From Classroom to Boardroom: Applying Innovation Principles | Jon Cagan and Peter Boatwright | 584

Leveraging Thought Leadership

Welcome to another dynamic episode of the Thought Leadership Leverage podcast with your host, Bill Sherman. Today, we delve into the heart of innovation with two distinguished guests: Peter Boatwright, Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business, and Jonathan Cagan, the Coulter Head and Lab Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. These experts have spent their careers studying and teaching the innovation process and now share their groundbreaking insights with us.

Peter and Jon are the co-authors of "Managing the Unmanageable: 13 Tips for Building and Leading a Successful Innovation Team." Their book tackles the often chaotic realm of product and service innovation within organizations. They discuss the essential question: What does it mean to manage the unmanageable? Drawing from extensive research, they reveal how to embrace the chaos of innovation and transform it into productive progress.

One captivating study highlighted in the episode involved replacing an engineer with a manager on a design team. The manager, focusing solely on communication and problem-solving processes, led to a fivefold increase in productivity compared to unmanaged teams. This experiment underscores the profound impact of managing the innovation process rather than directly engaging in it.

The conversation explores the delicate balance between continuous exploration and decisive action. Peter and Jon stress that while endless discovery is tempting, knowing when to optimize and move forward is crucial. They draw from their classroom experiences and corporate collaborations to illustrate how theoretical principles can be effectively applied in real-world scenarios.

As professors, Peter and Jon have the unique advantage of using their classrooms as innovation laboratories, blending academic rigor with practical challenges from corporate partners. This intersection of theory and application equips their students with robust, repeatable frameworks for tackling real-world problems.

The discussion then turns to the future. Jon is deeply interested in the role of Artificial Intelligence in enhancing team dynamics. He envisions AI agents that can monitor team conversations in real-time, offering nudges and suggestions to keep teams aligned and productive. Early results suggest that AI could match or even surpass human managers in this role.

Peter, on the other hand, is focused on the practical application of their principles. He's keen to see how organizations digest, use, and implement the insights from their book, continually exploring the next big questions in innovation management.

Join us for this enlightening episode packed with actionable insights and revolutionary ideas that promise to transform your approach to managing innovation.

Three Key Takeaways: • The Power of Process Management: Replacing an engineer with a manager who focused on communication and problem-solving processes led to a fivefold increase in productivity. This highlights the crucial role of managing the innovation process rather than directly engaging in it. • Balancing Exploration and Decision-Making: While continuous discovery in innovation is tempting, knowing when to optimize and make decisions is vital. The balance between exploring new ideas and refining existing ones is key to successful innovation management. • Future of AI in Team Dynamics: Jon Cagan's exploration into AI's role in team management reveals that AI agents can effectively monitor and enhance team interactions. Early results show AI's potential to match or even surpass human managers in keeping teams aligned and productive. There is a delicate balance between integration and innovation in Thought Leadership. Learn more about this dilemma from this article written by Peter Winick.