Editor's note: This is the second in a series of three posts (previously published in The Wall Street Journal ) introducing the Moonshots for Management that now make up the framework for the MIX. We're republishing them here to give an introduction for those readers of the MIX who may not be...
Training programs generate greater value for organizations when the curricula reflect key business performance metrics. Testing real-world outcomes is crucial. All organizations train their people, and most spend significant sums doing so. Yet they generally don’t have any idea whether they’re...
What leader today doesn't want more innovation? Yet, producing more (of anything) inside an organization generally leads to more process, which smothers individual creativity and all-too-often kills organizational innovation. Innovation isn't about structuring a process to lead to an outcome so much as it's about creating space—both elbow room, the space to roam free of bureaucratic rules and red tape, and head room, the freedom to see differently, think wildly, and aim higher. The leaders who generate more creative energy and innovation are always wrestling with the question: How do we design in more slack? Or, how do we cultivate an environment and support work that enlists people as drivers of their own destiny and inventors of the company's future?
Our thanks to those MIXers who have given us their thoughts, in 140 characters or less, about how to take the work out of work. From Play-doh and musical instruments at meetings to praising risk-takers, you've crammed a lot of good suggestions into a tiny bit of space. Each one of these is a great...
For all of the fervor around innovation, far too many organizations are hostile places for new ideas (not to mention the people that harbor them). All too often, new ideas are cooked up in a hothouse environment—the executive inner sanctum, an invitation-only innovation offsite, a limited-access “war room”—and not shared widely until they’ve been sanctioned from on high. When they are offered up by some hardy soul in the trenches, they generally have just one place to go: up the chain of command. In other words, they get the hot lights of judgment before they get a chance to breathe.
How does a Dell engineer’s job change when they get to talk to customers? It opens up an information flow so they can co-create something better. You have to earn the right to sell to somebody. That’s why Dell is building relationships with customers and becoming trustied advisors through the Dell...
When the folks in charge of the MIX told me a few months ago that their next M-Prize would focus on the enable communities of passion moonshot, I was pretty stoked. In our little corner of the MIX, we're always looking for new ideas on how to inspire and build more productive communities. A little...
One of the things that attracted me to Red Hat in the first place was that it was a company with a strong sense of purpose. Red Hat was a company full of believers, people who felt that the open source development model was simply a better way. During my first few months as CEO, I traveled to Red...
