article thumbnail

Patience in Japan

Harvard Business Review

Consider the reports of my HBS colleague Hiro Takeuchi, a Japanese national who was working in Tokyo last week when tremors hit the city. There was no pushing and shoving, Takeuchi reported, no honking of car horns, even in long waits for a tank of gas. Kresge Professor of Marketing at the Harvard Business School.

article thumbnail

The Secret History of Agile Innovation

Harvard Business Review

In 1986, one of us (Takeuchi) and coauthor Ikujiro Nonaka published an article in Harvard Business Review called “The New New Product Development Game.” Iterative and incremental development methods were also a major contributor to the successful creation of the X-15 hypersonic jet in the 1950s.