What does it mean to create a genuine culture of innovation and collaboration—one in which every single person in the organization is switched on, alive and awake to the changes in the world and ready to contribute their ideas, insights, and particular point of view?

With the Unlimited Human Potential Challenge , we are seeking the most progressive practices and innovative ideas for unleashing human capability to produce radically new approaches to organizing, competing, and creating advantage . How can we tap into emerging digital technologies and the principles that undergird them (such as transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, open­ness, commu­nity and self-determination) to imagine the future of business?

With the Unlimited Human Potential Challenge , we are seeking the most progressive practices and innovative ideas when it comes to unleashing human capacity —designing environments and systems for work that inspire individuals to contribute their full imagination, initiative, and passion every day; and aggregating human capability —leveraging new social, mobile, and digital technologies to activate, enlist, and organize talent across boundaries.

How can we tap into emerging digital technologies and the principles that undergird them (such as transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, open­ness, commu­nity and self-determination) to produce radically new approaches to organizing and creating value?

It may be one of the most important questions of our age. Individual ingenuity, initiative, and passion are the fuel of the Innovation Economy. Organizations and leaders must become increasingly inventive around unearthing, unleashing, cultivating, aggregating, and appropriately rewarding contributions from a range of stakeholders across boundaries.

Do you have a real-world case study or a bold new idea about unleashing and organizing human potential across boundaries? By sharing your STORY or HACK in the Unlimited Human Potential Challenge , you can help us make a dent in...

We recently ran an open brainstorming session we call a “Quick MIX” focused on generating bold ideas around the themes of the recently-launched SAP Unlimited Human Potential Challenge . The question on the table: What is the one thing you’d change to help organizations unleash and organize human potential across boundaries?

Over the course of a week, MIXers from around the world submitted dozens of ideas for tackling the twin challenges of the Unlimited Human Potential M-Prize: 1) how do organizations unleash human capacity —by designing environments and systems for work that inspire individuals to contribute their full imagination, initiative, and passion every day, and 2) how do we create value for all by aggregating human capability —leveraging new social, mobile, and digital technologies (and the principles behind them) to activate, enlist, and organize talent across boundaries?

While the Quick MIX yielded a remarkable diversity of ideas, several powerful themes emerged. I’ll share some of them here, but it’s worth spending some time exploring the individual entries here . We’d like to thank all of the participants in the Quick MIX for their insightful contributions—and we encourage them and the wider community to build on...

Watch our Maverick Hangout with Richard Sheridan, co-founder & CEO of Menlo Innovations—and learn more about Menlo's original, audacious, and powerful design for work.

For all of the billions organizations invest each year in “leadership development,” a criminal amount of human potential is left on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs: absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit an assessment, fix a problem. Flavor-of-the-month remedies, off-the-shelf programs, immersions, and excursions stuff people full of competencies and skills but produce astonishingly few great leaders.

The fact is, truly gifted leaders are rare. Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs—all sui generis . We celebrate them because they are the exception to the rule. That doesn’t stop us from constructing a model of executive perfection that borders on fantasy. The thousands of books, models, and gurus that make up the leadership industry are remarkably in sync when it comes to the qualities of a great leader: confident yet humble, creative yet analytical, flexible yet focused, bold yet prudent, decisive yet reflective, visionary yet practical, demanding yet empathetic.

Who on earth embodies all of these estimable (and contradictory) traits? No single person, of course. And that’s exactly the point. We live in a world where change is too fast, relentless, and surprising and...

Today, we’re delighted to announce the ten winners of the Innovating Innovation Challenge, the first leg of this year’s HBR/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation. But first, we’d like to acknowledge, again, the 24 finalists , whose superb stories and hacks made for some wrenching decision making. A huge thank you to all of the challengers with the imagination and daring to take on the status quo—and the generosity to share what they’ve learned in the process.