Many companies practice more than one style at a time. But doing so effectively requires sensitivity to the different tasks that different styles involve. Most commonly, different units within an organization pursue different styles.

For example, Lucent Technologies' optical networking business has practiced the Cauldron style, its traditional telephone switching business has followed the Spiral Staircase style, and parts of Bell Labs the Explorer style. The challenge for senior managers - one that Lucent's leaders have not always been up to - is to find one or two styles that are right for the senior management team and at the same time help each unit to follow the logic of its style.

Despite the difficulties, a real revolution in management begins when managers effectively mobilize many different parts of the organization to execute an appropriate style or styles of innovation. Under each of the five styles, innovation becomes more than the exclusive preserve of strategic planning departments and top management. A few managers successfully choose styles of innovation that are right for their companies (or for their piece of it), learn the rules of their chosen styles, and find the right people to execute them. These managers are laying the essential groundwork for repeated breakthroughs.

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