Archives for Branding You

When a couple gets into a rut, they sometimes enter counselling to get a fresh, outsider’s perspective and, hopefully, reinvigorate the romance.

Similarly, a company seeking a surge of renovation can turn to the outside world by setting up a diverse team tasked with a particular focus.

Not slowed down by corporate bureaucracy, this multi-disciplinary group is, theoretically, agile enough to affect change and deliver innovation.

So contend the authors of a new book, “X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed.” Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman who conducted their research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, say that we live in an “era of open innovation.”

They contend that more “radical innovation” comes from smaller organizations and that universities are increasingly forming partnerships with industry to market independent research.

Ancona and Bresman point to large firms like Procter & Gamble Co. and Merrill Lynch & Co., highlighting how they have turned small teams loose on new ideas.

For example, A.G. Lafley scaled back internal research and development after he took over as Procter & Gamble’s chief executive officer seven years ago. This had traditionally been the way the company developed new products.

But today, more than a third of its new products come from outside the organization and revenues are rising.

We like the idea of x-teams because they are a practical way for large companies to be agile. But we also think that x-teams are probably only as good as the freedom they have to innovate. An over-bearing, micro-managing c-suite could easily stymie the breakthroughs such teams might make.

Does your organization use x-teams and have they had the same kind of success as Procter & Gamble? Would x-teams make sense for the type of innovation you want to be known for in your career?