To solicit maximum contribution value out of a diverse team, you must create psychological safety (defined by HBS Professor Amy Edmonson as "a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up"…

"We cracked the problem wide open. We have people coming forward we've never heard from before!" This from the leader of a global sales organization growing at 20% month over month…

Dr. Rakesh Suri, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, took an unexpected approach to leading in the face of COVID. Apparently, when the pandemic hit, one thing he required was that a novice be added to every department…

When the pandemic hit, Perry and I started exploring work on a book. After months of fits and starts, we settled on a topic and put it in front of a few publishers. We were humbled by the response. During the holidays, we were offered a deal by Penguin Random House's business imprint, Portfolio. We are pretty excited about it. Should be out next fall, 2022…

Another one of the insights I gleaned from my and Mar's illuminating conversation with the amazing female founders of The Landing (the first of many insights posted here) was how they accelerated product development by creating a design council…

It's tempting to think, "We shouldn't let them know that the product isn't perfect yet, that we're still trying to get it right..." when working on something new. But often, that's the exact wrong instinct…

My friend Mar Hershenson and I have been speaking with some amazing female founders lately. In a recent conversation, Mar asked a spectacular question that led to a profound insight:

The Berkeley Computer Corporation is one of those legendary influencers in the early days of the computing revolution, akin to the famous Homebrew Computer Club that sparked Wozniak's insights and led to the formation of Apple…

{{"uhhhh... uhhhhhhh.... mmmmmuhhhh..." That's what it sounds like when my team is waiting for me to say what I'm thinking. Especially when we're working on a creative challenge, or trying to articulate insights, sometimes I feel like I just. can't. quite. say it…

"A link between a problem and a solution depends heavily on the simultaneity of their 'arrivals.'” - Jim March in his classic HBR Interview, "Ideas as Art" Unless you're often pondering the challenge of putting new things into the world, this obscure quote might be a bit of a head scratcher. 'Simultaneity of arrivals'?? I know…

One of my d.school colleagues (the fabulous Lisa Kay Solomon) shared this exceptional list of 68 pieces of unsolicited advice from WIRED founder Kevin Kelley. He composed the list in honor of his 68th birthday. Here's one of my favorites…

Pithy text message at the end of a grueling workout: "Experiment: I'm opening a Clubhouse room about our class at Stanford to see if anybody wants to talk about it. Hop on for a few?" And with that paltry provisioning, a co-instructor got me to jump into a new app, talking to a "room" full of strangers, right after I'd finished a workout and was still covered with sweat, with absolutely zero notice - something I would never have agreed to in advance…

My friend Mar Hershenson and I have been speaking with some amazing female founders lately. In a recent conversation, Mar asked a spectacular question that led to a profound insight: "I hear from a lot of female founders that they struggle with imposter syndrome. How have you interacted with feeling like you don't belong, like you're out of place?"

Shortly after I wrote yesterday's post about the Toy Story 3 team at Pixar, a longtime friend and mentor sent me Mark Rober's TED Talk, "The Super Mario Effect". I'd seen it a while ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I almost archived the message without much thought; but his email made me curious to review it, and I'm glad I did! 

I was blown away by this short anecdote, which not only encapsulates a special aspect of Pixar's culture, but also sets a high water mark for the ambitions any leader could hope to instill in a creative team…

Jim March is a legendary organizational theorist* who posited that organizations create value (or "new knowledge") in one of two ways: either by exploring new possibilities or exploiting old certainties (ie executing known opportunities with known resources). His research dealt with how to balance the tradeoffs inherent in larger organizations seeking to do a bit of both, as they generally compete for the same pool of scarce resources…

"We had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure," says Pixar's Ed Catmull, in his fantastic memoir, Creativity, Inc. He's describing the source of the tension that threatened to drive a wedge into the heart of the organization after the spectacular last-minute rescue of Toy Story 2. Efforts to protect folks' attention resulted in stultifying red tape that impeded the free flow of ideas and communication, the beating heart of the creative team…

I've noticed a fascinating pattern that, when solving a problem, my default orientation is towards quality: "I just need a good idea." I don't realize I'm thinking this way, but I often am. And realizing it is the first step to a solution…

Mark Parker, former CEO and now Executive Chairman of Nike, is in the pantheon of Steve Jobs when it comes to design-forward innovation. He's one of the few designers to drive innovation at the level that he did from the chief spot…

Arthur Koestler defined creativity, “The collision of two apparently unrelated frames of reference.” Collisions, or connections more broadly, often get the spotlight when it comes to creative thinking. But what enables unexpected connections?