Amy C. Edmondson

<article-ideainbrief class="article-ideainbrief">
 <h4 class="ideainbrief-title">Idea in Brief</h4>
 <div class="ideainbrief-contents">
  <h5>The Problem</h5>
  <p>Cross-industry teams made up of far-flung participants outside the usual business ecosystem are necessary for radical innovation. But managing such diverse teams is challenging.</p>
  <h5>Why It Happens</h5>
  <p>Teams struggle to perform for a variety of reasons: Roles are uncertain; expertise, professional values, and organizational cultures are varied; and participants’ diverse perspectives and experience may cause conflict or even overt antagonism.</p>
  <h5>The Solution</h5>
  <p>Four leadership practices can help cross-industry teams meet their potential: fostering an adaptable vision, promoting psychological safety, enabling knowledge sharing, and adopting an execution-as-learning mindset.</p>
 </div>
</article-ideainbrief><p>Companies have long cooperated within their ecosystems, working with suppliers, partners, customers, and even competitors. But as the premium on innovating grows, especially for wicked problems—those with incomplete, contradictory, or changing requirements—more organizations are tapping the capabilities of new and far-flung partners. That such cross-industry collaborations can generate radical innovations is clear. How to build and run them is another matter.</p>

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<p>Companies today increasingly rely on teams that span many industries for radical innovation, especially to solve &#8220;wicked problems.&#8221; So leaders have to understand how to promote collaboration when roles are uncertain, goals are shifting, expertise and organizational cultures are varied, and participants have clashing or even antagonistic perspectives.</p>
<p>HBS professor Amy Edmondson has studied more than a dozen cross-industry innovation projects, among them the creation of a new city, a mango supply-chain transformation, and the design and construction of leading-edge buildings. She has identified the leadership practices that make successful cross-industry teams work: fostering an adaptable vision, promoting psychological safety, enabling knowledge sharing, and encouraging collaborative innovation.</p>
<p>Though these practices are broadly familiar, their application within cross-industry teams calls for unique leadership approaches that combine flexibility, open-mindedness, humility, and fierce resolve.</p>

Wicked-Problem Solvers

Companies today increasingly rely on teams that span many industries for radical innovation, especially to solve “wicked problems.” So leaders have to understand how to promote collaboration when roles are uncertain, goals are shifting, expertise and organizational cultures are varied, and participants have clashing or even antagonistic perspectives. HBS professor Amy Edmondson has studied more than a dozen cross-industry innovation projects, among them the creation of a new city, a mango supply-chain transformation, and the design and construction of leading-edge buildings. She has identified the leadership practices that make successful cross-industry teams work: fostering an adaptable vision, promoting psychological safety, enabling knowledge sharing, and encouraging collaborative innovation. Though these practices are broadly familiar, their application within cross-industry teams calls for unique leadership approaches that combine flexibility, open-mindedness, humility, and fierce resolve.

Wicked-Problem Solvers

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