How to Create Amazing Products

The thing is, most successful companies are exactly that: Cultures of Collaborative Innovation.

But when we look at successful companies, we tend to look at their products to figure out their secret sauce: McDonald’s Big Mac. Apple’s iPhone. 3M’s Post-It Notes. BMW’s 8-Series.

But products are exactly that: *Products* of something else.

And what is that something else? Collaboration. Teamwork. Culture. THAT is much harder to get a handle on, MUCH harder to recreate.

Yet, as a C-Suite person (or somebody who aspires to the C-Suite), THAT is your job.

Look after the culture, and the products will look after themselves.

Across the United States and in much of the world, there’s great distrust of corporate leaders—a distrust that’s growing along with CEO pay and levels of inequality. As Scientific American has reported, “economic inequality negatively impacts nearly every aspect of human well-being.” Many workers are finding that the system is rigged against them.

The result of the meeting of the Business Roundtable was an official end to the organization’s stance, in place since 1997, that “corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders.”

Instead, these CEOs, representing many household name businesses, issued a “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” In it, they vowed a “commitment to all of our stakeholders,” which includes “investing in our employees,” through fair pay, important benefits, and training, as well as “dignity and respect.”
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