Leading for Innovation: And Organizing for Results

14.3. Assembling Expertise for Creative Fusion

The starting point for assembling the diverse sources of expertise that promote divergent thinking and therefore likely lead to innovative options is know-who—the knowledge networks available to the core innovation team. There is great value in being able to reach beyond the insular bounds of an organization to pull in disparate knowledge assets from outside, and the inhabitants of Silicon Valley seem to have their antennae constantly up for new contacts to enrich their individual communities. In the United States, we are moving toward identifying more closely with our professional clans than with any particular organization—that is, a technically capable individual is likely to move from corporation ...