Idea Agent

by Lina M. Echeverria

There is perhaps no leadership challenge more daunting than managing creativity—and more urgent than delivering breakthrough innovation. How do you harness some of the most passionate, intelligent people in your organization without stifling them? How do you simultaneously unleash their energy and channel it into something tangible?

Lina Echeverría offers seven proven principles through which new ideas come to fruition, from unleashing passion and drive, and embracing productive conflict, to emphasizing excellence and structure while living values that liberate creativity. As team catalyst, the leader delivers results while nurturing intuition and growing talent.

These principles apply well beyond traditional creative domains, propelling innovation across entire organizations. Drawing on the author’s considerable experience assembling and nurturing cutting-edge teams at Corning Inc., Idea Agent shows readers how to juxtapose creative freedom with management rigor and lead dedicated professionals as they generate and execute one great innovation after another.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

About the author

LINA M. ECHEVERRÍA is an innovation leadership consultant with 25 years experience in science and technology. From scientist to vice president, she helped drive new products at Corning Inc. that now underpin our technology-based economy, from faster optical fiber that powers the Internet to flat-panel glass used in everything from smart phones to LCD TVs.

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall was a good book made me thing about the issue of creating a good work environment for the people that work with me. The situations were relevant to what I do, being a glass researcher vs pharmaceutical research is not a huge difference in environment or the types of people. All the talk about being true to yourself authentic and having integrity, was good and motivational. One thing I did learn was functional management vs project management, and how you need both. Functional being responsible for setting up the environment for people to work and project management being the nuts and bolts of meeting deadlines. I found the discussion of the idea of “true leadership is service” idea very good. Then she contrasted this with leadership as self-aggrandizement, building the leader’s ego at the expense of the other works, deep insecurity, etc. very interesting. She really described Trump’s behavior or management style to a “T”; apparently she has come across people like Trump before. The book had a lot of focus on delivery and accountability, something I need to work on. Also, the idea of a key aspect of management is getting to know people, was good in review. My criticism of the book is that it lacked specifics, some people may say this is a good thing about the book, but for me it was at a high level. They talk about mentoring people having trouble with their new managerial role, this is something I have to deal with, and the book just went on with all this high level blather about aligning goals and objectives, I don’t need to read a whole book to know this, so for me being more specific about how to do this would have been more useful. These are the nitty-gritty things I have to deal with and have trouble doing, so this would have been useful for me at least.

[Alexander K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good explanation of how to work creatively with difficult roles. Scientists were the main example presented.
The author has had a very interesting and challenging life, but got through it with great stride.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. Her anecdotes were filled with scientific jargon that made them difficult to follow.

[Johannes · Rating 3 out of 5]

didn't stick that much with me.

[Filipe Lemos · Rating 2 out of 5]

2018 March
2 stars

More a biography than a business book.
OK, but some editing would make it better.