How Stella Saved the Farm

A Tale About Making Innovation Happen

By: Vijay Govindarajan, Chris Trimble

Narrated by: Ari Fliakos

How Stella Saved the Farm is a simple parable about making innovation happen. Written by the authors of the New York Times bestselling Reverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere, Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble.

This story resonates in organizations of all types—public sector, private sector, and social sector, from mammoth corporations to small organizations employing just a few dozen people.

The parable is about a farm in trouble. Bankruptcy, or the grim prospect of being acquired by a hostile competitor, threaten. The farm succeeds only if the team pulls together and innovates.

The main characters in the story—Stella, Deirdre, Bull, Mav, Einstein, Rambo, Maisie, and Andrea—are all like people you know, maybe even yourself. The tale includes an unexpected leadership challenge, an ambitious call to action, a bold idea, countless internal obstacles and conflicts, fears, joys, triumphs, and even a love interest.

It's a story that can be enjoyed by anyone. In How Stella Saved the Farm delivers eight simple lessons to guide innovation initiatives to success. It prepares business leaders to avoid some of innovation's most toxic myths, teaches how to build the right kind of team, and shows how to learn quickly from experience.

Critic reviews

“At first glance, I was skeptical. By the end, I was blown away. In a quick, fun read I found brilliant simplicity, capturing best practices for enabling and managing innovation. I continue to recommend Stella to executives seeking to turn new ideas into material business outcomes.” —Roy Rosin, former Vice President of Innovation, Intuit

“How Stella Saved the Farm was delightful to read. And, it sliced right through the complexities of innovation.” —Kathy O'Hara, Leadership and Organization Development Manager, AT&T Consumer IT

“Simple. Powerful. Memorable. This story resonates with our own experiences.” —Jonathan Hornby, Director, Worldwide Marketing, SAS Institute and author of Radical Action for Radical Times

“Lively characters and practical lessons.” —Abdul Halim bin Abdul Manaf, Product and Quality Program Manager, Freescale Semiconductor

“A wonderful story with terrific insights into innovation.” —Kristi Marsella, Vice President, Talent Management, E&J Gallo Winery

“Fantastic, practical, and business-minded read. Relevant for the business challenges of innovation, organizational renewal, and growth.” —Sipho Gumbi, Senior Organizational Development Consultant, MTN Group Management Services

Hilarious! and insightful too.

Any additional comments?

I have lived the innovator's life for the past ~20 years and have personally experienced every episode in this book. Coincidentally, I'm also an Alpaca farmer! So this book is shockingly on target for me. Anyone who has attempted to change a well established organization from the "inside" will relate to this book. Anyone who wants to change an organization from the inside should read this book!

Making it as a fable was fascinating

It resembles a lot the relationships in the work place and the struggles and conflicts of a manager, especially when trying to innovate

The Parable of Innovation!

A simple, yet effective, story of how to execute innovation in a existing business or enterprise. I loved the "Animal Farm" throwback. It was a nice touch. Illustrated and explained the concepts well, but for a more thorough, in-depth explanation go to "Beyond the Big Idea."
AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Laudable effort, story was a bit lame though

This is a laudable effort to use a story to convey messages about business. There were some good business insights in there about business.

The problem I found though was that there were too few insights compared to the length of the book, and the story was so cliche - that the business authorship showed.

Excellent book and narration

This is a great book and the narration was excellent. I highly recommend for anyone on an innovation team.