Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader

by Linda Hill $25.95

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Thinking outside the box is a popular metaphor for creativity. But recent major systemic challenges (the financial crisis, health care reform, and climate change, among others) require new ideas significantly bigger than a mere box. The greatest future breakthroughs will come from leaders who encourage thinking outside a whole building full of boxes. Inside-the-building thinking is the hallmark of establishments, whose structures inhibit innovation. Once the architecture is set, vested interests divide up the floors and reinforce existing patterns and practices. Even change-oriented insidethe-building thinkers take organization and industry structures for granted. They pay most attention to similar-looking competitors in markets already served. They focus on enhancing the use of existing capabilities rather than developing new solutions to emerging problems. In contrast, even small steps outside the building facilitate productive change. Many technology companies place engineers in customers facilities to shorten feedback loops for rapid prototyping of new products. Santander in Brazil increases its attractiveness to top talent by mounting crime-reduction and cleanup efforts in bank neighborhoods. At Japanese electronics maker Omron, sales representatives identify product development opportunities by finding customers unsolved problems; they ask broad questions and observe what doesnt work. IBM educates future global leaders outside classrooms, sending diverse teams to unfamiliar countries to tackle tough challenges. To speed innovation at P&G, former CEO A.G. Lafley looked well outside the building. He built on Peter Druckers concept of the meaningful outside and had employees identify consumers needs by living in peoples homes. He embraced open innovation, seeking ideas from anywhere, not just company labs. New CEO Robert McDonald is venturing even farther outside, to call attention to society beyond current markets. His strategy is purpose-inspired growthfinding growth opportunities by identifying more needs of more people in more places more completely. Take this reasoning up a level to addressing critical societal problems, such as health care and education. U.S. reforms in these areas have stalled for years, slowed by establishments and their buildings. But health care is more than hospitals, learning more than schools. Progress requires institutional change to reinvent not just products and services, not just organizations and industries, but entire interconnected systems. Leaders must think far outside buildings to redefine neighborhoods, ecosystems, value chains, and communities. For example, interconnected systems can transform life outside, as well as inside, school buildings to improve learning. Harlem Childrens Zone, a network of nonprofit organizations in New York City, has demonstrated dramatic

improvements in school performance and college attendance for lower-income children who were formerly victims of failing schools. Or consider these demonstrations of outside-the-building thinking in health care: Work moving from hospitals to primary care, family medicine, and nurse practitioner groups. Paraprofessionals mobilizing to administer screening and immunization. Public schools serving as frontline prevention and monitoring centers. Mobile clinics opening in offices or malls. Technology networks pooling data to pinpoint disease risks quickly. Neighborhood volunteer services caring for elders in their own homes. Collaborations between health and parks departments. Together, such models could improve health at lower cost. Societal reinvention offers business opportunities, too. Major companies are becoming institutional entrepreneurs, formulating environmental conceptsfor GE, its ecomagination; for IBM, a smarter planetto guide infrastructure innovation, such as Ciscos smart grid for electricity deployment. These initiatives turn organizations inside out, sending more people outside the building on far-afield trips to develop new ideas. Copyright 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. To foster innovation and transformation, leaders should focus on impact, not inputs. They should identify unsolved problems, map the wider system influencing results, and determine weak links to strengthen or gaps to fill. But to do all that effectively, they must first jump out of the box and leave the building