Collective Genius

Aurélie Clausel

Hill, L., G. Brandeau, E., Truelove, & K. Lineback: Collective genius

Executive Summary

At a time when you have to compete with companies like Google growing at a meteoric pace, innovation is critical. Google’s management understood early, and it explained in part its success, that at the core of innovation there are first people and then technical skills and knowledge. This article is going to give you the keys to be a good innovation leader. This is to say being a leader who supports and allows for the emergence of a collective genius. Indeed, when several skilled people think independently and freely about the solution to a challenge, for the final discussed solution to integrate part of the ideas of different people, this would create a positive synergy. This positive synergy is the collective genius. It is at the origin of the appearance of stronger ideas and more sustainable innovations. In this context the role of the leader is not to influence or guide people but to create a good environment for innovation. The leader should be able to create a community where different people can bring their slice to the pie while avoiding chaos and where people have the willingness and the ability to innovate.

Goal

Challenging our view on leadership by showing that a good innovation leader is a creator of context for the emergence of a collective genius rather than ones who takes charge and influences people.

Key arguments

Key idea 1: A good leader is “the first of the peers” not ones who dictates ideas or influences people’s work.

A good innovative leader is ones who understands that the best solution to a problem is not straightforward and cannot be foreseen in advance. In this context the leader must be patient and supportive for people to share their genius and paradoxically be confrontational when disagreements or clashing ideas emerged. To facilitate the decision making process a good leader should have the ability to balance between those two roles.