s fast-paced business landscape, over 90% of high-potential ventures fail to meet their targets, and while 80% of executives deem innovation vital for growth, only 6% are satisfied with their performance. The question arises: should leaders emulate Steve Jobs, allocate abundant resources, or embrace uncertainty? According to Christopher Bingham and Rory McDonald, the answer lies elsewhere. Through extensive research and interviews with leaders worldwide, they reveal that effective leaders thrive by embracing competing tensions. They identify eight critical tensions every innovator must master, providing detailed examples of successes and failures to illustrate how to navigate them. Key questions include how to engage customers with unprecedented products, when to trust data versus when to forge ahead against it, and how to maintain stakeholder trust during unexpected changes. Bingham and McDonald draw on experiences from diverse organizations, including P&G, Instagram, the US military, Honda, In-N-Out Burger, Slack, Under Armour, and Burton, to guide readers through the complexities of innovation.