Why a culture of experimentation requires management transformation

Abstract

Purpose

Some organizations are responding to the opportunity of innovation, while others are not. Harvard innovation expert Stefan H. Thomke says a key reason for the slow pace of innovation is that most organizations lack "a culture of experimentation." In this article the author explains the impediments to establishing such a culture. 10;

Design/methodology/approach

In his latest book, Experimentation Works: The Surprising Power of Business Experiments, 10;Thomke says, to create a culture of experimentation, firms need “a new model of leadership,” which cultivates curiosity, emphasizes data-informed decisions, experiments ethically, sets grand challenges and establishes systematic training and support for rapid experimentation. Those are all positive steps in the direction of creating a culture of experimentation.

Findings

But they won’t be enough because the underlying management model of most big organizations is explicitly aimed at preventing the very kind of experimentation that Thomke is recommending.

Practical implications

In a digital world, technology has made it radically simpler and quicker and cheaper to carry out and evaluate multiple experiments. The whole organization needs to become an organic living network of high-performance teams. In such firms competence resides throughout the organization and that innovation can and must come from anywhere. 10;

Originality/value

An important discussion of how top down managements squelch experimentation and thus throttle innovation.

Citation

Denning, S. (2020), "Why a culture of experimentation requires management transformation", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 11-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-04-2020-0048