Innovation requires teaming. (Put another way, teaming is to innovation what assembly lines are to car production.) This book brings together key insights on teaming, as they pertain to innovation. How do you build a culture of innovation? What does that culture look like? How does it evolve and grow? How are teams most effectively created and then nurtured in this context? What is a leader’s role in this culture? This little book is a roadmap for teaming to innovate. We describe five necessary steps along that road: Aim High, Team Up, Fail Well, Learn Fast, and Repeat. This path is not smooth. To illustrate each critical step, we look at real-life scenarios that show how teaming to innovate provides the spark that can fertilize creativity, clarify goals, and redefine the meaning of leadership.
Table of Content
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 3
What It Takes to Innovate 3
Situating Innovation on the Process Knowledge Spectrum 9
A Recipe for Innovation 14
Aim High 20
A Worthy Goal 21
Engaging Hearts and Minds 25
It’s a Stretch 32
Worthy Aspirations That Motivate Innovation 34
Team Up 36
Strange Bedfellows 36
Teaming Across Boundaries 40
What It Takes to Team 45
When Confl ict Heats Up 50
Embracing the Risks of Teaming 55
Fail Well 56
Unpacking Failure 57
Failing Well–At the Right Scale 65
Leading Failure 67
Courage and Fear 69
Learn Fast 71
Learning as You Go 72
How to Learn Fast 73
Overcoming Barriers to Learning 77
Leading Learning to Innovate 83
Conclusion 85
Recommendations for a Successful Innovation Journey 85
Leaders Who Innovate 88
Notes 91
About the Author 97
About the author
Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and
Management at the Harvard Business School, where she teaches
courses in leadership, organizational learning and operations
management in the MBA and Executive Education programs. Her
writings on organizational learning and leadership have been
published in more than 60 articles in academic and management
journals, and she has consulted widely on these topics for
organizations around the world. Before her academic career,
she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where
she worked with founder and CEO Larry Wilson to design and
implement change programs in large companies including General
Motors, Du Pont, Sears and others. Her recent consulting activities
include projects on organizational learning and team effectiveness
in such organizations as Federal Express, The Monitor Company,
Nortel, American Heart Association, and Harvard Pilgrim Health
Care.
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