Creating Innovation Leaders: A Global Perspective

282 Pages·2016·9.093 MB·English

by  Banny Banerjee, Stefano Ceri (eds.)

Understanding Innovation
Banny Banerjee
Stefano Ceri Editors
Creating
Innovation
Leaders
A Global Perspective
Understanding Innovation
Serieseditors
ChristophMeinel
LarryLeifer
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8802
Banny Banerjee (cid:129) Stefano Ceri
Editors
Creating Innovation Leaders
A Global Perspective
Editors
BannyBanerjee StefanoCeri
StanfordUniversity PolitecnicodiMilano
Stanford,CA,USA Milano,Italy
ISSN2197-5752 ISSN2197-5760 (electronic)
UnderstandingInnovation
ISBN978-3-319-20519-9 ISBN978-3-319-20520-5 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-20520-5
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015958362
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
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Preface
We all witness the tremendous demand for innovation that is occurring in a wide
array of contexts, social, technical and organizational. Unprecedented changes in
the business environments and social challenges are driving this demand for
innovation.
Organizations are nowadays recognizing that innovation does not happen by
simply proposing something new, but is dependent on the capability to enact
change. In turn, this depends on the existence of what we can term innovation
leaders.InnovationLeadersarepeoplewhohavetherightskillsandcompetencies
and are in a position to influence points of view, practices, decisions and actions.
Thisisincontrasttothetraditionalcultureofleadership,whichhasgrownaround
the norms of hierarchical decision making, risk-averse decision making and
resource management for efficiency. In fact, innovation is emerging as a new
modeofleadership,onethatimaginesandcraftsalternativefutures inthecontext
ofopenandcooperativeprocesses.
Educational institutions around the world have in recent years given birth to a
variety of educational programs having the aim of generating the next cadre of
innovation leaders. Such programs have originated somewhat independently and
fromdifferentfields,butshareverysimilarobjectivesandacommonunderstanding
ofthecentralroleofmultidisciplinarityandcreativityinproblemsolving.
In 2012 and 2013, a selected group of senior decision makers from these
educational institutions, together with representatives from public agencies and
privateorganizations,metinComo(Italy)forwhathasbeennamedthe“Creating
InnovationLeaders” summit, a“think-tank”ofselectedindividualsfor promoting
innovationandcreatingtheleadersofsuchculturalchange,andforreasoningabout
theopportunitiesthatmayfavorinnovationprograms(ortheobstaclesthatshould
beremoved)soastoincreasethespreadingandrelevanceofsuchprograms.
During 2014, a small group of ten participants to the two summits decided to
spendaweektogetherinfurtherdiscussiontargetedtotheconsolidationofthemain
resultsofthe2012and1013summitsintheformofabook.Thefocusofthebookis
the process of educating (creating) innovation leaders through specialized
v
vi Preface
programs, pursued by leading academic schools, in the hope that such programs
will soon become widespread, consolidate, extend, and become viral; the authors
felt that their educational experiences were very similar, and they agreed that a
greaterawarenessoftheseeducationalexperiencesisbyitselfatangibleoutputthat
willhelpthecreationofinnovationleadership.
Content
The book starts with Part I consisting of six chapters which have been jointly
designed by the ten authors, with a rigorous plan of content progression in mind,
whichmovesfrom(1)innovationto(2)theecosystemswhereinnovationoccurs,to
(3)innovationleadership,to(4)theneedsofchangingeducation,to(5)ataxonomy
of advanced educational experiences, to (6) cases ofpositive vs.negative innova-
tion leadership in action upon complex problems. We show that a new kind of
innovation leadership is much needed, how it can be created, and how it is put in
action.
Subsequently, Part II is a collection of invited chapters which describe ten
leading academic programs for creating innovation leaders: their objectives, cur-
ricular organization, enrollment procedures, impact upon students. Selected pro-
grams include four north American institutions (Stanford’s d.school, Harvard’s
Multidisciplinary Engineering Faculty, the Kambar College at Philadelphia Uni-
versity, OCAD’s Master of Design on Strategic Foresight & Innovation), five
European institutions (Alta Scuola Politecnica of Milano and Torino, the EIT
Master Program, Paris’ D-School, Brighton’s Interdisciplinary Design Program,
Aalto’s International Design Business Management Program) and the Mission D
program at Tongji University. Thus, while the first six chapters provide the theo-
retical foundations of why and how innovation leaders should be created, Part II
gives evidence that such theoretical foundations are already in action in the pro-
gramsoftentop-leveluniversities.
We next describe the six chapters of Part I in greater detail. In Chap. 1, we
question what is innovation. At the most fundamental level, innovation is the
abilitytodelivernewoutcomes,paradigms,value,andtransformations.Itinvolves
usingmanydifferentskillsandmodalitiestocreativelyframetheproblem,generate
radically effective options, make strategic decisions, and manage a pathway to
effective execution in a way such that no matter how complex or ill-defined a
challengehappenstobe,adisproportionatelyeffectiveorvaluablesetofoutcomes
isgenerated.
InChap.2,wediscusshowtheinnovationecosystemresultsfromthecomplex
intricacies between pedagogy, practical processes, delivery systems and services.
The innovation ecosystem is working well when educational institutions work
together with partner stakeholders, such as government agencies, industry, start-
ups, venture capitalists and non-profit organizations, to build new types of plat-
formsandrelationshipsthatcreateimpactfuloutcomes.Thischapteralsoproposes
Preface vii
“innovationdiagnosticinstruments”tomeasurethedegreeofpenetrationofinno-
vationandthepresenceofkeyindividualrolesandcollectivegroupskillswithinthe
organization,andtheoverallstrengthoftheecosystemintermsofrelationshipsand
networking.
Chapter 3 dwells into the main topic of this book, innovation leadership,
defined as the capacity to continually outperform normative techniques and to
identify leveragepoints for deliveringscaled transformations which generate new
system behavior. The need of innovation leadership is framed in the context of
currentsocietyevolutionwhichrequiresbreakingdisciplinarysilosandnormative
patterns, yielding to an innovation ecosystem with many new actors and their
relationships. The resulting innovation methodology brings about the culture of
reframing intentionality, developing new perspectives, reframing the goals, creat-
ing powerful and transformational strategies and iterating the delivery of impact
through an iterative process of ideating, prototyping, testing, and continuous
reframing.
Chapter 4 deals with the changing face of education. After recognizing that
education is challenged by online sources of “commoditized knowledge”, the
super-fast evolution of technology required by many professions, and the need of
continuouseducationandofdeeperinterdisciplinaryapproaches,thechapterdwells
upon new participative models of activities in class and develops a qualification
framework for innovation leadership that details knowledge, skills and compe-
tences for innovation agents, leaders, and gurus. It then reframes the purpose of
highereducationanddiscussesnewpedagogicalmodelsofinteraction,motivation,
andengagement,fromteaching-centrictolearning-centric.
Chapter5dealswithinterdisciplinaryinnovationprograms.Interdisciplinary
programsandcoursesarebeingrecognizedasanimportantaspectofeducation,but
curricula transformation is occurring in a multifaceted, chaotic way; codification
and systematization are needed for a broader dissemination. The chapter offers a
taxonomy of concepts (including intra-, inter-, cross-, trans-disciplinarity) and of
innovationprogramcharacteristics,offeringshortdescriptionsofrelevantexamples
anddiscussingthekeyissuesandemergingquestionsforthefuture.
Finally, Chap. 6 takes an applied view, by showing examples of complex
contexts where a new innovation leadershiphas led to a positive outcome, and of
problems where the lack of a leadership modalities, as discussed in Chap. 3, has
insteadcreateddamage,concludingwithadiscussionofemergingchallengesthat
willrequireaheavyapplicationoftheinnovationleadershipdescribedinthisbook.
Intended Readership
The book is dedicated to those who feel the need of providing stimuli regarding
innovation and innovation leadership, primarily but not exclusively in academia.
Theseinclude,butarenotlimitedto,deansandprovostsofacademicinstitutions,
senior managers in private organizations and policy makers in government. Its
viii Preface
intendedreadershipalsoincludesanyonewhoisengagedinpromotinginnovation
within hisown organization,andwho feels theneed toenrich the intellectual and
practicaltoolboxheusesforthisdemandingandexcitingendeavor.
Though most of the editors and coauthors of the material come from higher
educationinstitutions,theoverallapproachisnotacademicandresearch-based.In
fact, the discussion directly comes from the collective and practical experience
gained not only by designing and running educational programs, but also by
delivering innovation-focused projects in many types of organizations, and in
assistinggovernmentalinstitutionsindefiningpolicy.
Stanford,CA BannyBanerjee
Milano,Italy StefanoCeri
February28,2015
Contents
PartI TheoreticalFoundations
1 WhyInnovate?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
BannyBanerjee
2 TheInnovationEcosystem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
JohnBodyandFawwazHabbal
3 InnovationLeadership:ANewKindofLeadership. . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
BannyBanerjee,StefanoCeri,andChiaraLeonardi
4 ANewKindofUniversity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
RandySwearer,Ve´roniqueHillen,andPaolaBertola
5 ChartingInterdisciplinaryInnovationPrograms:Mapof
Experiences. .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . 105
PaolaBertola,NabilHarfoush,andFedericaVacca
6 InnovationLeadershipinAction–TodayandintheFuture. . . . . . . 125
JohnBodyandStefanoCeri
PartII BestPracticesinHigherEducation
7 BestPracticesinHigherEducation:AnIntroduction. . . . . . . . . . . . 145
ChiaraLeonardiandFedericaVacca
8 EmbeddingDesignThinkinginaMultidisciplinaryEngineering
CurriculumatHarvardUniversity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
FawwazHabbal
9 TeachingtheInnovationMethodologyattheStanfordd.school. . . . 163
BannyBanerjeeandTheoGibbs
ix