Annual Authors & Innovators 2019| Gennari-Aronson’s Tapestry of key Business Topics!
Larry Gennari is a master at weaving together a trend-spotting tapestry of innovative business ideas. The very notion of keeping up with the plethora of new business books is an intimidating challenge. For those of us who can’t, he offers us highlights with the value added of a compelling story that ties it all together. The 2019 3rd Annual Authors & Innovators Festival took place last week at the UMass/Mt. Ida Campus with a roomful of avid “listeners!” The three panels included 13 speakers and VIP moderators – Larry himself, Doug Banks – Boston Business Journal, and Carol Fulp. Topics included: Team Building, Retaining your competitive edge, and Success through Innovation. Here’s my quick topline of these highly energetic and informative panels. See conference and speaker details here.
Panel 1: Build a Team that Embraces Change, Disruption, and Dignity
These three concepts are often mutually exclusive. So the quest to lead with all three at the forefront is a challenge for all types of companies. Big notions from this discussion were around the importance of trust in the workplace – driven by alignment of actions and words. Trust allows room for vulnerability, which allows the opportunity for growth. How to get there differs across the size and type of company.
The entrepreneurial perspective was provided by the two venture capital panelists (Meredith McPherron and Devon McDonald) – who emphasized the fundamentals of startup culture – being obsessed with the problem being solved, the mission, and having the founders connected to this in every interaction with the team. On top of this, however, the importance and exponential impact of the team’s ability to offer a “safe place” for new ideas, encouragement of collaboration, seeking a balance of everyone’s skills in problem solving, and creating a culture that dignifies each and every person’s place on the team – their value and unique insights. Don’t forget “conflict” added Meredith, encouraging conflict and managing it in a controlled environment is a useful tool that can also build trust.
A special point was made to say that one can offer dignity, but cannot “command respect.” Respect must be earned was one of the key themes of the talk emanating from Donna Hicks book. To help the founding team, Devon McDonald recommends executive coaching and a strong Chief People Officer with a well-thought out role for attracting, hiring, and retaining talent. If you take compensation off the table, you can learn a lot about what motivate future employees. “Compensation is not a proxy for Dignity” according to this team of experts.
From the enterprise perspective, authors Gerald Kane and Heidi Gardner put the horse back in front of the cart by emphasizing the culture should drive the way problems are addressed and technology should be used strategically as needed and not to solve all problems. An interesting point here, especially for more traditional businesses is that it’s not going to be realistic for all individuals to have the same digital DNA. However, mixing up teams with some more digitally inclined members can help spread the DNA around – rather than creating a silo of that expertise. (This is also true of diversity in general as was brought up in later talks). The panel was asked to give examples of companies that are doing at least some of this right – #Walmart, #MetLife, #Hubspot rose to the top.
Panel #2: Retain Your Edge and Evolve for the Future
This panel leapt directly into the discussion about misconceptions of robotics and AI’s place in the ecosystem. Whereas we assume these technologies are going to lead to a more competitive economy, we have a misconstrued idea of what this means and our progress to date. The discussion initially centered on the auto industry (Dan Albert, Cox Automotive) which has led in the use of new technologies to solve problems that were identified by the government (e.g. safety, environmental impact of fuel, etc.) and were solved through collaborative industry efforts (automotive, insurance, energy, etc.).
However, this “government lagging private industry problem solving” could actually be a disadvantage. One interesting hypothesis is that we are falling behind as a nation since we have cut back on government-funded R&D. The team gave many examples of how we catapulted ahead by government projects that were spun into the private sector – the most relevant example being iRobot and the human genome project’s impact on the genomics industry (BioGen, etc..)
The AI (Tom Davenport, AI Advantage) and robotics myths have been propagated due in part shaky assumptions that these technologies “take jobs” and a conspiracy of silence on the part of CEO’s who think they will be eliminating jobs, but really don’t know for sure. In fact, this compilation of myth-busters can help set the record straight:
- AI is mostly addressing very boring tasks and jobs will be augmented to include the more important pieces that require human intervention, judgement, creativity, and emotion
- High level jobs such as Chief Data Scientists are just as much at risk, but will evolve to be much more interesting than just chasing data
- We are missing many of the new skillsets required to properly implement these new technologies – so things will not happen nearly as quickly as we think
- Many innovations will help us “take back” jobs we have lost to overseas competition – the use of technology in textiles one current example.
The main point here is that historically technology has always created more jobs than it has eliminated and we have not seen the full impact of these new technologies.
The issue of “missing skillsets” was further addressed by Joyce Sidopoulos of Mass Robotics and Johnathan Gruber, Author of Jump Starting America. Joyce looked inward to her own child-rearing to explain the difficulty of convincing the younger generation of the benefits of STEM education. She noted that there are 38 robotics companies looking for robotics engineers with 5 years of experience and that’s a tough need to meet.
Thinking bigger on this issue, Jonathan Gruber believes that we are skewed with the balance of companies, talent, and educational institutions on the two coasts. We are missing many opportunities to build up the middle and southern tier of the country where many talented technologists reside. These ecosystems can breed a solid next generation of STEM candidates, but desperately require the proper ecosystems to keep them there. Cities such as Rochester, NY and Detroit, MI have the best potential to help solve the problem. Let's get #STEM education moving. When in doubt, just apply “If, then, else” decision trees in every aspect of life! Share on X
Panel 3: Success through Strategic Innovation
Carol Fulp (Success through Diversity) led this panel which focused on the strategic link between diversity and innovation. This panel dovetailed on the previous discussion building on the themes of mixing the gene pools around the company to ignite more innovative cultures. Karen Mills enlightened us on her work at the SBA after the credit markets froze in 2009 – and 1.5M jobs were lost. Her focus is now on the evolution of financing for the small business ecosystem through online financing opportunities – emphasizing the critical importance of this sector of the economy to drive innovation. The work of Jules Pieri co-founder and CEO of The Grommet was a perfect segue to her introduction as this marketplace truly empowers the most creative of minds to get their products to market. Her drive to start this business driven by the fundraising challenges that face startups.
The perspective of the larger company getting it right was provided by Stephanie Crimmins of Volvo Mobility – a company residing in 25 countries with 25 languages that holds diversity in high esteem., while Garry Pisano proposed that “big doesn’t have to be ugly” if you align your strategy, systems, and culture and follow good “intrapreneurship” practices. A key theme for all the panelists was that monocultures make organizations vulnerable (in a bad way) and it’s critical to surround ourselves with people that are different than us. Differing cultures feed creativity and innovation. Echoing the discussions throughout the day, this panel emphasized the importance of cross-fertilization. Don’t isolate this creative DNA – spread it around, share it, and make it core to your culture of excellence.
Larry created a showcase of sponsor and exhibitor companies that provided a unique microcosm of the types of companies popping up around in New England. Congratulations to all involved who made the 3rd Annual Authors and Innovators Conference a success!