Idea Agent

RESULTS

For any team chartered with delivering innovation, whether in high technology, medicine, or cinematography, the raison d’être is bringing forth results. There is a delicate balance—the “creative tension”—between unleashing creative researchers and harnessing their work to deliver actual products and revenues. Stifle creativity and you get predictable, marginal progress that does not create competitive leaps; let freedom run rampant, and you risk developing something that customers can use or will pay for.

Two elements are important in cultivating a culture of results. First, there needs to be breadth in the definition of “results,” and this does not mean a diluting effect but a definition based on the true understanding of your mission ...