Interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore: seeking solutions to intractable problems

Purpose – This is an interview with innovation guru Geoffrey Moore, the author of five books that have gained an enthusiastic following among corporate managers pursuing market development. It offers a wide range of insights on innovation management. Design/methodology/approach – Two Strategy & Leadership contributing editors, one a CEO of several startups and the other a senior academic who often writes about innovation, asked Moore about his experiences advising high tech companies. Findings – Moore believes the best way of thinking about innovation is to put your company in service to an attractive target market to work on a solution to a seemingly intractable problem. Practical implications – Moore believes the biggest innovation mistake large firms make is to have amodel for “childhood” (the incipient innovation) and “adulthood” (the mature innovation) but no model or patience for adolescence (the struggling innovation). Most innovations are killed during their adolescent stage. Originality/value – Moore believes that Job #1 for a CEO is to declare what is core (that will contribute to long‐term competitiveness). The stronger that declaration, the easier it is to manage the execution effort downstream. CEOs are naturally reluctant to pursue this course because they want to maintain a portfolio of options. But large organizations become impossible to steer when there is insufficient commitment to taking a specific course.