Hal Gregersen

Hal Gregersen is an accomplished author, educator and executive with a proven track record of success. He serves as the Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is the founder of the Innovator’s DNA, an education and consultancy firm focused on developing innovative leadership capability. He has over 35 years of experience in global leadership and innovation and has authored or co-authored 12 books, including “The Innovator’s DNA”, “The Innovator’s Way”, “The Innovator’s Toolkit”, and “Extreme Innovation”.

Hal Gregersen’s first book, “The Innovator’s DNA”, was published in 2009. It is a comprehensive guide to understanding your own innovative nature and how to cultivate it into effective leadership. The book outlines five core skills or behaviors – asking questions, observing, networking, experimenting, and associating – that can be used to become an effective innovator. Hal outlines these skills and how to perfect them through storytelling, data-backed guidance, and real-world examples. Through this book, Hal has changed the way innovators look at the world, helping them generate and implement better ideas for business.

Hal’s second book, “The Innovator’s Way” was published in 2011, and is considered a must-read for anyone looking to become an innovative leader. The book outlines a comprehensive and effective step-by-step process for moving from inspiration and brainstorming to implementation and execution. It dives into the concepts of creative problem solving, rapid experimentation, and rapid prototyping to help innovators succeed. This book offers extensive advice on cultivating mindsets and habits of creative problem solving and innovation, allowing people to take a more direct, structured approach to developing the skills that all successful innovators need.

Hal collaborated with Phanish Puranam and Jeffrey Dyer on his third book, “The Innovator’s Toolkit”, which was published in 2014. This book goes in-depth into the tools and techniques that innovative leaders can use to drive their endeavors forward. It introduces the Innovation Framework, which is a process-oriented approach to innovation and includes steps such as Problem Finders, Feasibility, Opportunity Search, and Team Formation among others. He provides detailed guidance on the creative, technical and organizational tools needed to implement innovation and describes how to wrap it all together into a holistic.

In 2017, Hal published his fourth book, “Extreme Innovation: The 10X Rule and the Power of Breakthrough Thinking”. This book looks at how to move outside of the traditional processes to develop truly extraordinary outcomes. It looks at experiments, mini-experiments and customer feedback, as well as how to set yourself up for breakthrough thinking from the very beginning. Hal helps readers break free from siloed thinking and encourages readers to create solutions that don’t yet exist.

Hal Gregersen's work is an incredibly valuable resource for any leader looking to drive innovation and drive their business forward. The five books he has published to date cover every aspect of leading innovation and each book provides readers with the essential tools and guidance associated with successful thinking and developing breakthrough solutions. From asking questions, to observing, to building networks and more, Hal’s work provides the tools and mindsets needed to become an effective leader by cultivating and developing innovative skills.