The Harsh Reality of Innovative Companies

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2019

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gary Pisano, professor at Harvard Business School, studies innovation at companies large and small. He says there’s too much focus on the positive, fun side of innovative cultures and too little understanding of the difficult truths behind sustained innovation. From candid feedback, to strong leadership, to individual accountability and competence, to disciplined choices, Pisano says leaders need to understand and communicate these realities. He's the author of the HBR article “The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures” and the new book “Creative Construction: The DNA of Sustained Innovation.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone it's Kurt we need your help with our annual survey this is your last chance to help us get to know you so we can make idea cast even better for you
0:09.8	it's easy just go to HBR.org
0:13.0	podcast survey.
0:15.0	Again, that's HBR.org.
0:17.0	And thanks for listening. Welcome to the HBRIDICAST from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish. The color orange dominates the
0:50.6	headquarters of the marketing software company HubSpot.
0:53.6	There are orange couches, orange soda fountains, even orange phone booths.
0:57.7	This former furniture factory has been redesigned with kitchens and meeting rooms and nooks
1:02.0	where workers can brainstorm and innovate.
1:04.4	This is our lounge slash company meeting area slash whatever we need it for.
1:08.7	Company co-founder darmash Shaw shows off one meat expense.
1:13.0	The requisite startup, beer fridge, ping pong table and fusball table.
1:19.6	Table tennis and fusball may be requisite at an innovative tech company nowadays, but being successful
1:24.9	at innovation is much more than that, says our guest today.
1:28.9	Beneath all those fun, positive things on the surface, you have to learn hard truths, make discipline choices,
1:35.7	and face harsh realities.
1:37.9	And that, he says, is where most companies and leaders get innovation wrong. Our guest today is Gary Pizano. He is a professor
1:45.9	at Harvard Business School and he's the author of the HBR article The Hard Truth
1:50.0	about Innovative Cultures. He's also the author of a new book, Creative Construction,
1:54.8	the DNA of sustained innovation. Gary, thanks for coming on the show.
1:58.8	Great to be here. You spend a lot of time as a researcher and advisor at both small entrepreneurial companies and large companies trying to do innovation at scale.
2:18.0	What misperception about innovation at scale do companies and managers have that you want to disabuse here?
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