Insight is mission critical for leaders. So I write about leadership, people and results. I endeavor to challenge convention, take unique slants, and offer something of interest and value to you. Want to know more? Let's talk!
Fast Company runs down their 100 Most Creative People in Business 2013, and I studying all of them one by one. Nate Silver, who predicted the outcomes of the 2008 (49 out of 50 states) and 2012 (50 out of 50 states) US presidential elections, is #1 on the list. Bryan Cranston, he of the Breaking Bad fame, comes in at #8. But by far the most enthralling has been #43: Kelvin Doe.
Sixteen-year-old Kelvin Doe has an endless desire to tinker. When he was just 11, he started collecting discarded metal and electronic scraps, eventually gathering enough bits to put together mini generators. Last year, he cobbled together an amp, a mixer, and enough equipment to launch a one-young-man radio station. He broadcasts to the residents of the Dworzark Farm neighborhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s ramshackle capital, where he’s also known as DJ Focus. “I am curious,” Doe says simply of his wunderkind accomplishments. That curiosity well explains why his first trip out of his native Sierra Leone was to MIT, where he worked on engineering projects last summer. He’s spoken at TEDxTeen and wowed people in a short documentary about him and his inventions on YouTube. But Doe’s definition of success is unselfish: His current project focuses on building a windmill to provide power for some of his Freetown neighbors, and he hopes to become a scientist to help improve life throughout Sierra Leone. “I love my country,” he says. “I love my people.”
15-Year-Old Kelvin Doe is an engineering whiz living in Sierra Leone who scours the trash bins for spare parts, which he uses to build batteries, generators and transmitters. Completely self-taught, Kelvin has created his own radio station where he broadcasts news and plays music under the moniker, DJ Focus.
Kelvin became the youngest person in history to be invited to the "Visiting Practitioner's Program" at MIT. THNKR had exclusive access to Kelvin and his life-changing journey - experiencing the US for the first time, exploring incredible opportunities, contending with homesickness, and mapping out his future.
THNKR is proud to present the next chapter in the riveting story of 15-Year-Old engineering prodigy Kelvin Doe. THNKR has exclusive access to Kelvin as he returns to the United States to deliver a riveting talk at TedxTeen and grapples with the impact of newfound YouTube superstardom.
So what do we learn about innovation from this boy?
If you've reached this point in my article, without having read his story and watched his videos, then please go back and do so. None of these is lengthy.
I encourage you to simply experience what he has to say and what others have to say, then reflect on your experience. What thoughts, emotions and reactions come to you? Make note of them.
If the spirit so moves you, as the spirit has moved me, re-read and re-watch. Keep a mindful, reflective look at what you think, feel and do, and note it down wherever you usually note things.
Top leaders, business people, professionals and consultants alike seem to be under such pressure to innovate, that I sometimes wonder whether, or how well, they can actually innovate. In part, this is what Clayton Christensen speaks to as the innovator's dilemma: the wish to create is often at odds with the need to produce.
So, if only for the sake of this little exercise I am walking you through, simply experience first. Learn from what you experience.
How do we ever innovate when resources are limited?
I hear that often, and variations on a theme: We need more tools, we need more staff, we need more budget.
What if you had next to nothing at your disposal, instead? Speaking of disposal, what about the things we've disposed in the trash bin? We wealthy, resourceful Westerners don't do that, do we.
Ah, Kelvin Doe isn't a Westerner, and he hails from an impoverished family in Sierra Leone. He finds what he needs from trash heaps.
No doubt, he also finds things he isn't looking for necessarily, but discovers some other purpose or avenue for these things. He tinkers with whatever he has at his disposal. He tinkers with ideas that amble on inside his head. He uses his hands to make something like a music system from the trash he finds and tinkers with.
So, if you simply cannot get the resources you ask for, what do you choose to do: Stop trying to innovate, out of disappointment, frustration or even anger; or look around and tinker, look around some more and tinker?
What do we do with the things we find and tinker with?
We see that Kelvin Doe is no geeky kid who tinkers at all hours, all alone, simply for the sake of tinkering and for the sake of his own curiosity. No, he doesn't seem to a young man who's prone to isolate him or think solely of himself.
Instead, there's a wonderful spirit about him that's purely with the people and of the people in his community. We Westerners may take our social media and high technology for granted, when we think about reaching others. But I often wonder, How much of us is truly about engagement, relationship and community?
The catch phrase we toss around now and then is, It's not about ourselves, rather it's about others. I don't know whether Kelvin Doe even knows this phrase, but consider this: Thousands of miles away from home, in a country where technology is everywhere and beds are soft, he misses his family. He is after all a boy, and he is far from home.
Innovation is quintessentially a human endeavor. It is indeed naturally about people and for the people. We lose sight of the basic humanity behind it, and innovation is a meaningless proposition or, perhaps worse, a failed effort.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
Documentary which takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride through the wonderful world of statistics to explore the remarkable power they have to change our understanding of the world, presented by superstar boffin Professor Hans Rosling, whose eye-opening, mind-expanding and funny online lectures have made him an international internet legend.
Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be.
Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes.
The film also explores cutting-edge examples of statistics in action today. In San Francisco, a new app mashes up police department data with the city's street map to show what crime is being reported street by street, house by house, in near real-time. Every citizen can use it and the hidden patterns of their city are starkly revealed. Meanwhile, at Google HQ the machine translation project tries to translate between 57 languages, using lots of statistics and no linguists.
Despite its light and witty touch, the film nonetheless has a serious message - without statistics we are cast adrift on an ocean of confusion, but armed with stats we can take control of our lives, hold our rulers to account and see the world as it really is. What's more, [Rosling] concludes, we can now collect and analyse such huge quantities of data and at such speeds that scientific method itself seems to be changing.
This is a highly informative, entertaining film that shows the remarkable things statistics can do. Here are three takeaways - that is, points of emphasis vis-a-vis Big Data and Analytics - for you to consider:
Statistics helps us understand better what is going on in the world around us and what we need to do in that world.
The car we drive has quite a lot more engineering, chemistry and technology, for example, beneath the hood, than we can see or even wish to see. Our day to day world is like a car: We run it, we navigate through it, and we get things done in it. But what of the complexity underlying our world? What of those things we don't normally see? Some may argue that as long as things are working well and are enough to manage that world effectively, then there isn't a need to see more or know more. This is what good technology promises, isn't it: effectiveness, ease and convenience.
But citizens of San Francisco had cause to delve more into their world, as Hans Rosling points out. Data on crime, in particular, became community statistics when city officials made it public. It told citizens, and visitors for that matter, where crime was more likely to occur and where crime was less likely to occur. That's critical information. I will not hazard a guess about what citizens and visitors believed, but clearly statistics surfaced a more complete truth about their city.
In good measure, this is my Theory of Algorithms. Back in March 2010, something came over me and crystallized whatever it was that had been brewing in my mind for years: That was to get at the underlying essence of things, to grasp reality as it was and things as they are, and to discern the patterns below the surface that brought things together. Statistics is not the only means at my disposal, but as mathematical framework and instrument, statistics plays a crucial role in Theory of Algorithms.
Those community statistics helped San Francisco citizens and visitors navigate the city safely and, more importantly, call upon officials to do something about the crime. Community statistics helped everyone monitor the city and hold officials accountable for ensuring safety and security.
Numbers alone don't tell the whole story; we also have to analyze them.
Let me resort to a different analogy. We go to the theater to watch a play. There are actors and props, and they play out a drama that we can sit back and enjoy. Because he is so entertaining and enthusiastic, Rosling makes statistics like a stage production. Formally this is called descriptive statistics, that is, numbers acting out a drama and telling us a story.
Inferential statistics, on the other hand, is the mathematics - calculation, computation or analysis - we do to the numbers. Why do this? Because the numbers themselves have a reality, and therefore have relationships and patterns among them, which, when analyzed, give us an even sharper, more illuminating picture of our broader reality. Whether it's Pearson correlation, hierarchical regression, factor analysis or a simple t-test, it's inferential statistics.
To draw on our theatrical analogy, inferential statistics is getting a behind-the-scenes look at the play, for example, going backstage during a performance. It may also entail joining the repertory during several rehearsals. What is more, it is also about getting below the surface of things. So we may speak to the playwright, the director, and the producer, from the point of conceiving the play, through its staging, and even afterwards. We gain a granular understanding, then, of the why and the how of their play, which we don't normally see. Again, many of us may have no desire or need to get this deeply into things. But clearly some of us do want to and some of us do have a need for that.
By the way, IBM, for one, positions its analytic tools as creating predictive models. We all seem to love a prediction, as we long to see the future as clearly as we see the present. Sports media and fans especially love a prediction, before a game or before the season. Business leaders do have a stake in knowing what customers will buy, for example. So they turn to predictive models, based on data, which help them create the right products and services and position these effectively in the market.
In one respect, this is the endgame of science: To predict what phenomena will occur, based on certain occurrences. But scientists are very cautious about drawing conclusions on what results can and cannot predict. They are so cautious that all they may conclude, from a regression analysis, for example, is this: Factors A, B and C (i.e., independent variables) significantly account for this amount of variance in Factors X, Y and Z (i.e., dependent variables). This phrasing is definitely more cumbersome, and frankly nerdy, than just saying, wow, we can predict this and that.
Actually, the term inferential statistics is better than the term predictive modeling, because it accounts for that caution that we must all exercise when conducting analysis and interpreting results. Be that as it may, contemporary media and marketing have commandeered the sexier term around prediction, so we go with it. But at least we're better informed and cautioned now.
What correlation doesn't replace is good human thought.
A friend remarked, not too long ago, something along the lines of: Technology weakened our mind. We turn to Google Maps on the smart phone, a GPS device on the dashboard, and the MapQuest site to help us navigate our way from place to some new place. I've used all the above, and still do. But my friend's point is very well-taken. We mustn't dismiss our overall sense for place and direction. Obviously these tools help, but they have inevitable flaws in them. Because they're created by people, they simply cannot be perfect.
Let me give an example: This past Spring, the northern Chicago area suffered heavy storms, which resulted in flooding in our county. My daughter was babysitting for a family, who lived a distance away, and I was driving her there. The Maps app on her iPhone 5 didn't account for the fact that typical routes were blocked off, because of flooding from the river. What's more, traffic formed quickly on alternate routes to that family's house. I didn't know exactly where they lived, but I did have a general sense and therefore drove us in that direction. To be a bit more precise, the family lived east northeast of where we lived. But because of flooding and traffic, I had to drive us north, then south, then a little angled west, before we could even head east. In the end, we relied, too, on a very low-tech method: We called the family, and asked for directions.
In this film, Rosling points out that in Japan, fewer heart attacks were correlated with a low-fat, little-wine diet in Japan. Yet, fewer heart attacks were also correlated with a high-fact, much-wine diet in France. How do we make sense of these crazy-making statistics? (It reminded me of how confusing some signs were in the UAE, where I lived: For example, one sign at a crossroad pointed an arrow left and rightfor Dubai.)
The mantra that statisticians have repeated is: Correlation is not causation. In the above example, the relationship between heart disease and personal diet is very real, but it may be mediated by one or more other factors, such as physical activity, hereditary makeup, or even some other, yet undisclosed item in Japanese and French diets.
Our friends on social media, and writers in popular publications, may tout findings from this or that scientific study. I encourage us to take note and read them, but also to think about them and ask, What do these findings mean? Do they really make sense? What do other people say? What have other studies found?
Rosling's colleagues in the film are more blunt about this point: Scientists must challenge, scientists must refute, scientists must try to destroy correlational findings. That is, with alternative perspectives and explanations. If the correlation still stands, then most likely it truly elucidates a particular relationship in our reality.
I have often drawn on the multitrait-multimethod approach of inquiry and knowledge. Basically, it means that we're best likely to arrive at the most accurate, most complete picture of things, if we measure a few things at a time (because they're interconnected, after all) and if we measure them in various different ways (because each measure has margins of error).
So if you had stopped at Japanese diet or at French diet alone, then you would've ended up with a skewed grasp of what it took to reduce heart disease. But the fact that you took a multimethod tact, instead, and found yourself with a seeming contradiction, is a good thing. The contradiction prompted you to question more and investigate further, and overall helped you realize the greater complexity of heart disease.
In conclusion, statistics is an awesome platform and reference, but to understand our world we have to resort to more than statistics.
Rosling and his production team do a superb job of elucidating the value and the joy of statistics. We can understand our world better through numbers and analytics. But we cannot, and must not try to, dispense with our thinking. As limited or as flawed as it may be, our thinking is still invaluable and necessary.
On this note, I offer my Tripartite Model. Briefly for now, I suggest that science, art and religion altogether position us better for understanding not just the world around us, but also the people in that very world. Each of this houses such bodies of knowledge, history and culture that I would be remiss to simplify them. So just for the sake of brevity here, let me elaborate the attributes or characteristics that I mean: (a) science: analytic, quantitative and rational; (b) art: intuitive, qualitative and creative; and (c) spiritual, philosophical and meta-rational.
Whether we refer to it as statistics, or Big Data and Analytics, the scientific endeavor is a very powerful platform for understanding, and as Rosling so deftly demonstrates very entertaining, too. But it simply is not enough. It is irrevocably just part of a bigger whole.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
What are the top three things you would have started learning about earlier now that you are a CEO?
As a CEO, you need to find and attain talent to accomplish your vision. Your job as a CEO is to make sure you can communicate that vision well. Caroline Ghosn, Co-founder and CEO of Levo League argues, that communication is a big part of learning to become a CEO. Then, work on managing your own energy as a CEO.
I consulted for Royal Dutch Shell, and among the skills they nurtured in senior managers is Building Shared Vision. It is a given that they are smart, visionary and creative, but their challenge is how to get others to believe and see what they believe and see. This is an essence of what Ghosn emphasizes, but she adds a vital point: Small deviations in the direction that people are taking early on can veer into larger misalignment later on. I wouldn't advise that everyone be exactly on the same page, but to her point everyone does have to be reading the same playbook. So communication is crucial indeed.
When you were starting out, did you have moments of doubt and lack of confidence or did you always believe in your vision and that it would work out?
"I'm never caught up to where my vision is, ever." You're constantly in a state of growth and stretching as an entrepreneur. Don't forget to celebrate when you reach certain goals and embrace those critical moments. However, don't let them stop you.
We have our lapses in confidence and we have our moments of doubt. That's quite normal, as we're all only human. A truly fine point from Ghosn. In general, we must do what we need to do to weather these lapses and moments, understand and learn from them, and keep moving forward. Like life, business leadership is neither a straight line or a flat plane. It's a rolling wave that has its crests and troughs. Having the right people around is crucial, as is an ability to self-regulate thought, mood and behavior.
As someone who is also engaged in developing emerging female leaders, how do you respond to critiques that as a Millennial and first-time founder, "who are you" to be dishing out leadership advice?
Use being a millennial leader as an advantage. You as a Gen-Y [millennial] talent you are listening to what is going on around you and translating it into good.
Millennials - those born in 1980 and after - are a veritable force in business, culture, and society at large. They literally grew up in this fast-paced, highly-connected world, and they can school the rest of us in navigating it effectively. So whether we're of this generation, or another generation, it is a good idea for us to understand what makes them tick. As a matter of fact, in general, I work at listening to, and grasping, the Zeitgeist, as Ghosn calls, of all generations. I'm at the youngest edge among Baby Boomers, but when I took a short survey by Pew Research Center, I scored highly as a Millennial.
What were your personal takeaways from your time spent with Warren Buffett on Levo League's Office Hours both on and off camera?
Warren Buffett was recently on Levo League's Office Hours. Caroline's biggest takeaway from the conversation was to "Find your passion and really anchor on that." You'll be 82 years old and excited everyday you wake up.
Over the course of time, particularly as I've progressed this revelation I call Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm, I have to posit the centrality of mind. But our intellect, beliefs and vision must pay homage and respect to heart as well. If the heart is into something, that something will work out. If it is not, then it will not work out. Mind you, passion alone will not ensure success in anything, but I'm convinced that it's the foundation for gaining measures of success.
What's the most important thing to remember when finding a business mentor?
Find someone you can trust that will give you the most honest feedback that has experience to layer on to that. Caroline... shares that her best mentors are ones that speak to what is going on in your career rather than focusing on the stories of their past.
In keeping with Ghosn's point, don't seek mentoring from anyone who is fundamentally self-absorbed or tone-deaf, as I call it. A young entrepreneur needs the wisdom, stories and guidance of a seasoned business person, but these offerings much be couched in a way that works for the young entrepreneur. In other words, to be helpful, the mentor must tune into, grasp, and take into account, the aims and priorities as well as the issues and doubts of the person he or she is mentoring.
What the process like from initial pitch to launch for Levo League?
First of all, have a clear plan of what you want to do and what market need you will satisfy before you go out to get investors to rally around your idea.
It is very good to hear what Ghosn and her co-founder went through with Levo League: essentially, staying underwater for as long as you need to, and surfacing only when - to stay with this metaphor - you've built a working amphibious vehicle. However, this is just one route to entrepreneurship. So weigh how Levo League came about, extract lessons learned, then adapt accordingly to suit your purpose, style and circumstance. You may end up discovering your process and formulating your approach.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
The Annual Meeting of the New Champions is the foremost global business gathering in Asia. Also known as the “Summer Davos”, the Meeting creates a unique opportunity for exchange between leaders from top-ranked multinationals and chief executive officers of dynamic and fast-growing companies, including key decision-makers from government, media, academia and civil society.
It will bring together more than 1,500 participants from 90 countries to share strategies and solutions and discuss global issues and risks. The New Champion communities – including Global Growth Companies, Young Global Leaders, Young Scientists, Technology Pioneers, Social Entrepreneurs and the World Economic Forum’s youngest community, the Global Shapers – will once again engage with Forum Members and Partners during the seventh Annual Meeting of the New Champions, to be held from 11-13 September in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.
Producer, International Channel Shanghai, People's Republic of China
BA in Media and Communication/Asian Studies, University of Sydney. In the TV industry for almost six years. One of the youngest producers at Shanghai Media Group, currently heads the reality show The Amazing Race: China Rush and the sitcom In The Office at International Channel, Shanghai. Experimenting with new media, as Founder, Oh My English, an online English teaching platform. Curator, Global Shapers Community Shanghai Hub. Initiator of the hub project, Mission RONG, and its leader.
Diao makes a half-subtle, half-pointed distinction between private sector and public sector in innovation, which bears elaboration. Government may use its policy-making authority to direct the course of society and innovation. However, companies have greater resources to discern market needs, more choices about what to invest in, and wider options of technology to use. So, perhaps because she hails from China, she emphasizes that the private sector brings doses of freedom which is so crucial to innovation.
Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Twenty years as faculty member, Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Consultant and Adviser to numerous Fortune 500 US and European corporations. Former White House Fellow and Senior Staff, White House task force that created the Office of Management and Budget. Co-Author: Art of Japanese Management (1981); Surfing the Edge of Chaos (2000). Author: Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead (1990); numerous articles. Winner of the McKinsey Award for Best Article, Harvard Business Review.
What Pascale relates in the Innovator's Dilemma that Clayton Christensen. To me, the resolution isn't that complex or out of reach. Any company can segment a small portion of its staff, resources and cash to work on innovative projects. That portion has to be small enough to not impact performance significantly, that is, in the event of failure, but not too small that it cannot fulfill its charter. Perhaps the main challenge is changing the either-or mindset and dialing down expectations of big, quick success.
Vice-President, Exterior Design and Concept Cars, Renault-Nissan BV, France
1985, degree in Industrial Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Master's in Automotive Design, Royal College of Art, London. Formerly: with Lotus Cars, England, designed the iconic Lotus Carlton; 1990, joined Audi, Germany, and worked on the AVUS Concept Car and the A4; 1993, recruited by Mercedes-Benz, Japan, to work in its new design studio on the M-B F200 and the M-B Maybach concept cars; 2000, joined Saab, Sweden, as Chief Designer of Advanced Design; 2004, appointed Head of Advanced Design, General Motors Europe, overseeing all Saab, Opel and Vauxhall. 2010, became Vice-President, Exterior Design, Renault, France. Instrumental in the development of Renault's “Cycle of Life” design strategy. Recipient of awards.
Lo doesn't talk so much about learning creativity per se, as relate a process of creativity that works for him and his team. In what I call extracting the algorithms, he speaks about getting at the essence of something. But before bringing in knowledge and experience, and other elements to mix with it, I emphasize the need to get insight into that essence. It may make sense to consult with outside perspectives, but again until there is sufficient grasp on an issue, task or aim, these outside perspectives mustn't jump into ideas, solutions or actions prematurely.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, MCrowdsourcing (MC2), Canada
Degree in Political Science, Carleton University. Technology entrepreneur, public speaker and writer. CEO and Co-Founder, MCrowdsourcing (MC2). Collaborates with government agencies, NGOs and start-ups in the development of new crowdsourcing strategies for mass mobilization using micro tasks. Parliamentary witness, guest lecturer and keynote speaker at various events and conferences relating to digital democracy and engaging young women in politics. Has worked for government agencies and a former prime minister of Canada. Has contributed to: Harvard Business Review, CBC Radio-Canada, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and the Hill Times. Regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
What Mingarelli speaks to resonates very well with the incidents I've seen, the process I've gone through, and the bursts of insight I've had with my seminal Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm. There is no particular path or moment to that Eureka effect - breakthroughs in my thinking come whenever and wherever they may come - and there have been quite a lot of trials and tribulations as well as triumphs and joys. So while this Eureka effect cannot be scripted, one can get there via an unrelenting pursuit of dream or vision.
Trombonist and Professor, Columbia University, USA
Currently, Assoc. Prof. of Music and Founding Director, Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program, Columbia Univ. Leader, Latin jazz group SYOTOS, which has released: Paradise In Trouble, Jazzheads Records, nominated best Latin jazz record (2004); Fields of Moons (2010), voted the best jazz release of the week, All About Jazz. Co-Leader, jazz quartet FFEAR. Has recorded over 150 albums and performed with numerous jazz and Latin groups, including: Tito Puente, Anthony Braxton, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Ruben Blades, Justin Timberlake, Celia Cruz, Marc Anthony, Ray Barretto, and Eddie Palmieri. Author of: numerous articles on jazz, Latin jazz, and salsa; Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York (2008); a book on Latin jazz (forthcoming). Co-Editor, Bad Music (2004). Named one of the best trombonists in New York, The New York Times; Rising Star of the Trombone, Downbeat Critic's Poll (2008, 2009, 2010).
I really like the idea of jazz improvisation as a model for innovation in the boardroom and across industries. Washburne points out that every time jazz musicians play, something new comes about. Interestingly, they prefer not to call their improvisation as innovation or creativity, but rather as discovery time and time again. Columbia University believes so much in this model that every single undergraduate, across majors, must take jazz. Improvisation is adaptation, not so unlike adaptation for the sake of survival.
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
It is vital that leaders, especially those in multinational companies, school themselves on pressing global issues. It is a boon, then, for them and professionals alike, that the World Economic Forum uploaded several videos of their sessions in Davos earlier this year, as as this one - Leading Through Adversity. I would have preferred that the panelists be more regionally-diverse and that government figures or public officials be among them. Be that as it may, it's a very instructive, spirited conversation among these top leaders.
The following are some notes about what the panelists discussed, plus my commentary:
The guiding question was "Are leaders too risk-averse in efforts to bring the economy back on track?" John Chambers remarked off the bat, You get left behind, if you don’t take risks. The best returns often come when things are going bad. The speed of change makes it seems as if the global landscape were on steriods. Just go for it, he exhorted.
There is both certainty and uncertainty. So to denigrate, fear or idealize one or the other is foolhardy.
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the discussion revolved around innovation. This being his expertise, Clayton Christensen walked us through his model:
Empowering innovation. A lot of people have access it, for example, computer and phone. It creates jobs.
Sustaining innovation. It makes new products better, but it doesn’t quite create a lot of jobs.
Efficiency innovation. It makes the same products cheaper, and worse yet in certain respects it reduces jobs.
Christensen remarked that we don't need MBAs anymore. Such a degree, at least the way many schools teach business, makes leaders scared to death, when they face unknown business models. They look at marginal costs, and they look at existing models, so students and graduates aren't necessarily prompted or able to create new business models.
It's a provocative set of remarks, given that Christensen is a professor of a business school. No doubt, though, Harvard differentiates itself from those schools that he criticizes. In essence, nevertheless, what he relates is the innovator's dilemma.
Mike Duke preferred Christensen's old term - disruptive innovation - rather than empowering innovation. That said, Walmart has been about sustaining and efficiency innovation. He cautioned against falling into the trap of short-term evaluation. Walmart gathers corporate officials to relate mistakes they made and lessons they learned from these.
I cannot emphasize enough having such regular gathering and conversations. But Western management seems to focus more on mistakes as sources of lessons learned. I say, any experience and any outcome is a source of learning. So I hope that Duke facilitates a wider, more balanced review of what these officials did well and what they didn't do very well.
People feel more uncertainty, Orit Gadiesh pointed out. She distinguished between risk averse and unfamiliar risk. Old business is no longer good. Innovation is tough, even in the best of times. The Samsung Chairman said: Change everything, except your wife and children. Reform education from kindergarten to the top, in large measure because it doesn’t quite provide the guidance, mindset and skills for jobs that are needed going forward.
Gadiesh offers a no-nonsense take on what has to happen and the difficulty of actually making this happen. Moreover, she echoes what I've heard, namely, that the US educational system and philosophy are founded on decades-old, and thus outdated, models. So there are pernicious, if not emerging, gaps in the talent that companies require.
India and China need to do things differently, Anand Mahindra schooled his fellow panelists. More for less has been the primary motto. Regulated, autocratic governments are full of certainty. Indians clamored for the uncertain! Regulatory constraints have fenced-in leaders. But Mahindra encouraged leaders to look at this as a playpen and as a platform for freeing themselves. To solve poverty in India and Africa, you need the most cutting-edge innovation. But not so much iPhones per se, but solutions that people need and that work for them. Today he looks for filmmakers, designers et al. (rf. Google).
I am glad that Mahindra is on the panel, as he represents the only non-Western company. So as I suggested earlier, we need to account for both certainty and uncertainty, and to acknowledge how different cultures may look at the tension and balance between them.
When taking risks, you have a reasonable expectation of return. Martin Senn added, You need to rebuild confidence among people.
While it is virtually impractical to expect perfect line of sight to outcomes, assessment of risks ought to discern at least an acceptable or strategic benefit from jumping into them. It's an insightful thing for Senn to point out.
Pessimism has set in, so Jim Frederick asked, Is innovation slowing down? We want flying cars, but got 140 characters, instead. We haven’t mined government-business connection.
It may have been out of Frederick's hands, as far as panelist selection and the concentration of corporate figures are concerned. But when he pointed out the need to better tap into the government and business connections, I thought, Yes, indeed!
Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!
40: try not to push it. have patience and give it time to work out. this advice applies to almost any situation. http://t.co/zh1Pdhd71o
— RonVillejoConsulting (@RonVillejoPhD) September 28, 2013
1059: if it's not working out, make it work out, bro. don't be afraid to take control of the situation. #brotipshttp://t.co/M7bgHbDlXI
— RonVillejoConsulting (@RonVillejoPhD) September 28, 2013
people with talent will be good. people who work hard will be good. people with talent who work hard will be great. http://t.co/Yp44suhzM5
— RonVillejoConsulting (@RonVillejoPhD) September 28, 2013
This short interview with Eric Ries - author of The Lean Startup - is chock full of ideas, views and advice. It's mainly for entrepreneurs, but listen actively to what Ries relates and you hear him speak to how leaders and staffers in companies can do their work better.
The Lean Startup works off the premise that many entrepreneurs are not creating the right products. That is, they create products that customers aren't buying. Ries helps them get on track with their business. He contrasts his efforts with those of lean manufacturing, which is to make products on time and on budget.
It reminds me of a story that speaks to this point. A fire station gets a call, and the chief has his crew on it immediately. The crew is well-trained and well-prepared, and firefighters are on the truck rushing to the scene in no time. The chief understands the flow of traffic in the city, and directs the crew onto the best possible, quickest route to the scene. Once there, the crew sets up their equipment, locates the fire hydrant, and up the ladder before anyone can blink.
Except that the chief didn't bother to double-check the address. He had mistakenly transposed two digits, so the crew followed procedures perfectly and arrived super time efficiently at the wrong scene.
The more precisely the position [e.g., an electron] is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.
Reference: The Uncertainty Principle, or the principle of indeterminacy, by physicist Werner Heisenberg.
Entrepreneurship is management is the first principle of The Lean Startup. But it's not management in a stable context, rather amid uncertain conditions.
In coaching and advising leaders, I could readily distinguish between those who possessed wisdom and calm when faced with uncertainty and those who were clearly out of sorts if directions or information was ambiguous. With the first, we could move right away to sharpening their efforts to make decisions and craft solutions. With the second, we needed to begin with instilling calm first and appreciating the fact that many situations do not offer optimal clarity.
In The Lean Startup, what you learn is as much a unit of progress as what you create. Ries emphasizes that in the midst of uncertainty, entrepreneurs must learn how to sustain a business effectively. They may not know, at first, what customers want, where the market is, and what products to create. But I think what Ries teaches them is how to find the information they need, amid foggy weather, and to conduct tests that help them determine whether they are on the right track or not.
I'd draw on my concept of meta-skills. Entrepreneurs need skills to determine what skills they need to deal with particular situations and to learn what they need to learn correctly and efficiently.
Last night I was walking my daughter through what I called the algorithm that makes a car run. For decades, it's the same fundamental one: Gasoline is fed into the engine, where combustion takes place. Drawing from her chemistry lesson, I said that this process was an exothermic one, that is, it released energy. The combustion was a controlled explosion under the hood of a car, and the resulting energy was fed into sophisticated mechanisms that powered the car movement.
Just as car makers must understand this algorithm, so must entrepreneurs grasp the engines of growth, as Ries prefers to call processes happening in the markeet: viral (customers infecting others to buy), engaged (customers who keep buying), and paid (customers who generate profits that can be reinvested back into the business).
At the end of the interview, Ries makes a very compelling argument about what will help the economy: We've become so good and efficient at manufacturing products and handling routine tasks, that we're not creating as many jobs as before. So he argues that we need teach more people to get into the "creativity business" (i.e., entrepreneurship). Entrepreneurs identify problems, find solutions, and carve a business around them. The businesses they create ... create jobs.
