Learning to Let Go
Many organizations prefer to conduct all their R&D in-house and are afraid to share their innovation activities with outsiders. In 2000, Procter & Gamble (P&G) had seventy-five hundred engineers and scientists engaged in R&D. Despite its army of in-house inventors, it had difficulty keeping up with the rapid pace at which competitors were innovating and customer needs were changing. That’s when its CEO at the time, A. G. Lafley, realized that innovation needn’t be the sole responsibility of P&G. In order to innovate faster, better, and cheaper, P&G had to begin sharing the R&D process with inventors outside the company: customers, suppliers, universities, start-ups, and venture capitalists. Lafley estimated that “for every P&G researcher there were 200 scientists or engineers elsewhere in the world who were just as good—a total of 1.5 million people whose talents” P&G could use.33
As a result of these insights, Lafley implemented a strategy to shift the role of P&G from sole inventor to a shared inventor arrangement with outside partners. P&G would play the role of broker between external inventors and internal sales and marketing people. Today, more than 50 percent of the company’s new product ideas come from outside the company.34 As a result, the company is now able to innovate faster, better, and cheaper than it did in the past.
Business smart leaders suffer from the not-invented-here syndrome: they want to invent everything themselves and tend to hoard their ideas. Functional smart leaders care more about execution than about fresh ideas and are proud of making things happen with quality, speed, and customer satisfaction—even if those ideas belong to someone else. Wise leaders are open to everyone’s ideas and also tap others to execute on those ideas. In this sense, these wise leaders are what Liz Wiseman, a management consultant and best-selling author, calls “multipliers.”35 Multipliers such as Lafley use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of people around them to innovate faster and better and generate breakthrough growth.
Narayana Murthy of Infosys is also a multiplier. He dedicated much of his time as a leader to coaching, mentoring, and grooming other leaders in his organization, creating a multiplier culture at the company. “The best index of the longevity of a corporation is its ability to generate newer and newer leaders,” he says. “If you are a leader, your task is to groom other leaders—not cling to your seat.” Currently each senior executive at Infosys spends nine days a year as a faculty member at Infosys’s corporate university, where they teach future leaders.36
Sharing a role with others isn’t just about sharing responsibilities; it is also sharing both the risks and rewards associated with that role. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, a former president of India, recalls working as a young scientist in the 1960s at ISRO, India’s space agency. His boss was Vikram Sarabhai, a brilliant physicist and the father of India’s space program, who was leading a team that was preparing to launch India’s first satellite. When the first launch failed, Sarabhai took all the blame, believing that as leader, he bore full responsibility. Given his excellent reputation, the Indian government continued to support his program, and the second attempt to launch the satellite succeeded. At a press event afterward, the entire team was present except for Sarabhai. He chose not to attend because he felt that attention would center on him rather than the team.37
Many leaders do not act selflessly as Sarabhai did. He took full blame for the failure but gave full credit to the team for success. Rather than obsessing over their individual success, leaders need to create conditions for everyone in their organization and their ecosystem to share success by creating a “field of success” that allows a shared sense of ownership and reward.