I read an interesting newspaper column this week that highlighted the fact that many of the leading thinkers of the last two centuries were ‘scholars, but not academics.’ Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein, for example, were experts in their field without being university professors. They were also happy to explore sectors and disciplines outside their own areas of expertise.
New ideas and innovation require deep, specialist knowledge, but only when this is combined with a real diversity of thinking. Einstein may have been able to provide that diversity of thought and lateral thinking himself, but the rest of us need to bring together people with different ideas, backgrounds and opinions to achieve breakthrough innovations.
The problem is that the majority of companies find genuine collaboration very difficult to sustain. More innovative companies, however, find ways to overcome these difficulties, creating and supporting cross-functional teams where team members can creatively challenge each other to develop more high-quality ideas.
What steps is your business taking to bring together experts from across the organisation to develop a stream of new, exciting and compelling ideas for growth and superior performance?
Off The Record: Einstein a Go-Go by Landscape
You better watch out, you better beware,
Albert said that:
E = mc2