Business Articles

 What Is Management’s Role in Innovation?

One highly successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur will ask whether management is a net positive or negative in fostering creativity and invention. He will cite a growing body of evidence that suggests that bottom-up "discovery" has a superior record in comparison with "top down 'deliberate' strategies from headquarters." He asks whether companies should call a halt to managing the innovation process, "intentionally abandoning control of their scarcest resources."

The fourth will ask what needs to be done to foster a culture of creativity in an organization. Specifically, how do managers avoid, the temptation to apply simplistic process management tools to the discovery process

One feature of these questions, posed independently by four thoughtful senior practitioners, is their remarkable consistency. All ask whether management, as it is currently practiced, has much to contribute to innovation and creativity. If the answer is little, one might ask what kinds of changes will be necessary to allow managers, particularly in larger organizations, to add value to the creative process? Or is it more productive to explore ways of providing incentives to the innovators of the world, largely outside large organizations, possibly by facilitating the market that mediates resources between investors and innovators? What do you think?

Innovators can be successful if they understand the need and use their creativity to give a solution better than 'just a requirement. Management must know the 'actual need' and create a near-flawless chain between customers-market-companies. Generalisation is a thing of the past for sure.

Executive management's role is to ensure that it institutionalizes the expectation that managers will lead the continuous improvement of their teams AND that time is allotted for them to lead improvement initiatives. Innovation should be an expectation of all workers and an accountability of all managers.

of integrating the innovation back into the line organization, and this integration is often met with resistance. Further, it robs the mission-delivering part of the organization from the "psychological kick" of the opportunity to be creative, leading to disengagement.

We have got to reduce accountability conflicts of interest. As long as employees are held accountable for their output, why would they take a risk on innovation which could lead to reduced output? If instead, they were held accountable for using appropriate judgment and discretion, they could be rewarded for taking on chance on something, even if it "failed". Nearly all current performance management models are stacked against innovation. It's safer to continue the status quo.

In Summary, there is a reasonable body of evidence to suggest that innovation works best when it is an organization-wide phenomenon and not confined to the R&D function alone. Equally, there is evidence to suggest that a bottom-up approach works better than a top-down deliberate push. As an example, one can consider the case of one of the most diversified companies in the world introducing a host of small appliances as a response to the nuclearization of families, only to find to its dismay that what was in fact in demand was large appliances. With double income families, and little or no time for household work, the demand for larger appliances increased. The result was a disaster, thanks largely to the "ivory tower planning" that was pushed down from the top echelons down the hierarchy. In contrast, the success of Intel's microprocessors (indeed the firm's foray from memory chips to microprocessors itself) can be attributed to the strategy being driven by people who were closest to the customer - the sales force people.

Scaling depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is the complexity of the technology involved and the size of the final outcome. It is inconceivable that a stealth aircraft could be designed in a garage. Moreover, for business, it is critical to understand whether an idea, taken to its logical conclusion, would have a probability of success. In other words, business needs applied research, not pure research. One wonders whether this is possible for individuals except perhaps in the knowledge domain.

The power of the Internet for collaborative work is truly immense. The moot question, however, is whether organizations are ready for such open collaboration. Even with all the safeguards, patent protection and so on, it is well-known that anything will be imitated in a year if not earlier. With product life-cycles already shrinking, one wonders what the effects of on-line collaboration could be - between a concept being tested for viability and commercialized, a new concept might have emanated thus rendering the first idea redundant.

A culture of innovation and creativity requires organizations to break down functional barriers. innovation is everyone's business. It is equally important for organizations to minimize the impact of hierarchies so that a seamless flow of ideas is possible. Honest mistakes must be tolerated - not penalized. Finally, we would do well to look at innovation and creativity beyond a product or service perspective - considerable innovation is possible in the way we manage businesses, in the way we think, and the way we look at others.

Secrets to a Successful Social Media Strategy

Why are people so drawn to social media?

Mikolaj Misiek Piskorski and eventually led to his new book. Drawing from years of research dating back to before Facebook, the book offers an in-depth analysis exploring why some social media platforms soar while others fizzle, and how business can use them to generate profit.

I have always been fascinated that humans interact online when we can interact offline as we have for thousands of years," says Piskorski, an associate professor in the Strategy unit at Harvard Business School. "We used to have friends without Facebook, or Twitter, and we used to find spouses without dating sites, and nobody ever complained. This begs a very basic question—what kinds of interaction does the online world give us that we cannot undertake offline?

In A Social Strategy, he contends that the real world comes with certain social norms of conduct that keep people from saying what they really want to say, or acting how they really want to act. Successful social media platforms let us bend those rules. In short, unacceptable behavior in the offline world might be perfectly acceptable in the online world.

For example, corporate norms and fear that the boss might find out prevent many employees from openly advertising themselves on the job market. Enter LinkedIn, the eleventh-most-visited site in the world, according to Alexa Internet. The business-oriented social network has more than 300 million members, all of whom list their educational and professional achievements on the site in the name of professional networking. Of course, these virtual CVs are also mined by recruiters to hunt for hot job candidates.

LinkedIn alleviates the offline normative restriction by giving us plausible deniability, Piskorski says. Even though the boss might be concerned that you will get a job through the site, the boss also knows that LinkedIn makes you a more effective employee. "So he or she lets you stay on the site, and no norm is violated."

And then there's Facebook, the second-most-visited site in the world. "Facebook helps us overcome the norm against being nosy, Piskorski says. It does so by letting us look at profiles of others, without actually letting these people know that their content was viewed."

With a better understanding of why we love social media platforms so much, Piskorski wanted to learn how companies that sell products and services could use them to generate profit. He found that companies adopt two different approaches.

The first approach, which he terms "digital strategy on social platforms," uses social media to broadcast commercial messages and seek customer feedback. The second approach, social strategy on social platforms, steers clear of direct broadcasting in favor of helping customers create and strengthen relationships with each other. These relationships are in exchange for the customers doing various tasks for the company for free.

The distinction between digital and social strategies is a fundamental point in Piskorski's book. "Digital strategy is no different from what companies have done on other media," he says. "They simply took this approach and put it on social media platforms. The problem is that this approach does not work well. Most firms can't generate the requisite engagement, and those that do often fail to convert it into sales. This is because people use social platforms to interact with their friends, and firms are seen as intruders who interrupt the experience."

In contrast, A Social Strategy says don't just broadcast to people, arrange interactions between them, too. And once the company facilitates these interactions, it can go back to those who it helped and say, "Now we want you to do something for us." This quid pro quo is at the core of an effective social strategy.

For Piskorski, the reason is simple. Think what happens in the offline world when you introduce two people to each other, or you mend a relationship between two of your friends, he says. "You get social credits with them, such that when you go and ask them for a favor later, they will do what you ask them to. And they will do it fast."

American Express's OPEN Forum, a website where entrepreneurs share ideas, is an example of a successful social strategy, he says. "Say I own a flower shop in Paducah, Kentucky, and there's only one other flower shop in my town. The owner of that other shop probably won't talk to me about the flower business, because we're competitors. But with OPEN Forum I can talk to someone in Grand Junction, Colorado, who isn't a competitor, and he might suggest I try this type of flower or that type of arrangement. Now I've received help for my business under the umbrella of American Express, and I'm more likely to recommend AmEx to my friends because I've made this great connection, and the cost of customer acquisition for AmEx drops. This is, in fact, what American Express has found to be the case."

Start-ups can also employ social strategy. Yelp, which posts consumer-written reviews of local businesses, rewards its most prolific contributors with the ability to meet other prolific contributors at face-to-face gatherings—something that many of them treasure. In return, the contributors are motivated to generate even more content for Yelp for free.

 Leadership Lessons From Outer Space

Asked for leadership advice, Terry Virts thought for a moment, letting his microphone float weightless in front of him before responding.

"You have to adapt your leadership style to the situation you're in," he said.

Nobody knows that better than Virts, who has served as the chief of the F-16 HARM targeting system; chief of the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch; and, currently, the commander of the International Space Station (ISS), where he has lived since November 23, 2014.

“If you have a team like this, you let them produce the idea and get out of their way”

Virts is also a 2011 graduate of the General Management Program, an intensive seven-week Executive Education curriculum at Harvard Business School. On April 22, beaming in from space via satellite feed, he spent half an hour addressing a packed audience of professors, students, and one distinguished surprise guest in Spangler Auditorium at HBS.

Hands-off is Virts' usual management style in the space station, he said, considering the pedigrees of the current crew. His colleagues and bunkmates include former ISS commander Scott Kelly; Anton Shkaplerov, former director of operations for the Russian Space Agency; and Samantha Cristoforetti, a captain in the Italian Air Force and the first Italian woman in space. Suffice it to say, it's an experienced group of self-starters.

If you have a team like this, you let them produce the ideas…and get out of their way," he said, in response to a request for 'advice from space' from Professor Linda Hill. If you're a Marine lieutenant in command of a bunch of 18-year-olds just out of high school, it's a different approach, he added.

 Professor Sunil :

Professor Sunil Gupta, who chairs the General Management Program, led the question-and-answer session. Gupta asked whether anything had surprised Virts during his space station stint. Virts recalled the view from the Cupola, the seven-window observatory module on the ISS.

An astronaut's career hardly fits the corporate mold. Acknowledging that, Gupta posed a question that seemed to be on a lot of minds, based on the collective audience smiles and nods that followed. "What were you doing in GMP? Gupta asked.

Gupta also asked Virts for his thoughts on the future of space tourism, which has made headlines of late. For example, the company Space Adventures. plans to send opera singer Sarah Brightman to the ISS later this year. So far, space tourists have paid tens of millions of dollars each for such trips Brightman is reportedly spending a record $52 million but several companies have announced that cheaper trips are in the offing.

Virts responded like a diplomatic business school student. If there's a market and these companies are meeting market demand, it's a good thing.

Some of the audience questions were less related to leadership than to the fact that most people's experience with outer space is limited to watching Hollywood movies on the subject. In the blockbuster hit drama Gravity, for instance, an American space shuttle is clobbered by space debris. Sharing an inquiry from a current GMP student, Gupta asked Virts whether space debris is an actual threat.

Debris is an issue, he said, noting that the ISS has been hit by tiny bits of exploded satellites, resulting in dents the size of bb-gun pellets. The good news is that if it's large, we can maneuver around it, and if it's small, it doesn't really matter. It's the in-between things, like the size of this microphone, which might be a problem. But the good news is that space is a big place and there aren't a lot of things the size of this microphone floating around there.

Virts then admitted what really wows him: trash bags that the Russians brought on board. Equipped with rubber bands, the bags un-fussily but effectively deal with garbage in a weightless environment. "It sounds silly, but trash in space is a big deal," he said. Sometimes the best technology is the simplest.

As the interview drew to a close, Gupta announced that there was a surprise guest in the auditorium. He handed a microphone to the guest, who, out of Virts' line of vision, began peppering him with guess-who questions: Was anyone mean in your house? she said. Did anyone in your family go to Harvard?