MBADM 850 | Session 9 | Human Capital, Innovation Teams, and Management Strategy

MBADM 850 | Session 9 | Human Capital, Innovation Teams, and Management Strategy

Introduction

The foundation of organizational success lies in adopting a philosophical mindset that rejects the idea of a fixed world, encouraging individuals to embrace change and influence life, driven by the realization that current systems were created by people no smarter than themselves. Effective leadership supports this by providing a clear common vision, recruiting self-managing individuals who are passionately excited about the mission, and prioritizing the hiring of great individual contributors over typical professional management. Innovative teams must be structured intentionally: they should be small (six to eight people, referred to as "two American pizza teams"), collocated or collaborating synchronously, fully dedicated, and self-sufficient, possessing all necessary competencies internally to minimize external dependencies. Strategic direction should prioritize an emerging strategy based on constant experimentation, shifting the focus from delivering fixed features (output) to achieving measurable business outcomes (changes in customer behavior) by treating roadmaps as critical questions and hypotheses to answer, and maximizing the number of experiments per unit of time. Crucially, innovation is profoundly enhanced by diversity in background, experience, and perspective, which creates a larger knowledge base—or "bigger box"—leading to better problem-solving and decision-making, provided teams harness constructive conflict (debate over the work) while eliminating interpersonal conflict. The day-to-day creative environment is dynamic and can manifest in five profiles, ranging from the highly productive Ideal Day (high stimulants like freedom and support) to the detrimental Toxic Day (low stimulants, high obstacles like political contention), demonstrating that maximizing positive daily experiences and minimizing obstacles are essential for continuous creative performance.