In The Power of Little Ideas, written with Kent Lineback, David Robertson introduces a low-risk, high-reward approach to innovation he characterizes as the “Third Way.” In essence, this approach is “neither incremental improvement in current products nor revolutionary [radical] disruption of those products…[an approach that is] not bound by the binary thinking that says innovators have only two choices: innovate small or innovate big. There is another option.”

According to Robertson, these are the three distinguishing features of the Third Way:

“First and foremost, the Third Way consists of multiple, diverse innovations around a central core product or core service that makes it much more appealing.”

“Second, what makes this approach work is that all the complementary innovations operate together as a system or family [channeling Sims, a combination of “little bets”] to satisfy a compellking promise to the customer.”

“Third, and perhaps the least obvious in the stories [about companies such as CarMax, Disney, GoPro, USAA, and Victoria’s Secret], the family of complementary innovations must be closely and centrally managed.”

Robertson thoroughly explains all this in the book.

In another book I also highly recommend, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, Peter Sims explains an experimental approach to innovation that involves a lot of little bets and certain creative methods to identify possibilities and build up to great outcomes eventually, after frequent failures. (Actually, experimental innovation has no failures; rather, there are initiatives that have not as yet succeeded, each of which is a precious learning opportunity.) “At the core of this experimental approach, little bets are concrete actions taken to discover, test, and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable. They begin as creative possibilities that get iterated and refined over time, and they are particularly valuable when trying to navigate amid uncertainty, create something new, or attend to open-ended problems.”

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David Robertson is a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School where he teaches Innovation and Product Development in Wharton’s undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs. To learn more about him and his work, please click here.

The Power of Little Ideas was published by Harvard Business Review Press (May 2017).