Book Review: The Game-Changer – How Every Leader Can Drive Everyday Innovation

Picking up a book about industry you wonder how relevant it will be to the NHS. Written by Proctor and Gamble chief executive AG Lafley with a bestselling author, this book charts the way the company has attempted to integrate innovation into everyday business.

The central theme is that you have to “change the game” to survive - a principle that is highly relevant to the economic reality facing the NHS today.

First there is the aspiration that every employee has a role to play in innovation, some in incremental ways that improve existing products, others in “disruptive innovation” that invents something so new it renders a previous product obsolete.

There is a recognition that as new products, systems and processes are introduced, others have to stop. One great table features ideas that have failed and why, showing innovation is necessary but risky.

I enjoyed the emphasis on a deep understanding of “the customer” - not through surveys or focus groups but by “seeing through the customer’s eyes” what it is like to consume Proctor and Gamble’s products. Staff might go to live in the houses of people who use their products - observing being as important as listening to consumers. The customer is part of the innovation process.

But can this over-riding emphasis on innovation deliver? The company invests in and rewards a culture of innovation and has tripled its profits in the past seven years. Much food for thought for the NHS indeed.

Julie Wells is an independent consultant, juliewells@transforminghealth.co.uk