In his latest book, Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder, written with Sangeeta Bharadwaj Badal, Jim Clifton observes, “Innovation is essential, and we need it. But the real magic starts with entrepreneurs – with people who are born with the rare gift to build successful businesses. Years ago, Thomas Edison observed, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” Clifton obviously agrees. “An innovation has no value until an ambitious entrepreneur builds a business model around it and turns it into a product or service that customers will buy. If you can’t turn an innovative idea into something that creates a customer, it’s worthless.”

I agree that such an initiative is “worthless” in terms of its commercial value. However, many so-called “failures” in experimentation or prototyping can be of substantial value in terms of what can be learned from them.

Creating more and better jobs will depend on wide and deep support (in both the public and private sectors) of entrepreneurism.

It will also depend on new or better products and services that a sufficient number of customers want. If is naive to think that if you build something, “they” will come. More often than not, they don’t.

All of Part 3 in Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder is devoted to a rigorous and thorough examination of what he views as the “Ten Talents of Successful Entrepreneurs.” Included as a substantial value-added bonus, a packet is inserted at the end of this volume. It contains a unique access code to the “Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder Assessment,” all by itself worth at least ten times the cost of the book.

* * *

Since 1988, Jim Clifton has served as CEO of Gallup, a global leader in consulting, public opinion research, and analytics. Under his leadership, Gallup has expanded from a predominantly U.S.-based company to a worldwide organization with 30 offices in 20 countries and regions. He is the creator of The Gallup Path, a metric-based economic model that establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement, and business outcomes. This model is used in performance management systems in more than 500 companies worldwide. His most recent innovation, the Gallup World Poll, is designed to give the world’s 7 billion citizens a voice in virtually all key global issues.

Clifton is the author of The Coming Jobs War and co-author of Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder, as well as many articles on global leadership. His blog appears regularly in the Influencer section of LinkedIn and on Gallup.com’s Chairman’s Blog. He serves on several boards and is Chairman of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. He has received honorary degrees from Jackson State, Medgar Evers, and Bellevue Universities.