YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → Managing Creative Talent

Managing Creative Talent — Transcript

by Yale School of Management · 15,725 words · 2,690 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00thank you well good morning uh i'm jim
0:01barron i'm a professor
0:03of management at som and i have the
0:05privilege of welcoming you all to this
0:08uh panel on managing creative talent uh
0:11before we
0:12kind of get down to business i just want
0:13to take a second and thank a whole bunch
0:15of people who've
0:16worked unbelievably hard kind of behind
0:18the scenes to
0:19make this thing work um abby roth in the
0:22dean's office who kind of masterminded
0:24uh the whole deal ben madison who i saw
0:28somewhere uh ben who uh has kind of been
0:31the
0:31liaison between the school and our uh
0:34distinguished panelists
0:36uh joe delillo who just walked out of
0:38the room
0:39okay uh he uh he he apparently has the
0:42title
0:43during these proceedings of the room
0:44lieutenant but um
0:46given the job he's done it's just a
0:48matter of time before he becomes room
0:49major
0:51and uh bob mendelson and the i.t people
0:55you all should understand that for those
0:56of us on the faculty it's a little bit
0:58like we've been
0:59driving a pinto for 40 years and all of
1:01a sudden in front of you
1:02been given a bugatti to to try to handle
1:06so uh they've been very helpful with the
1:08i.t
1:09and finally my colleagues rob
1:11bartholomew and tony
1:12deeney who as usual have worked really
1:14really hard to try to get
1:15a discussion going on yes
1:19to try to keep me from either
1:20embarrassing or injuring myself
1:22so i don't know we may get to hear some
1:24other panels as well which
1:29it's probably worth noting at the outset
1:31that had evans hall been constructed
1:33okay very good
1:37are we all going to be getting
1:38commentary back
1:43this reminds me of the time i taught at
1:44stanford and a heckler came into the
1:47classroom
1:49and was just yelling random stuff okay
1:52so i had this building been constructed
1:54at the time that
1:55many buildings on campus were uh it's
1:57unlikely that the opening
1:59celebration would have included a panel
2:01uh devoted to this topic
2:03particularly one called managing
2:04creative talent
2:06um that's a topic that actually
2:10uh has become of interest but but fairly
2:13recently um those of you that have
2:15played around with google's
2:17uh ngram uh feature know that you can
2:20plot phrases in terms of how often
2:22they've occurred in the
2:235.2 million books that google has chosen
2:27to digitize and so i just picked a bunch
2:28of words uh
2:30that came after the word employee uh and
2:33have plotted those since uh the 1940s
2:35and what you see
2:36is that um the proliferation of interest
2:39in
2:40uh employee creativity is really quite
2:43striking
2:44um not on this slide but it even trumps
2:47uh
2:47employee engagement which has to be one
2:49of the kind of most
2:50used buzzwords in the hr world uh
2:54these days so um it's pretty clear that
2:56lots and lots of people are interested
2:59in this topic uh and increasingly so
3:01over time
3:03uh so
3:07we we are incredibly fortunate to have
3:11four very distinguished uh folks with us
3:14today
3:14uh and four very thoughtful folks who
3:16given a lot of
3:18thought to the questions involved in
3:20managing uh creative talent
3:22um notwithstanding a lot of diversity
3:24among them there's at least three
3:26things that they have in common that
3:28made them attractive targets for this
3:30thankless task that i have twisted their
3:33arm
3:33to do each of them is in a a senior and
3:37broad management role
3:39that i would characterize as
3:40fundamentally being about understanding
3:43increasing and harnessing the creative
3:44energies
3:46of their employees and in mr eden's
3:49cases you'll see the the employees of
3:51his clients
3:53second each of them like most of us
3:56works in a context where
3:57intellectual labor and innovation are
4:00paramount and so
4:01tapping the diverse knowledge and
4:02experiences
4:04of employees is fundamental and
4:05oftentimes the people whom you're trying
4:07to manage know much more about the
4:09subject
4:10than you do and then third as is
4:13evidenced by their appearance here today
4:15each of them has continued to be
4:17an enormously generous and loyal
4:19contributor uh both to yale and
4:21and to som in many many ways let me
4:24briefly
4:24uh introduce them and then get out of
4:26the way so that we can get to the fun
4:28part
4:29um on my immediate right is beth axelrod
4:32a 1989 graduate of som
4:34who is currently the senior vice
4:36president and chief human resource
4:38officer
4:39a little company called ebay at which
4:42she oversees all aspects of the
4:44company's
4:45people capabilities across what's an
4:48enormously
4:49creative and demanding workforce i know
4:52at lunch my
4:53wife is eager to pick your brain she was
4:55one of the early
4:57ebay employees so i know she's eager to
4:59learn how things have
5:00have calmed down since the time that she
5:02was there
5:05like several folks on this panel before
5:07that
5:08she did a stint at mckinsey during which
5:10time she
5:11co-authored an enormously influential uh
5:14report called the war for talent
5:17uh to her right is laura walker a 1987
5:20alumna of
5:20som who is president and ceo of new york
5:24public radio a portfolio of media
5:26properties that reaches
5:28more than 11 million people every month
5:31uh
5:31and not too long ago she was named by
5:33cranes as one of
5:35new york city's most powerful women
5:37which
5:38would seem like a tough category to get
5:40into
5:44to her right is jock reynolds who is the
5:47henry hines
5:48director of the yale university art
5:50gallery as well as a highly acclaimed
5:52artist
5:53himself in addition to managing
5:56the talents of the yale gallery staff
5:59he's also challenged on a day-to-day
6:01basis of trying to harness the creative
6:03talents
6:04of the yale student body uh for whom the
6:06resources he oversees are an important
6:08part of their learning
6:09uh experience uh if you've walked around
6:12the building
6:12you've also seen a testament to uh
6:16his tremendous contribution in helping
6:17make evans hall a place
6:19that not only houses great architecture
6:22and ideas and people
6:23but great art as well and last
6:27but by no means least to his right
6:28jeremy eden who is a graduate of both of
6:30yale college in 1978
6:33and of som in 1986 and currently a
6:35member of our
6:36board of advisors he's co-founder and
6:39co-ceo of harvest earnings group
6:42and as you will hear he he believes that
6:45for most organizations if you add up all
6:47the little tiny improvements that could
6:49be made
6:49if all the employees were willing and
6:51able to take advantage of everything
6:53they know you may have heard jeff buchus
6:56refer to
6:57this very thing this morning there are
6:59mind-boggling opportunities
7:01for improvement and that was my speech
7:03thank you very much
7:06so um to get us started i asked each of
7:09our panelists
7:10it would take a few minutes to give us
7:12their broad perspective with regard to
7:14managing creative talent
7:16everybody among us agreed that leaving
7:19lots of time for
7:20cross communication and for
7:22communication and q a
7:24is important so we're going to be
7:26relatively brief in in the first stage
7:28and here specifically is the question
7:30that i asked them
7:32to speak to what does creative talent
7:34mean or look like in your organization
7:36in other words where in the enterprise
7:39do creativity and talent reside
7:41how do they manifest themselves what
7:43practices have you found most effective
7:45in harvesting them
7:47and what challenges do you face in this
7:49domain
7:50and to start us off beth axelrod can i
7:53have the um
7:54thank you thanks
7:58so thanks thank you very much jim it's a
8:00pleasure to be here with the panel and
8:01with all of you to celebrate this grand
8:02occasion
8:03so i'm going to talk to you about
8:05creative talent at ebay and specifically
8:07i'm going to talk about
8:08product and technology innovation
8:10although creativity exists in many forms
8:12in our company
8:13and i want to start just by giving you a
8:14little context about the business
8:16because it's
8:17important to understand why innovation
8:19is important in our company
8:21so ebay was founded in 1995 by pierre
8:23omidiar on the simple
8:25idea that by connecting buyers and
8:27sellers we could connect
8:28create economic opportunity all around
8:30the world for people
8:32and so since that time ebay has grown
8:35with uh
8:35based on our latest reported numbers
8:37which were 2012 to be a 14 billion
8:39dollar revenue company
8:41and that revenue is primarily from our
8:44two core
8:44businesses ebay and pay and paypal ebay
8:47has 124 million
8:49active users 81 billion dollars worth of
8:52gross merchandise um
8:54volume there are 500 million items for
8:56sale on ebay sites all around the world
8:59if you haven't used ebay lately you
9:00might be surprised to know that 70
9:02of those items are actually new not used
9:05and 70
9:06of those items actually sell for a fixed
9:08a fixed price as opposed to an auction
9:10format
9:11paypal has 137 million accounts around
9:15the world
9:16and 169 billion dollars worth of total
9:19payment volume
9:20paypal does business in 993 countries
9:23around the world and transacts in 26
9:24different currencies
9:26and i give you those and then we have
9:27ebay enterprise which enables brands and
9:29retailers
9:30um to uh transact online
9:33so i give you that just as context for
9:35what the sort of global
9:37complexity is of the business and
9:40innovation is extremely important to our
9:42business because of the nature of the
9:43space in which we compete
9:46and there are four major trends right
9:47now that are converging that are putting
9:49a premium
9:50on the importance of innovation namely
9:52local mobile social and digital
9:54and the convergence of those four trends
9:57is changing the way people
9:59shop and the way people pay and it is
10:01blurring the line between
10:02online and offline shopping so today you
10:05might go online and purchase something
10:07but choose to pick it up in the store
10:10or you might go in the store to look at
10:12something but
10:13take out your smartphone look at prices
10:15elsewhere and choose to buy it online
10:18and so with that line blurring and with
10:19consumer behavior changing so rapidly we
10:22have to innovate
10:24with speed in order to keep pace with
10:26consumer needs but also the external
10:28environment in which we compete
10:30and so what i want to do is i want to
10:31share with you um several different
10:32examples of innovation
10:34and the different ways that that
10:36innovation happens in our company
10:37because our learning around innovation
10:39is that it doesn't happen
10:40in a single way but we have to nurture
10:42it in many different ways
10:44and i thought a good place to start
10:46would actually be with mobile
10:48because the innovation in mobile has
10:49been extraordinary so today people shop
10:52using many different devices and mobile
10:55devices are important part of people's
10:57shopping experience
10:58back in 2007 we hired a very seasoned
11:01executive
11:02to build our mobile business and to
11:05build a mobile business that of course
11:06didn't exist
11:07and so it was in anticipation of mobile
11:10being important
11:11and we built it on the side outside of
11:14the core with a small team that was
11:16responsible for creating new
11:18um you know unimaginable up till that
11:21time
11:21shopping experiences and so they built
11:24the first
11:25ebay iphone app in fact the story behind
11:28that is an engineer was asked to build
11:29that app
11:30build an iphone app and he said what's
11:31an iphone so in 2007 of course when the
11:34iphone was invented
11:36you know none of us knew what that
11:37experience was going to be like
11:40and here's the story of the success and
11:42in consumer adoption of mobile shopping
11:45so in 2008 a hundred we we ebay
11:48transacted 192 million dollars worth of
11:51commerce volume on mobile devices
11:54and we anticipate um for 2013 that
11:57the number will be 20 billion dollars
12:00worth of merchandise volume
12:02on devices that were transacted on ebay
12:05properties that's just our
12:07our portion of the total market share
12:09and if if any of you are not mobile
12:11shoppers and are wondering what is it
12:12that people are actually buying on their
12:14mobile devices
12:15it is literally everything you can
12:17imagine we sell
12:19about 13 000 cars per week
12:22on mobile devices the most expensive of
12:25which was an enzo ferrari that sold for
12:272.7 million dollars
12:29on a mobile device so if so if ever
12:32there was an example about consumers
12:34adopting
12:34new ways of shopping and mobile has
12:37enabled us to
12:38innovate in different ways so this is an
12:39example of innovation that happens
12:41through a core group that we have that
12:44whose only job it is is to innovate it's
12:46to imagine new technologies that haven't
12:48yet been developed
12:49and to create them this is a shoppable
12:51window so you see the people standing in
12:53front of a full stop life-size
12:56window that enables them to shop but
12:58what's important from a retailer
13:00perspective
13:00is it's changing the functionality of
13:02retail space it's enabling people to
13:04shop
13:05at times when the retailer isn't open
13:07and it's enabling the retailer to show
13:09inventory that may not even be on
13:11display
13:11inside the store and so this happens
13:14through our innovation team
13:16another example of innovation this is
13:18innovation that happens through the
13:20the core product organization of paypal
13:23just trying to imagine different ways
13:25that we might all want to
13:27um pay when we're in a retail
13:30establishment so in this case
13:32this enables you to just check in on
13:33your mobile device by dropping a pin
13:35and once you've done that with a
13:37retailer who is paypal enabled
13:39rather than using cash or plastic to pay
13:42you can actually with one click pay
13:44through your paypal account
13:45so this is an example of innovation
13:47that's happened through the product
13:49organization of paypal
13:51and the last innovation example i want
13:52to give you happens
13:54through our organization in our company
13:57we have
13:58um two handfuls of people that we've
14:00identified as really exceptional
14:01entrepreneurs
14:02they meet quarterly with our ceo
14:04specifically for the purpose of
14:06identifying opportunities to
14:08innovate on things that aren't otherwise
14:10being considered in the organization
14:13so they got together and they looked at
14:14this is an old ebay experience so as you
14:17can see from
14:18from this slide this person happened to
14:20like vintage posters
14:21and they said you know what there are
14:23better ways to create a more
14:24personalized experience for people so
14:27they decided to go away and build a new
14:29more personalized experience
14:31the two people who are part of that
14:33discussion are both product managers
14:35they decided the best way to do this was
14:37to go to australia
14:39and the reason was they they decided
14:41that by going to australia nobody would
14:44be able to reach them during regular
14:45business hours with the other side of
14:47the planet
14:48this is a true story they called up
14:50three engineers and one designer and
14:52said we're leaving for australia
14:54tomorrow
14:54to build an incredible new product do
14:56you want to come and they
14:58all four said yes got on a plane the
15:00next day went to australia went online
15:03to airbnb rented a house lived together
15:06worked day and night and came back two
15:09weeks later
15:10with what we call the feed which is the
15:12new home page um that about 60
15:14of all ebay users now use that enables
15:18each of us to go online
15:20identify our interests and to receive a
15:23feed so this is a still shot but
15:25still screenshot but if we could scroll
15:27through it you would see
15:28item after item after item that this
15:30particular individual has identified as
15:32being of interest to him or her
15:34and so when i step back from all of
15:36those examples and tried to capture for
15:38you well how do we enable innovation at
15:40ebay we
15:41we do it through multiple mechanisms
15:44but a few things that are particularly
15:46important to innovation for us is first
15:48of all openness and trust of leaders to
15:49allow people to experiment and do new
15:51things
15:52and then strong executive sponsorship
15:54when it comes time to actually test
15:56products because when you have
15:57over 100 million users on a single
15:59global platform
16:01you need sponsorship to try new things
16:03on the site
16:04um we believe in kind of the spirit of
16:06less is more on the teams they it's kind
16:08of a silicon valley term is the two
16:09pizza team if they're more people on the
16:11team than you can feed with two pizzas
16:12you've got too many people on the team
16:14and so we go for small very courageous
16:17high caliber teams for our product and
16:19technology innovation that typically
16:20have product managers engineers and
16:22designers on them
16:24and they show up with a focus on on the
16:26customer
16:27to create simple and functional products
16:30and use a philosophy of just rapid
16:32iteration
16:33fail fast figure out what works if it
16:35doesn't work move on to the next thing
16:38and because we are a global platform and
16:40a technology enabled business
16:42in a a complicated matrix
16:45clarity of decision rights around who
16:47gets to decide so that the innovation
16:49does
16:50not wither on the vine but we can get to
16:52quick decisions to enable
16:53the innovation to surface is really
16:55important and i said respect for the
16:57core because it's easy in a business
16:59like ours to be enamored with the bright
17:01shiny innovation that's off to the side
17:04but every day it's the core and the
17:05people who work in the core that deliver
17:07on behalf of our customers and so a very
17:09clear articulation around respect for
17:11the core while we also respect our
17:13innovation
17:14and then finally just you know many
17:16avenues for innovation so every example
17:18i gave you was born out of a different
17:20forum for innovation and in addition to
17:22those forums we have forums that enable
17:24all employees at ebay to innovate
17:26we have what we call skunk works and lab
17:29rats where every employee can bring
17:30forth their innovation
17:32we pick the best ones we fund them and
17:33we bring them live to site
17:35we also use open source code that
17:37enables us to tap
17:38into people who are very innovative but
17:40not our employees
17:42we have thousands of developers who
17:43develop on our code base and so
17:46many avenues of innovation are what's
17:48working for us and i'll
17:49i'll just wrap by saying that it's very
17:52important for us as a global company
17:55to find ways to inspire all of our
17:56people we don't necessarily expect every
17:58single one of them to innovate but we do
18:00want to inspire them all and we inspire
18:02them with what we call our shared
18:03purpose
18:05which is called connected commerce
18:07creating more opportunity together and
18:09this
18:09is the articulation of the difference we
18:12try to make in the world and it is the
18:13way that we inspire all
18:15thirty one and a half thousand of our
18:17people around the globe
18:19thank you thank you um i just wanna say
18:22to my colleagues that if you can't find
18:24me on monday i will have gone to
18:26australia
18:28a wonderful policy laura yes
18:31well yeah that's a great idea well we
18:34are not anywhere near as big as ebay but
18:37uh face many of the same challenges
18:40we are new york public radio um we're a
18:4260 million dollar non-profit
18:44we uh produce a number of national and
18:48local
18:48uh you know public radio programs free
18:51economics radio
18:52radio lab uh here's the thing with alec
18:54baldwin uh on the media studio 360
18:58and we have a large and growing new york
19:00newsroom
19:01um but you know before i came to som
19:04you know in my 20s i was actually a
19:05journalist and i was also
19:07a producer and i thought i was on the
19:09creative side of the business right
19:11and uh and the other side the business
19:13side was the boring side and it could
19:15possibly be creative and one of the
19:17things i learned certainly at som was
19:19that
19:19there's creativity in on very much
19:22creativity on the business side and
19:23particularly
19:24on the strategic side um and now as i
19:26sit kind of atop the
19:28you know this public radio uh kind of
19:30organization i hear
19:32a lot of the people on the business side
19:33talk about managing the talent
19:35and managing the talent is always means
19:38you know managing the big egos and the
19:40folks that uh you know have large public
19:42followings and are hard to
19:44to deal with but but uh i think it
19:47really is
19:48um we there is creativity certainly that
19:51is needed and is
19:52exists on both the business and the
19:54creative side and so we have to
19:56think very hard about how we as a
20:00relatively small organization uh in
20:03but but serving a large and global
20:05audience how we can
20:07innovate in every way um and as
20:10jeff said earlier and as uh as
20:13was mentioned about ebay uh you know the
20:15media world it is about
20:17local it's about mobile there's so much
20:20happening it's about
20:21downloading content and we have to be
20:23very innovative so i want to um
20:25focus on four uh kind of observations um
20:29coming from my experience the first is
20:31that
20:32i think and this seems very obvious but
20:36it it becomes very important
20:40it is way better to have one
20:43great employee than two or three
20:45mediocre employees
20:47so hiring well is really really
20:49important and when it comes to
20:50creativity one of the things that we
20:51have found is that
20:53uh there what we look for and what we
20:56think about is people who are both
20:58really comfortable with ambiguity and
21:01can
21:02deal with this fast-changing environment
21:04we're in but at the same time
21:06have the skills and the structure and
21:08the ability to kind of put structure
21:10and uh and discipline around a process
21:13um and that you know that's come from
21:16kind of thinking
21:17thinking hard and having some um you
21:20know some failures and some successes
21:22um and you know it is i think
21:25in the digital age our most important
21:28resource is human and so we need to be
21:30very thoughtful about
21:31about how we hire the second is to
21:33create a culture
21:34that really does respect the creative
21:36culture
21:38there is as i said before a lot of
21:40ambiguity
21:41in a creative struggle if you're
21:43creating a new show
21:44or you're trying to figure out uh you
21:47know how to
21:48uh get those emails from chris christie
21:50or whatever you're doing
21:52there's there's a fair amount of uh you
21:55know
21:55trying and uh and failing and
21:59uh it it's you know something that jad
22:02avaron
22:03the um creator of radio lab he talks
22:05about this as
22:07gut churn you know those feeling uh when
22:10he was creating
22:11uh radio lab it's that kind of feeling
22:14we all know a vulnerable kind of sick to
22:16your stomach
22:17feeling like your life is in danger um
22:19the uncertainty of trying to work
22:21without a template is scary and it's
22:23painful
22:23um and i think it's important for you
22:26know organizations to acknowledge that
22:28um and i think just as important and
22:30chad speaks about this as well
22:32is um when you're going through periods
22:35of long uncertainty is to
22:37and you're trying a lot of things it's
22:39the brilliance
22:40is kind of being able to recognize where
22:43the innovation really is
22:45and you know it it and that's not
22:48necessarily easy
22:50we need also to create a culture that
22:52encourages our talent to kind of be able
22:53to recognize that and to develop the
22:55skill
22:56in fact you know one of our um uh
22:59producers or host stephen dubner did
23:01some some talked about uh some research
23:05on his freakonomics blog
23:06um where he was talking about how in
23:09fact our minds are actually
23:10biased against seeing creative solutions
23:13because of the very nature of their
23:15novelty
23:15and he quoted a study of researchers
23:18from cornell and the university of
23:19pennsylvania in
23:20north carolina did a study about bias
23:22and um
23:24found that we often view novelty and
23:27practicality as inversely related and
23:29that we value practical ideas a lot more
23:32uh and that we need to kind of that
23:35there's a social cost that comes with
23:36endorsing unproven novel ideas and we
23:38have to
23:39understand that in a creative company um
23:42and
23:42they kind of concluded that perhaps it's
23:44not that we need to get better at
23:45producing creative ideas but we
23:47have to get better at learning to
23:50identify them and accept them and then
23:54one other thing i'll say about the cult
23:56of creating a culture we
23:58actually talk in our team about uh being
24:01chief courage officers you know and it's
24:04not
24:04it's not like we hire somebody to be a
24:06chief courage officer but we
24:08sometimes don that role and what does
24:10that mean it means that somebody is
24:12owning the process of nurturing the
24:14talent and understanding what it takes
24:16to support them it's the
24:19chief courage officer when you're
24:20playing that role you provide a zone of
24:23protection
24:23kind of a thick skin when the criticism
24:25comes kind of holding people at bay the
24:28patience to wait things out and to drive
24:30and the drive to keep things moving and
24:32above all the art of knowing
24:34when to provide which um and so the
24:37chief courage officer is making sure
24:38that innovation takes place in safety
24:40and offers courage for those further
24:42down the chain really
24:43who often don't feel they have the
24:45permission to break the mold
24:47and that's i think real leadership the
24:50third
24:51thing we need to do is to provide
24:53structure and skills as
24:54as i think is very much our role as
24:57managers and
24:59uh the we all know this although for
25:02some people within a creative
25:03organization
25:04it's counterintuitive it's the two weeks
25:07sprint it's the
25:08it's the kind of uh process around
25:10creating innovation
25:12uh the marissa mayer wrote an article
25:15for bloomberg in 2006 called creativity
25:17loves constraints
25:19and she starts like this and i love this
25:21when people think about creativity they
25:23think about artistic work unbridled
25:25unguided effort
25:27that leads to beautiful effect but if
25:29you look deeper you'll find that some of
25:30the most inspiring art forms
25:32such as haiku sonatas religious
25:34paintings are fraught with constraints
25:36they are beautiful because creativity
25:38triumphed over the rules
25:40um and i think that's a really important
25:42thing to keep in mind as we think about
25:44managing creative talent um one of the
25:46things we did
25:47uh recently was uh turned to actually
25:50another som grad i think class of 86
25:52nadine mata who runs something called
25:54rapid results institute
25:56and uh he does these it leads you
25:58through these projects that are
25:59100 day projects and what we did is we
26:01looked at our strategic plan and looked
26:03at where we were stuck or
26:04what we wanted to do and we put some
26:07teams together each of which had
26:08strong executive sponsors didn't have
26:11too many people but were
26:12cross-disciplinary and gave them 100
26:14days not to create a plan but to do
26:16something
26:17and we had four uh specific kind of
26:20areas one was content creation
26:22the other was uh digital uh for mobile
26:25devices
26:26uh the third was to look see
26:29look differently at how we can um sell
26:33our underwriting in a digital world and
26:35the fourth was to
26:36develop new ways of thinking about
26:38membership in a digital world
26:40um and so these teams kind of they had
26:42other we didn't send them to australia
26:44we didn't
26:45we sent them down you know to the coffee
26:47shop this is the public radio
26:49uh what we do in public radio um
26:53and they still had to work on their
26:54regular jobs but they
26:56loved it and it was amazing we created
26:58this team that was the content creation
27:00created six pilots in a hundred days and
27:03two of them
27:04are moving forward the uh the digital
27:06underwriting team raised a half a
27:08million dollars of new money just by
27:10saying we're going to go do this
27:11differently um and
27:13then and and the digital team developed
27:16an app
27:17that is really cool for a subway writer
27:20called
27:21dubbed underground uh who can download
27:24uh kind of and personalize uh their
27:26listening
27:27and that we're about we're gonna um
27:29release that uh next month
27:31so it's really that process really gave
27:34us the constraints
27:35uh and the ability to and the confidence
27:38and the and also i think the executive
27:40sponsorship
27:41um and then i would say lastly it's
27:43important to always iterate as
27:45uh as beth said it's you know you can't
27:49it's a whole new world and everything
27:52we're creating now
27:53is not about getting a perfect kind of
27:56thing and even when we're on the
27:58uh well not quite on the air but when
27:59we're creating new stuff
28:02you gotta test and iterate and change
28:04and evolve all the time
28:06and uh it's uh it's not exactly the
28:10chip at mo
28:11you know kind of thing of the software
28:13uh kind of
28:14but but it's a little we think of as
28:16imperfection is
28:18authenticity and uh kind of thinking
28:20about
28:21different ways whether we're we we no
28:24longer will create a one-hour show we're
28:26going to create segments and then
28:28you know figure out what works and
28:29change it and uh so i think
28:31in conclusion um it is really important
28:34i think
28:35uh to think about hiring right to think
28:38about
28:38hiring for people who can you know
28:40really revel in that ambiguity
28:43uh and and offer each other the courage
28:45uh
28:46to set the constraints and and to just
28:49think about iterating
28:50and never standing still so thank you
28:53great thank you laura um great
28:57well thank you when you think about the
28:59very nature of what any art museum
29:01is you of course think beginning that
29:04every art museum involves a collection
29:06and every art museum is usually
29:08housed in a building much as you're now
29:10today sitting in a beautiful new
29:12building
29:13and that's certainly true here at yale
29:14except this is also a teaching museum
29:16right
29:17so when you first think about your
29:18assets in terms of creative talent as a
29:20museum director you really at some
29:22degree think first of the collection
29:24itself and what it represents and in the
29:26case of this particular collection
29:28at yale it represents the creative
29:30talent of people as far back as rome and
29:32greece and egypt and
29:34now at this point with 10 departments
29:36hailing from all over the world and art
29:37being made by
29:39people who are alive and very active
29:40today and the whole span of sort of
29:43human civilization
29:44in a sense represented and part of your
29:46job is to be a steward of that
29:48material and to keep it active and
29:50lively and accessible
29:52to whatever public or constituencies
29:54you're serving
29:56well i happened to be recruited to yale
29:58at a very
29:59interesting time when rick levin was
30:01still very young in his tenure
30:03i had been running the addison gallery
30:04of american art at my alma mater
30:06phillips academy which was a great
30:08teaching museum at a high school rather
30:09a unique situation
30:11it was founded in 1931 which was
30:13basically a hundred years
30:15after yale was founded as the first art
30:18museum in america most people don't know
30:19it but in 1832
30:2140 years before the metropolitan was
30:23founded yale opened the first museum
30:26designed by colonel john trumbull who
30:28brought his paintings designed the
30:30buildings opened it up and taught with
30:31him for the last 10 years of his life
30:32and he and his wife are buried under the
30:34building we literally have the longest
30:36artist in residence in america here
30:39here at your university but what had
30:42happened frankly in ensuing
30:44years is that three buildings were built
30:47after trumbull's little building that
30:48was actually taken down
30:50in in the year 1901 for yale's
30:52bicentennial and when i arrived in 1998
30:56rick levin had authorized a major master
30:58planning of yale's entire arts area and
31:00had asked the deans and directors to
31:02start meeting
31:03monthly to decide what needed to be
31:04renovated rebuilt or built anew
31:07and to provide leadership for that and
31:09at the same time i think many of you
31:10know yale well particularly from earlier
31:12years will remember that
31:14president levin was very intent on
31:16improving the overall collegiality of
31:18not just the faculty
31:20and students but the relationships of
31:22the faculty students the management and
31:24professional employees and yale's
31:26clerical and technical unions which had
31:28been locked in terrible
31:29labor disputes forever and for the first
31:32time we were on the verge of
31:33having a contract without a strike at
31:35yale for you old-timers which has now
31:37happened twice
31:38so there was this sense that uh our
31:40charge not just me as director but his
31:42deans that we were to manage a whole
31:44sense of how our particularly the great
31:46strengths of yale's arts assets could be
31:49managed for the greater use and
31:51enjoyment of our faculty and students
31:52not simply from art and art history or
31:54music or drama or
31:56architecture but for the greater good of
31:59the whole university
32:00so um at the same time there was this
32:03notion of deferred maintenance many of
32:04you may have heard about
32:06these three buildings i've passed out
32:07the little card that has our
32:09picture of our three buildings that have
32:10been renovated uh the street hall was
32:12built and
32:13opened in 1866 during the civil war
32:16uh just started during this award in
32:191928 the swardow building was open and
32:21the louis conte first building was
32:22opened in 1953. if you do the math
32:24that's 280 years of deferred maintenance
32:26since any three of those buildings
32:28had been renovated so all of us who
32:31worked in the gallery
32:32including the deans had to start
32:34thinking from every position of
32:36who was working there how would we
32:38manage these beautiful buildings bring
32:40them back to life
32:41how to make as rick levin said the
32:43challenge of making the collections more
32:44readily accessible and fully acceptable
32:47to yale the new haven community in the
32:49world at large
32:50because frankly simply saying that you
32:52own this stuff
32:53what does that mean if the art isn't
32:55actually before you if you're not
32:56actually engaging original works of art
32:58what is the actual cultural transaction
33:00that's going on
33:02and i've got to tell you most museums
33:03that cannot make their collections
33:05accessible are now starting to have real
33:07problems with donors who don't want to
33:08just give stuff
33:09that goes in storage so our mantra
33:12became how to make the collections more
33:14readily accessible
33:15and also in in the year 2000 as yale
33:18approached its
33:19tercentennial we really rethought the
33:21notion of what a teaching museum should
33:23be
33:24and we thought we really needed to
33:26empower the creative talent of our
33:27students and our faculty and our staff
33:29much more fully to understand
33:31what that might mean to them and to
33:33think that in the sense of who might be
33:35able to teach with art
33:36organize it curate it and work in all
33:38departments that students frankly were
33:40going to be
33:40our greatest partners in this we now
33:42actually have 161 students working in
33:45the
33:45art gallery there's the staff with 68
33:48full-time students in 1998 we have 147
33:51full-time employees now but there are
33:52more students working in the gallery
33:54than there are actually staff members
33:58and so that how to involve them and what
34:00kind of programs to
34:02evolve in that in this time we've been
34:03working the last 15 years together
34:05really became
34:06quite similar to some of the things the
34:08two of you have described lava had to do
34:10to hiring
34:10people well but a lot had to do with
34:12trusting students and colleagues and
34:13faculty members and staff members to
34:16think about what this might mean to make
34:17the collection more readily accessible
34:19what it might mean if we were to retire
34:21our
34:22our sort of retired docents you know who
34:25were
34:25basically elderly people who were the
34:27traditional guides around the museum and
34:28to ask undergraduates to think of how to
34:31how to give guides guided tours with a
34:33collection that would be informed by
34:34their own research and knowledge how to
34:36get graduate students
34:37who are interested in teaching to teach
34:38from original works of art from the
34:40collection
34:40over and over ideas came forward and
34:43much as you've described in your
34:45for-profit and non-profit businesses we
34:47too started to think then of
34:49who to hire and what kind of resources
34:50to provide to undergird
34:52these smart and talented employees and
34:54students and so that
34:56you know not not only that a good idea
34:57would come to be that would not be
34:59wasted by not being able to be
35:00implemented
35:01i can't say enough that i think that the
35:03the role of any leader or ceo
35:05or you know department head is to always
35:07you know harvest the best ideas and then
35:09provide the resources
35:11to the people who are working with you
35:12so that they can do them this work and
35:14do it
35:15in a wonderful way and and protect it
35:17and encourage it and do all the things
35:18you were just talking about that i
35:20agree with so fully so that's something
35:23that
35:23that uh you know we've really spent a
35:26great deal of time on during these
35:27these recent years and and like you at
35:29public radio
35:31one of the things we found is we started
35:33to to really renovate these buildings
35:35and
35:35and and make provisions so that they
35:37could be used
35:38for a broader sense of disciplines at
35:40yale is we created what we call curators
35:42of academic affairs and their job is to
35:44primarily look at the entire yale
35:46curriculum
35:47what all of you are teaching and we now
35:48have professors in this school who are
35:50coming and teaching and wanting us to
35:52work with them not only to have artworks
35:54here but to teach from the gallery
35:56you know what might be in their teaching
35:58that could be augmented by a direct
36:00exposure to original works of art or the
36:02curators and educators who work with me
36:05so that's been
36:06great fun to do that and over this last
36:08year since we reopened we now have 162
36:10yale courses using the art museum's
36:12collection which is just a huge
36:14growth in usage and and the usage is so
36:18different in many ways it
36:19brings you new perceptions and ideas of
36:21how this work that people have made over
36:23time
36:24what informs it i mean if you stand in
36:26front of it and just talk about and look
36:28carefully what's being done things start
36:30to reveal themselves people often forget
36:32that the artwork itself is an expression
36:34that if you just look at it it's a
36:36little different than the use of verbal
36:38language or written language you know
36:40artists who are expressive
36:41put things in a way that if you give it
36:43some real time and slow down
36:45and you know spend sometimes an hour a
36:47half hour just in front of a single
36:48painting
36:49much more will come and i'm not saying
36:51this against the world of apps and
36:53and and iphones and everything but the
36:56the youth of today are having to balance
36:57this tremendous sense of what to do that
36:59involves quick
37:00nimble attention versus deeper
37:02engagement and focused sense of time and
37:05looking and thinking
37:06and i think an art museum in that regard
37:08has unique things to offer
37:10so part of what we've been doing is
37:12really inviting other creative talent
37:14from entirely across the old university
37:16to come
37:17to our museum in a sense participate
37:19with us and then of course the other
37:20thing that's been really
37:22important is that this has long been a
37:24service and a museum that's free and
37:25open to anyone and particularly to the
37:28new haven public schools and other
37:29universities and and
37:31schools throughout connecticut and
37:32abroad so we've welcomed those people
37:34and at a place like handover and yale
37:36frankly you never can say enough
37:38that this place is open and free and you
37:40are welcome because people don't
37:41necessarily always feel they're welcome
37:43to hand over yale you know these elite
37:45institutions and
37:46let's face it we we are elite
37:48institutions in the best sense of the
37:50word
37:50need to be constantly generous in
37:53stating that what we have is here for
37:54the benefit of the greater good and all
37:57so i have to tell you it's been a
37:59remarkable joy to
38:00to work on this and part of what we've
38:02done also that i think is really
38:04important is to constantly gather our
38:06staff together i do a lot of what i call
38:08walk around to management i spend as
38:09much time encouraging my guards my
38:11custodians
38:13all kinds of people not simply my core
38:15team but or my
38:16great patrons that their work is valued
38:19and i think that's the other thing about
38:21it
38:21really when one talks about really
38:23managing creative talent
38:24if someone to walk into the art gallery
38:26and the whole building looks dirty and
38:27not well camped
38:28it starts to degrade the overall visual
38:31beauty of this
38:32architecture and the collections if the
38:34guards are gruff and grumpy as
38:35many are in some museums i know you're
38:38not so happy and your curators are not
38:40necessarily out there on the front line
38:42greeting the public so a lot of
38:44employees who most i would say some
38:46curators or directors don't think about
38:48that carefully
38:49are the actual people your students and
38:51visitors are meeting
38:52so why not spend enough time to really
38:54make them feel
38:55that what they're doing is important to
38:57help them with knowledge that can
38:59make the the mission and the values of
39:01the institution better known as people
39:03come to learn and enjoy
39:04what you have and just finally i'd say
39:06say since we're here at som
39:08we've recruited from this student body
39:10i've got jessica labay sitting in the
39:12front so this is my deputy director for
39:13finance administration we have josh
39:15tuong who's our
39:16curator photography we are recruiting
39:19and as you say you want to hire well and
39:21we've started these young people as
39:22interns often in our museum and
39:24years later they're rising to positions
39:26of great leadership so
39:28that's something else is we're in the
39:29business of training identifying
39:31leadership potential
39:32and proud as ever when our students move
39:34up to become
39:35leaders in their field in any aspect of
39:38cultural and intellectual life
39:40so i'm pleased to be here thank you
39:43thank you
39:44i should have said explicitly that the
39:46starting point in managing creative
39:47talent is hiring from som
39:50going beyond that we won't stop
39:56so when we think of creative talent our
39:58minds almost automatically leap to the
40:00great creative geniuses often artistic
40:02geniuses a leonardo da vinci and meryl
40:04streep
40:05norm foster who designed this beautiful
40:07building and for the younger set
40:09the fourth one is lady gaga
40:12and when we think of applying that level
40:14of genius in the business
40:16and world we think of creating these
40:18extraordinary products and services and
40:21this is where huge amounts of attention
40:22the corporate life gets devoted
40:24and we call it innovation with a big eye
40:26really to enforce
40:28the importance of in those institutions
40:30of this kind of innovation
40:32the problem is we're not against
40:33geniuses and i love my ipad
40:35but this kind of innovation distracts
40:37significantly we believe from a much
40:39more important
40:40source of innovation that we call small
40:42eye innovation
40:44so classical tomato sauce very very
40:46popular very very profitable product
40:48made by the h.j heinz company
40:50you can't see the innovation in here but
40:53this used to be made with big chunks of
40:54tomatoes
40:55and was made a ton of money for the
40:57company but a factory worker at one
40:59point noticed that
41:00the big chunks clogged up the machines
41:02created down time
41:04cost about a quarter million dollars a
41:06year which out of the size of this
41:08profit basis chump change but heinz took
41:11that seriously they worked on it
41:13made some discoveries and determined
41:16that if they use smooth sauce not only
41:18would they save a quarter million
41:19dollars
41:20customers preferred it if you google
41:22this now you'll see it sold with the
41:23tagline
41:24smooth mom
41:30now you may think that every company
41:33does this kind of innovation all the
41:35time so it's not all that interesting
41:37and at one level you're right
41:39but here's the interesting part this was
41:41just one of a
41:42thousand ideas that heinz developed in a
41:45hundred day period and we also believe
41:47100 days
41:48in a hundred day period and the impact
41:51of all
41:52those ideas on this 750 million dollar
41:54business
41:55in profits was wait for it
41:58250 million dollars to the bottom line
42:01there is no ipad equivalent in their
42:04field
42:05that could have generated anything close
42:06to this so the question is
42:10how did the century-year-old company
42:11suddenly have this explosion
42:14of innovation well the answer is what
42:16they decided to take seriously
42:18was using all the talent and creativity
42:21that's really the most unused asset in
42:23any company and that's their people that
42:26are already there
42:27so jim you asked us what does creative
42:29talent look like this is what it looks
42:31like
42:31it looks like everybody who walks
42:33through the door every single day
42:35from the ceo down to the factory line
42:37worker
42:38and it gets summed up our view of this
42:40and our client's view of this gets
42:41summed up in a quote we love that the
42:43former
42:44ceo of hewlett-packard h lou platt said
42:47which is if only hp knew
42:51what hp knows we'd be three times as
42:54productive
42:56but the problem is you can't turn
42:58hundreds or thousands or tens of
42:59thousands of employees
43:02into a creative enterprise just by
43:05saying
43:05what are your ideas you can't just use a
43:08suggestion box
43:09so this says suggestions will be glanced
43:11at and dismissed with an explosive snort
43:14and indeed my co-ceo terry who's sitting
43:16over there and i were
43:18in the room when the factory worker
43:19mentioned this and it was dismissed
43:21initially with an explosive snort by the
43:24brand manager who knew they had a great
43:25you know recipe
43:27so what do you need to do what you need
43:29to do is think about the fact that even
43:31though the
43:32people closest to the work and closest
43:34to the customers
43:35have a lot of insights and ideas and
43:39data and knowledge that they want to
43:41share they're all these human behaviors
43:43corporate behaviors that actually get in
43:45their way so you have to take those
43:47behaviors
43:48very seriously and they can be bundled
43:51into basically
43:51five conditions and these are the five
43:54conditions
43:55and if you glance over them you will see
43:58they are very prozac
43:59there is nothing very interesting about
44:02them
44:03well we're in a classroom and we grade
44:05people's schools well terry and i like
44:07to ask executives if they would grade
44:09themselves on these conditions
44:10and they do and they tend to give
44:12themselves basically b's
44:14sometimes an a sometimes a c but
44:17essentially b's
44:18and so on average they're b what does
44:21that mean to them
44:22that means we could be better we know we
44:24could be better we know we could improve
44:26but we're not facing a behavioral crisis
44:30except that the average is the
44:31completely wrong metric
44:33as i'm sure every som student here
44:35immediately realized
44:38the right metric is yield
44:41because you have a big idea pipeline and
44:43there's leakage all along the ways that
44:45these behaviors
44:47are not helping the situation
44:51and when you think of this as yield now
44:53it's you're suddenly at 35
44:55a horrible failing grade and it explains
44:58why so many
44:59organizations tap so little of the
45:02talent that they have
45:03on board and it turns out it's not
45:06that hard to move from a b to an a and
45:08when you move from a b
45:09to an a as our clients have discovered
45:12suddenly the yield goes up
45:15a little coincidentally about three
45:17times as lou platt predicted
45:20so how do you move from a b to an a well
45:22there's a lot of behaviors that need to
45:24be
45:25talked about and i will only touch on a
45:28very few of them to give you a flavor
45:31but the first one and i love this story
45:34i got this
45:35uh from my father in fact i think my
45:37parents may be watching this on the
45:38internet which is
45:40sort of cool hi mom hi dad
45:44fundings yale worked out um
45:50so there was a factory in hawthorne
45:53illinois
45:54in the 1920 in 1920s and 30s that made
45:56little relays
45:58and these relays had you see rows and
46:01rows of women
46:02wrapping wires around spindles very
46:04painstaking work so they sent out a time
46:06and study
46:08a scientist early kind of productivity
46:11consultants
46:12and they had lots of hypotheses but one
46:14obvious one was it was dark in the
46:15factory
46:16so the guy said well let's try
46:18increasing the lighting and see if that
46:19doesn't increase productivity and they
46:20increase the lighting and productivity
46:22went up
46:23but being a good little scientist he
46:25said now i'm going to lower
46:26the lighting from what it had been
46:28productivity will go down i'll get a
46:30nice you know
46:31tight r squared fit so he lowers
46:34the lighting and productivity goes up
46:38so why is that well because it turns out
46:40that the light bulbs in the ceiling were
46:42not nearly as important as the
46:44managerial spotlight
46:46of being watched for the first time
46:49these women were being watched every
46:51activity every day being counted
46:53every which way so one of the things
46:55that hines did was to use the
46:57extraordinary power of the ceo and the
46:59executive team to shine a very bright
47:01light
47:03on all of these teams and that you can
47:05imagine changed that motivation
47:06condition quite
47:07significantly now let me take another
47:10one
47:11having also to do with motivation we
47:13once heard a guy say to us
47:16i don't work better under pressure you
47:18said no i
47:19only work under pressure
47:25deadlines are critical and just ima
47:28think about how you behave two days
47:30before you go on vacation
47:31you are undoubtedly the most productive
47:33person in your organization during those
47:35two days
47:36so one of the things you can do is the
47:39clever use
47:40of very short deadlines to focus people
47:43while they're still carrying on their
47:45normal business to focus on these small
47:47innovations
47:49now let's talk about the vexing issue of
47:51cross collaboration
47:53why don't aries and companies work well
47:55together it's not because they don't
47:56like each other
47:57though sometimes they don't it's because
48:01over time they have developed very
48:04strong
48:04histories and perspectives and opinions
48:06about how the world works
48:08and then every future discussion gets
48:10embedded in conflicts
48:12that are caused by these different
48:14points of view which is why we love this
48:16quote from senator patrick
48:17daniel moynihan who said everyone's
48:19entitled their own opinion
48:21but not their own facts so what we do
48:25is make sure that the teams that are
48:27going to be working on
48:28problems are for developing a single
48:31fact
48:32basis before they even try to solve the
48:34problem and that they are presenting
48:36not one guy to the ceo and another
48:38person the ceo and the co has to play
48:40judge and adjudicate between these two
48:42different competing
48:43world views but rather a single
48:46fact-based view and when they do that a
48:48lot of these conflicts actually
48:49dissipate
48:50and collaboration becomes much easier
48:52now
48:53one last one i'll just touch on is there
48:56is nothing that kills
48:58innovation faster than slow bureaucratic
49:02powerpoint driven long-meeting
49:04decision-making processes
49:07and you can just imagine people
49:09particularly toward the bottom of the
49:10organization who say oh my god
49:12the head of the branch wants to know
49:14this fact it's nose is going to be bent
49:16out shape if they're not in the meeting
49:17and hr
49:18always has to be informed and the new
49:20guy's got 15 things i
49:22i mean it's mind numbing so what's the
49:24easiest
49:25so if you were to ask people in an
49:27organization to draw
49:28for you the flow chart of the decision
49:31making
49:32that they've faced if they draw anything
49:34that looks like this
49:38you've got a problem and the easiest way
49:43now the reason decision making is so
49:45hard in so many companies
49:46is because they're asked to make hard
49:48decisions right there
49:49oh it's a 50 million dollar bet it has
49:52all these risks there's all these
49:53constituencies involved it's a hard
49:56decision
49:56so what's the easiest way to make fast
49:59decisions have easy decisions to make
50:02so when bill johnson was trying the ceo
50:04of hines was trying to decide whether to
50:05build a world-class
50:07kitchen a research facility that
50:10took a lot of time and effort because a
50:11lot was involved you know how long it
50:13took him to improve the
50:15smooth sauce it took him 30 seconds
50:18terry and i were in the room when he
50:19approved 100 of these in a half hour
50:22why customer likes it saves money easier
50:25to make
50:26and everybody in the company is already
50:28lined up and says yes we should do that
50:30so by changing the definition of or the
50:33focus of what creativity should be about
50:36you can radically change the speed of
50:39decision making which becomes a virtuous
50:41cycle of reinforcing
50:43oh yeah i'll get in this game because
50:45something might actually happen
50:46so just to end
50:50maybe you should have been more clear
50:51when you told the employees that they
50:52should get more creative
50:54so with that um just to sum up we
50:57believe
50:58that the most unused asset in every
51:01organization are the talented people
51:03that are already
51:04there and if we change the nature of
51:06what we asked them to create about
51:08you can drive these huge numbers of
51:11ideas
51:12that cumulatively will have a greater
51:14effect on the entity
51:16than anything else they could be doing
51:18and i won't talk about now because i'm
51:20over time
51:21but during the q a we might be able to
51:22talk about well so how does that work in
51:24a knowledge worker
51:25setting such as a university thank you
51:29thank you very much thanks to all four
51:31panelists and
51:33we want to have opportunity for q a but
51:35before we do that i just want to give
51:36the panelists a chance to
51:38give its uh one another or disagree with
51:42uh anything that they heard one of their
51:44colleagues uh
51:45articulate any any takers
51:48sure so i i actually am struck by the
51:51common threads that flow through our
51:53respective comments we did not um tell
51:55each other what we were going to say in
51:56advance
51:57and you know given our very different
51:59context in which we operate the
52:02the importance of talent the opportunity
52:04that exists with every worker
52:06contributing to improve the core
52:08business the importance of decision
52:10making and nurturing a culture that
52:12fosters
52:12this um fast iteration i mean there's a
52:15lot of
52:16um tapping into the to different
52:18perspectives to unleash creativity
52:21i thought was an interesting amount of
52:23commonality across a set of
52:25conversations that
52:26um have very different contexts
52:30great um well let's i want to open it up
52:33for questions i
52:34i've been asked to kind of just
52:35reiterate a few ground rules first of
52:37all
52:37um jeremy's parents will not be able to
52:39hear the question
52:41unless you press the microphone
52:44button in front of you and and hold it
52:46down uh throughout your contribution so
52:48for our friends who are
52:50participating remotely if you do have a
52:52question uh
52:53please uh or comment uh please make it
52:56uh while you're holding down the uh the
52:59microphone button
53:00um questions you guys says gentlemen in
53:03the front please
53:06um very interesting questions or
53:08comments i
53:09i have um i guess a question about the
53:12implications of um of of the strategies
53:15that were described in the first two
53:17presentations
53:18for two items uh one is a career
53:22within the company okay uh which wasn't
53:25really
53:25something uh discussed what was focused
53:28on is sort of the cycle of innovation
53:30uh producing a particularly new product
53:32right
53:34but presumably the people in your
53:36organization are staying for a long time
53:39and i'm just wondering whether the
53:41concept of a career or the way
53:43careers are managed uh are different by
53:45as in as an implication of the approach
53:48that you take to innovation
53:49and perhaps the corollary to that does
53:51the approach have implications for
53:54how the organization describes and
53:56prepares
53:57people in positions that would normally
53:59be called management
54:05well i'll take the first one
54:09excuse me in terms of a career um i do
54:12think it's very different in some ways
54:14um than it was ten years ago first of
54:16all you know we're a much larger
54:18organization
54:19than we were ten years ago um
54:22i think the but what what that means
54:25in terms of uh within this
54:28kind of context of a rapidly rapidly
54:30changing digital environment and
54:32creative environment is
54:34in particular on the editorial side we
54:36have a lot of different points of entry
54:38and then we also have a lot of different
54:40ways
54:41to move people uh into
54:44either kind of experimental projects
54:46like go off
54:47and you know spend we have a one of our
54:50reporters who was covering
54:51the de blasio election uh who really
54:55wanted after that to try her hand at a
54:57new podcast so
54:58you know she we're giving her six months
55:00to do that the election's over she's
55:01doing that she's
55:02you know she and she's just uh herself
55:06and with others
55:07kind of seeding the idea in a lot of
55:10different existing places within the
55:12organization and then we're going to
55:13reassess in six months we we kind of
55:16wouldn't do that
55:17she loved it it's a way to give her
55:19visibility and a zone of kind of
55:21uh of of creativity um
55:24other people uh frankly have left the
55:26company but continue
55:27kind of uh you know being contributors
55:30uh
55:31doing freelance work and i think also
55:34there
55:34are ways to move up that there never
55:36were before or move around
55:39to because we need the skills
55:42of people who have been through the
55:44process of innovation
55:46to then lead and be the chief courage
55:47officers um
55:51are there other thoughts i can comment
55:53on the other part of the question
55:56well i want to just say in terms of
55:58careers when you're in a university a
55:59place like this
56:00you have this double thing going on
56:02where i've been here roughly 16 years
56:04now
56:05you have four academic full careers of
56:07eo college students at four years each
56:09in that time
56:10if you're in phd program you've got two
56:12maybe seven years stint so
56:14one of the interesting things about
56:15being a professor dean or director of
56:17museum or curator is that
56:18you're often here for a lot much longer
56:20period of time but a big part of
56:23the people you're engaging with and
56:24encouraging to learn and have ideas to
56:26participate in the institution or here
56:28their their quote career academically is
56:30short and then
56:31you want them to go out into the world
56:32and become leaders and take those
56:34attitudes and
56:35things with them and i think one of the
56:37most important functions we have
56:39in addition to encouraging that a good
56:41idea can come from anywhere
56:42in the organization which is something i
56:44was hearing strongly it can come from
56:46anyone in the staff from a
56:47you know a custodian on up to an
56:49undergraduate freshman and we have all
56:51of that represented now in the gallery
56:53but the notion of risk and failure is
56:55not something to be shied from
56:57anyone who goes to college or graduate
56:58school hasn't made some interesting
57:00mistakes is not going to lead a very
57:01interesting life and i
57:02always have to remind people that no one
57:04goes home in a body bag if you hang a
57:06painting poorly at the yale art gallery
57:09where your essay isn't perfect right so
57:11what are we afraid of in terms of risk
57:14you know in terms of letting people take
57:16some chances
57:17you know we don't fail in a certain
57:19sense if you roll out a product and
57:21really blow it
57:22the our investment is encouraging a kind
57:24of intellectual risk and
57:26imagination and curiosity that doesn't
57:28always lead to an immediate result
57:30but i don't know any time in my own
57:32career as an artist or any artist whose
57:34work i value where
57:35you haven't made mistakes in your studio
57:38that have led to your next breakthrough
57:39in your work
57:40you don't simply make success on the
57:42basis of success success success
57:45and that's a hard thing to sometimes
57:46drill home to people when they get to
57:48the top of these
57:49you know high-end universities that you
57:51know do some things here that allow you
57:53to take chances with things now that
57:55you're safely into
57:56this part of your your life and and then
57:58take that forward with you
58:00by the way mr heintz endowed both my
58:03position and the
58:05carnegie and i relish my job
58:09so just uh
58:13for the humorous yes yes yes yes
58:16so just one question on talent one of
58:18the things that our clients tell us
58:19after they've gone through one of these
58:20things
58:21is that they never realized how
58:22incredibly deep their bench was
58:25and the number of promotions that come
58:27out because
58:29somebody who is six levels below the ceo
58:31is now going toe-to-toe with the ceo and
58:33educating them
58:35and showing what they've got becomes a
58:37great calling card
58:39and it's a it's a very um energizing
58:41kind of experience from a career
58:44point of view did you want to yeah i
58:47just i just comment on the second
58:48part of your question around the
58:50management piece because something um
58:52something i think a lot of that a lot
58:54about because
58:55the challenge we have as an internet
58:57technology company at scale
58:59is how to how to grow leaders and
59:03we talked about this yesterday how to
59:04grow leaders who
59:06have the global general management scale
59:09skills
59:10and yet have an appreciation for the
59:12kind of
59:13product and technology innovation and an
59:15understanding of how to nurture it and
59:17foster it in the organization
59:19and if you look at the kinds of
59:22backgrounds that people
59:23in in managerial and leadership roles
59:25have
59:27they typically are on the former the
59:28global general management scale skills
59:30and typically don't have the latter this
59:33sort of
59:34product and technology experience or
59:36savvy
59:37and so it creates an imperative for
59:39leaders to really understand
59:41where innovation comes from whether
59:43which you know how to nurture it and
59:45foster it in the organization
59:46and it requires those of us in positions
59:49to think about
59:50succession to really pay attention not
59:52only to can you run a p
59:54l but can you create an environment
59:56that's going to create the innovation
59:59necessary to sustain the business going
1:00:01forward
1:00:03uh yes bryce
1:00:08yeah i wanted to pick up on one of the
1:00:10comments that was just made about
1:00:12creativity and accepting a level of risk
1:00:14because one of the things we commonly
1:00:16hear with innovation is
1:00:17fail early and often and laura you
1:00:19mentioned imperfection is
1:00:20authenticity but one of the things that
1:00:23we have in common here on this panel is
1:00:25leading organizations that are gold
1:00:28standard
1:00:29organizations that are regarded in a
1:00:31very specific way and
1:00:33in some ways i can imagine innovation is
1:00:35more difficult because people have
1:00:36higher expectations it's not just
1:00:37because they're larger
1:00:38your correct more bureaucratic
1:00:40organizations but because people's
1:00:42understanding of what
1:00:43it means to be npr or each of these
1:00:45brands is becomes
1:00:47crystallized and so i wonder
1:00:50to hear i wanted to hear your thoughts
1:00:51on how you think about creativity and
1:00:54accepting that level of risk and pushing
1:00:56the envelope and trying things new
1:00:58um while working for these organizations
1:01:00that people see in a very
1:01:02certain way
1:01:05you know i guess it's a really good
1:01:07question and
1:01:09i think when you're operating in this
1:01:12kind of environment at least for us
1:01:14it's made us
1:01:17be even more intentional
1:01:20about the kind of errors we're not going
1:01:22to make we're not going to make the
1:01:24error
1:01:24of uh you know reporting
1:01:28the sandy hook disaster
1:01:31wrongly if we can help it we're not
1:01:34going to go to air too soon
1:01:35we hold even though our competitors will
1:01:39you know so we we talk a lot about that
1:01:41what will we do what won't we do
1:01:43what how do you use i mean one of the
1:01:45big issues in journalism right now
1:01:47is how you use listener comments and you
1:01:50know
1:01:50listener reports and and so it forces
1:01:54the
1:01:54the kind of discussions about i mean so
1:01:57you're not going to live with that kind
1:02:00of imperfection if you can help it and
1:02:02you're going to
1:02:04spend a lot of time thinking about where
1:02:06those bright lines are on the other hand
1:02:09you're not gonna have we we've decided
1:02:12you know like it was way way more
1:02:15important to get our reporting and hats
1:02:18on the air at 1002
1:02:21on you know with the christy emails he
1:02:24had had 20 minutes to read them
1:02:26he felt comfortable we weren't going to
1:02:28produce a whole piece
1:02:29so the imperfection of kind of what live
1:02:32radio
1:02:32sounds like is something that we live
1:02:34with much more and so
1:02:36it's it's an intro it's a really
1:02:37interesting question i mean the
1:02:39the you know if we would have produced
1:02:42we're now working on a big healthy
1:02:43health uh kind of thing we are
1:02:46we're piloting pieces um and some of
1:02:50them are good and some of them are bad
1:02:51they're not so good we're not doing a
1:02:55one hour
1:02:56excuse me we're not doing a one hour
1:02:58thing and
1:02:59that we have to do every week and uh
1:03:03has to be perfect we're we're living
1:03:05with that kind of imperfection
1:03:07so we we take a slightly different
1:03:08perspective on this which is that
1:03:11i want to say a myth exactly but there's
1:03:13a myth that big
1:03:15results require big risk
1:03:19because we're already doing all the
1:03:22low risk things that would already be
1:03:24done so you know pushing the envelope
1:03:26requires this risk
1:03:27but in fact there's a huge amount of
1:03:29low-hanging fruit
1:03:31that's risk-free it's just not generally
1:03:34as sexy
1:03:35and as cool and as you know
1:03:38right so if you if you're on the ipad
1:03:41team
1:03:42obviously the ceo loves you and if
1:03:43you're on the big dice tomato team
1:03:46you know there must be a problem
1:03:49so so the goal is in fact
1:03:52not to push risk for the most part but
1:03:55to find all those things that aren't
1:03:56risky
1:03:57even if they're less sexy let me jump in
1:04:00and say one of the things you also do
1:04:02sometimes whether it's in profit or
1:04:03non-profit businesses is look beyond
1:04:05yourself to
1:04:06other institutions you respect and like
1:04:08and want to help and in the sense
1:04:10you want to create almost a generous
1:04:11more gift economy between the two and
1:04:14we've always modeled and greatly admired
1:04:16public radio whether it's connecticut
1:04:17public radio national public radio so
1:04:20a very low hanging piece of fruit for us
1:04:2215 years ago was to go to them and say
1:04:24we have a very small pub publicity
1:04:26budget but we think most of our
1:04:28visitors right now in this area are
1:04:30listening to connecticut public radio
1:04:32we'd like to give you all of our
1:04:33money for basically a lot of it to just
1:04:36just mention our programs not so much
1:04:38ads but we were part of sort of getting
1:04:40that whole thing going that you now see
1:04:41everywhere
1:04:42people just mention their names that
1:04:44what that did has made a lot of our
1:04:45donors happy because we were circulating
1:04:47a non-profit dollar twice
1:04:49in the community at the same time
1:04:51support for the national endowment for
1:04:53the arts and the humanities and
1:04:54everything we're being knocked down in
1:04:55congress and
1:04:56making it a much more scarcity
1:04:58environment for non-profits
1:05:00more recently we just went we said why
1:05:02are we we're an institution that's
1:05:03completely free to the public we don't
1:05:05charge twenty-five
1:05:06dollars at ticket lines and everything
1:05:08to get in the lr gallery
1:05:09why are we even having a paid membership
1:05:11program which we had because we're
1:05:12basically giving it all away free anyway
1:05:14except for a discount on our books
1:05:16we just went to a free membership
1:05:18program based on your idea
1:05:20we're getting i think it's jessica what
1:05:21is it three or four times the income
1:05:23we've
1:05:23since july that we got before because
1:05:26people like the idea that this
1:05:28institution is offering this freedom and
1:05:30and and we don't have to do a whole
1:05:31pledge week but now we just
1:05:33anyone can sign up for a free membership
1:05:35and you'll get maybe a letter or two
1:05:36during the year to say if you like what
1:05:38we're doing just send us whatever amount
1:05:40you want
1:05:41total risk-free low-hanging fruit so and
1:05:44and those ideas crop up from
1:05:45again different people throughout the
1:05:47institution who are watching these
1:05:49things as well as how we watch
1:05:51each other in the field and i just i
1:05:53just had one comment because
1:05:55in my um former life experience i i
1:05:58completely agree with what jeremy has
1:06:00said there's
1:06:01remarkable opportunity for innovation
1:06:03and performance improvement
1:06:06through tapping into the knowledge of
1:06:08all the workers and
1:06:09organizations i think i think our
1:06:12organization
1:06:13is kind of the poster child for the
1:06:15question that you asked around
1:06:17being you know a big globally recognized
1:06:20leading brand
1:06:22that has a global technology platform so
1:06:25if you tweak it
1:06:26you are impacting you know over 100
1:06:28million users at one moment in time
1:06:30and so what i would say is that and so
1:06:33that can
1:06:34um so if you want to innovate in that
1:06:36context two of the biggest derailers for
1:06:38innovation
1:06:39would be fear and lack of trust
1:06:43and to the extent that the organization
1:06:45is afraid
1:06:46and does not have very high levels of
1:06:48trust
1:06:49that will kill innovation for the
1:06:51reasons that were embedded in in your
1:06:53question
1:06:54and so we work really hard to make sure
1:06:57that
1:06:57trust levels are high and it's kind of
1:06:59an interesting area of focus for our
1:07:01company because of course our entire
1:07:02business model is based on
1:07:04a high level of trust because the
1:07:06business itself couldn't
1:07:07exist and so trust is something that we
1:07:09focus a lot on we
1:07:11measure we survey our employees around
1:07:13trust and leadership
1:07:15and we work explicitly and deliberately
1:07:18to increase
1:07:18levels of trust in leadership because we
1:07:21know that with higher levels of trust
1:07:23amongst many things that that benefits
1:07:25it also benefits innovation
1:07:27and so we work very hard for exactly the
1:07:29reason that was underpinning your
1:07:30question to make sure
1:07:32that the trust is high and that the fear
1:07:34of failure is low
1:07:37thank you gentlemen in the second to the
1:07:40last row hi
1:07:42thank you for uh presenting i was
1:07:45wondering if you could talk about you
1:07:46talked a lot about
1:07:47employee and tapping in the employee to
1:07:49get innovation out
1:07:51but i was wondering if you could talk
1:07:52about how you could use customers
1:07:54uh to tap innovation as well uh
1:07:56particularly laura you have come to our
1:07:58innovator class
1:07:59and i was wondering how you take those
1:08:01suggestions and how you use them
1:08:03yeah so the innovator class i was i was
1:08:06delighted to be invited by rodrigo
1:08:08uh to come to the innovator class uh in
1:08:11april and
1:08:12and even more delighted to report that
1:08:15some of the suggestions that came out of
1:08:17that innovator class we are using and
1:08:19are working um and so it it was a great
1:08:23opportunity we went went to the
1:08:25innovator class
1:08:26we were about we were thinking hard
1:08:28about how do we
1:08:30try to raise digital membership through
1:08:32podcasts through downloadable audio and
1:08:35and in particular around freakonomics
1:08:37radio which we were about to start
1:08:39and there was a a great um
1:08:42suggestion around some branding stuff
1:08:44that we're implementing
1:08:46there was uh very clear suggestions
1:08:49around
1:08:50uh which seemed obvious when you think
1:08:53about it afterwards but was
1:08:54really brilliant i mean do you have to
1:08:58ask for the membership it would be great
1:09:01to ask for
1:09:02membership in a very freakonomics way it
1:09:04has to be very much
1:09:05and boy is that show you know perfectly
1:09:08uh
1:09:09you know designed to be to to kind of
1:09:11talk about as steven
1:09:13uh did when he uh did his spot or one of
1:09:16his spots was uh
1:09:17about how um it is just totally
1:09:21irrational to give money for something
1:09:23uh you get for free why would you do
1:09:25this and brought the
1:09:26the listener through kind of uh you know
1:09:29from
1:09:30a kind of rational understanding of that
1:09:32to you know
1:09:33why why people do things that are
1:09:35irrational like give money and then and
1:09:37we saw that really
1:09:38really work but the bigger question
1:09:41there are probably others that can
1:09:42can speak it is a huge you know kind of
1:09:45opportunity to
1:09:46to treat your customers more as partners
1:09:48who are helping you
1:09:49and beta testing and and opening things
1:09:52up and asking people
1:09:54um when people think you're really
1:09:56asking
1:09:57for advice uh and to be part of the
1:09:59process they're incredibly generous yeah
1:10:02i'd like to follow up and say that when
1:10:03we were doing the programming for the
1:10:04renovation of our three buildings we
1:10:06spent
1:10:06quite a bit of time inviting student
1:10:08focus groups to meet with our
1:10:10our architecture and planning committee
1:10:12to give us advice and
1:10:13and three of their suggestions were
1:10:15incredibly important
1:10:16they one of the things they said is turn
1:10:18the whole first floor of the con
1:10:19building into a really welcoming lobby
1:10:21that's more like a large living room
1:10:23where we can all come and meet up with
1:10:24each other our friends and
1:10:26parents and otherwise and go off into
1:10:27the museum from there make that
1:10:29no longer a gallery but this this this
1:10:32different kind of place
1:10:33they also said expand the gallery guide
1:10:35program greatly so that
1:10:37students are there from all of the 12
1:10:39residential colleges
1:10:40and and we all attend each other's plays
1:10:43our sporting events etc if you drive
1:10:45that program
1:10:45more deeply into the residential life
1:10:47you'll get many more students
1:10:49and then another thing that was so
1:10:50logical why we hadn't figured out stay
1:10:52open until eight o'clock on thursday
1:10:53night because a lot of people can't you
1:10:55know get here between
1:10:5610 in the morning and five and on the
1:10:58weekend they're doing other things
1:10:59they're traveling you know extend your
1:11:00hours
1:11:01i mean the list goes on and on but you
1:11:02know i mean these things are right under
1:11:04our nose
1:11:05you know and you could just rattle
1:11:06through a whole list of these things and
1:11:08you know i could spend a lot of time
1:11:09telling you of other examples but
1:11:11you know not to listen to your customers
1:11:13or your core constituents is a really
1:11:15foolish thing
1:11:16i'll just give two examples so we um in
1:11:19the core ebay business
1:11:20have something we call voices voices um
1:11:23our cohorts of ebay users that we
1:11:25literally invite in we fly them in and
1:11:28um
1:11:28and ask them just ask them questions
1:11:31about their experiences
1:11:32how their businesses are doing what do
1:11:34they need what would improve the
1:11:35performance of their business and we do
1:11:36that with multiple
1:11:37cohorts that come through that program
1:11:40on the paypal side we have
1:11:42something that has a similar name voice
1:11:43of the customer
1:11:45which is the purpose of it is to
1:11:48improve our performance on behalf of
1:11:51customers
1:11:52so we actually we have major as you
1:11:54might imagine customer support and
1:11:55operations organizations
1:11:57we record calls that we think are
1:11:59particularly um poignant in
1:12:01in in a customer describing a particular
1:12:04pain point
1:12:05and then we play those for employees we
1:12:07all have access to them we have a number
1:12:09we can dial into and just listen to
1:12:11um recorded calls from customers to help
1:12:14identify specific areas that we need to
1:12:16get better and then
1:12:17that information from from
1:12:20voice of the customer actually gets put
1:12:22into a pareto diagram that says okay
1:12:24here are the biggest pain points
1:12:26that we can address and then one by one
1:12:28that we just start
1:12:29addressing them so just to
1:12:32oh sorry no go ahead just to add this so
1:12:35listening to customers in
1:12:37for example literally their calls is a
1:12:39tremendous thing to do
1:12:40but just to be a little contrarian henry
1:12:44ford famously said
1:12:45if i had asked my customers what they
1:12:47wanted they would have said faster
1:12:48horses
1:12:50yeah so you already
1:12:54tend to have we do this thing called
1:12:57customer journey but we don't have
1:12:58customers involved in doing it
1:13:00we get employees to figure out where
1:13:03along their interactions with the
1:13:04customer are they
1:13:05probably causing pain and you know what
1:13:07they know
1:13:08you know if you're yelled at you pretty
1:13:10much know something's not good
1:13:12so the trick isn't sort of getting a new
1:13:14source of information the trick is using
1:13:16all the information that people tend to
1:13:18know
1:13:18and at least get through that punch list
1:13:21though
1:13:21i will say listening into calls makes
1:13:23things much more visceral
1:13:25and people take it much more seriously
1:13:27than the same information on a
1:13:28spreadsheet
1:13:29which goes yeah okay fine we're 32 out
1:13:31of 39.
1:13:32let's move on and i'm dying to know yes
1:13:34i'm dying to know what this woman well
1:13:36now she's given up
1:13:37no no she hasn't you're all right i
1:13:38figured three times was enough right
1:13:40right as a good consultant i know for
1:13:42sure yeah i
1:13:44am pressing good so um
1:13:47most companies i suspect are not as
1:13:50courageous
1:13:50or as innovative as yours and
1:13:54in my experience there are still many
1:13:56executives
1:13:57who feel that creativity and innovation
1:13:59happens away from the workplace
1:14:01so they want to get people away for off
1:14:03sites they want to do
1:14:05brainstorming sessions you know they
1:14:06don't know why the big ideas
1:14:09aren't happening so i'm curious if you
1:14:11could sort of
1:14:12comment on that and
1:14:15in your comments perhaps embed how you
1:14:18would start to shift
1:14:19that thinking if you think it needs to
1:14:21be shifted
1:14:22away from that idea that the only way to
1:14:25actually be creative and innovative
1:14:27is to unplug yourself from the work
1:14:28itself
1:14:31well i i should tell you that two of my
1:14:32three governing board chairs don't
1:14:34believe in these kind of strategic repo
1:14:37retreats and planning they think change
1:14:39needs to be a dynamic daily
1:14:41thing within the institution and that's
1:14:43how they manage very large successful
1:14:45businesses
1:14:46and i have other colleagues who've
1:14:49suggested the other and we've tried to
1:14:50blend a bit of both into the
1:14:52the culture we've created but you know
1:14:54that's the other thing we haven't talked
1:14:55at all if any of you
1:14:56are curious about the relationship of of
1:14:58trustees or
1:15:00corporate you know advisors and members
1:15:01to us versus you know hired consultants
1:15:04but you know
1:15:05one of the other huge beneficiaries of
1:15:09to us of knowledge are there the
1:15:10volunteer members of our governing board
1:15:12who bring their knowledge to
1:15:14back to yale and share it much as these
1:15:16three alums are doing today
1:15:18you know and how do you harvest that
1:15:19knowledge and put it in play
1:15:23so i not surprisingly i completely agree
1:15:26that
1:15:27lots of companies think they're already
1:15:29doing good
1:15:30enough right well enough that
1:15:34it must be that the ideas aren't flowing
1:15:35because they need to do something else
1:15:37very different like go off site and so
1:15:39forth and
1:15:40uh frankly it's incredibly hard to
1:15:42change it you know po the famous
1:15:44cartoon of pogo was we've met the enemy
1:15:46and they is us
1:15:48it's very hard to get organizations who
1:15:50aren't already don't already have the
1:15:52predilection to believe this right we
1:15:53run to a lot of ceos who do actually
1:15:55already believe that they're not tapping
1:15:57the talent they have
1:15:58but those who don't believe it it's
1:15:59really hard to change it's easier to
1:16:01change the ceo than to change their mind
1:16:04uh of
1:16:08i'm just saying um
1:16:12but one one thing that you know can be
1:16:14done is you can
1:16:15run little kinds of pilots and little
1:16:17kinds of examples and so forth
1:16:19to show those leaders that something
1:16:22spectacular doesn't happen
1:16:24you just have to behave differently you
1:16:26know when we worked for the
1:16:28ceo of pnc who's very successful guy
1:16:33we told him the morning that he was
1:16:34going to hear all these ideas from his
1:16:36teams that
1:16:36he was going to hear a lot of ideas that
1:16:38his reaction was going to be
1:16:40to leap across the table throttle the
1:16:42person say
1:16:43why haven't you fixed this already and
1:16:45we said don't do that the first time you
1:16:47do that
1:16:48you'll never hear another idea just sit
1:16:49on your hands and smile and say thank
1:16:51you
1:16:52and he did that and at the end of the
1:16:53day he said that was the best piece of
1:16:56advice i've ever been given when you
1:16:57gave it to me i thought you were being a
1:16:58little patronizing frankly
1:17:01but it turned out i did have a hard time
1:17:03not leaping across the table but by not
1:17:05doing that
1:17:06i did see all this stuff so one way
1:17:09is to make people see a little piece of
1:17:12it at least
1:17:13because intellectually people who aren't
1:17:14already of that mind
1:17:16it's really hard to get them to change
1:17:19and i i just add that i um you know i
1:17:21think uh
1:17:23off sites can be useful forms for
1:17:25getting senior leaders aligned
1:17:26i would not be my forum of choice for
1:17:29fostering
1:17:30creativity or creative ideas i think
1:17:32that um
1:17:34i think a starting point though is there
1:17:37has to be
1:17:38some level of curiosity or or awareness
1:17:41that there is some untapped potential in
1:17:42the organization
1:17:44and the kind of the kind of creativity
1:17:47that jeremy's talked about in that his
1:17:49firm does
1:17:50is an enormous source of untapped
1:17:52potential
1:17:53for performance improvement in many many
1:17:55many companies
1:17:57and all you have to do is just recognize
1:17:59the very simple idea
1:18:00that the people who do the work every
1:18:02day know what needs to be changed
1:18:04and you just have to ask them and it's
1:18:06it's a very simple notion but
1:18:08sometimes we miss the obvious um and so
1:18:11some curiosity around that some
1:18:13awareness of that and then
1:18:15obviously you need some tools to help
1:18:17enable it to happen
1:18:19but it starts with the curiosity and the
1:18:21awareness that there is an untapped
1:18:23opportunity in the organization
1:18:25one little story comes by the way there
1:18:27was a ceo who's doing offsite with about
1:18:2940 of his top folks and normally they
1:18:31did a fancy dinner that nobody actually
1:18:33really liked but it was in the hotel
1:18:35astoji so
1:18:36in order to use this offsite as a way to
1:18:39sort of
1:18:41instigate this idea of i'm sure there's
1:18:43a way we can have more fun for less
1:18:44money
1:18:45right how can we do better more
1:18:47efficiently he set up a little contest
1:18:50for ideas about what could replace that
1:18:52dinner and so people started thinking
1:18:54about what's the lo what's the dr
1:18:56diners drive-in uh dive dive
1:18:59you know totally unique totally fun cool
1:19:02thing
1:19:04of that locale and it would save us a
1:19:06ton of money and we'd enjoy it more and
1:19:07they ended up picking one of those and
1:19:09doing that
1:19:10so he actually used this sort of retreat
1:19:11not as a
1:19:13fancy though he did give an ipad to
1:19:16everybody so
1:19:18that might have undermined a little um i
1:19:21think this is really
1:19:22an interesting example of where um
1:19:25some some sort of non-obvious things
1:19:27come out of combining a couple of
1:19:29obvious things so um if you you know if
1:19:32you take the
1:19:33precept that customers can have enormous
1:19:36insights that can help
1:19:37you know create new opportunity and if
1:19:40you take the precept that says
1:19:42um you know innovation can come from
1:19:44anywhere within the organization
1:19:47and you combine those it seems like a
1:19:48thing that would follow from that pretty
1:19:50clearly is
1:19:50you'd like to really maximize the extent
1:19:52to which employees
1:19:54are engaged with customers and um you
1:19:56know i think a lot of organizations
1:19:58um view the the customer facing aspect
1:20:02of roles as kind of given you know if
1:20:04you're in marketing then you're customer
1:20:05facing if you're
1:20:06technical you're not but you know as
1:20:08josh pointed out um
1:20:10the people that guard you know museums
1:20:12and libraries i worked at an
1:20:14unnamed uh institution where it was
1:20:16clear the librarians
1:20:18viewed their job as protecting the books
1:20:20from misuse
1:20:21by my faculty and students i mean
1:20:25whether people view their job as
1:20:26protecting the assets
1:20:28or enhancing the experience of customers
1:20:30is something that you can actually
1:20:32have a pretty powerful impact on yeah
1:20:34absolutely
1:20:36um yes down in the front please
1:20:39um can you talk about how this applies
1:20:41in other cultural situations did the
1:20:44whole
1:20:45som move to globalization if any of
1:20:47you've had experience in
1:20:49creating innovation in cultures that
1:20:51might be different than the us
1:20:52model well one thing i find very
1:20:56interesting is stephen breyer the
1:20:58supreme court justice who's involved
1:21:00with bringing supreme court justices
1:21:01from other countries to yale to talk
1:21:03together about
1:21:04law he often when he brings this group
1:21:06to campus every
1:21:07couple years they come first to the art
1:21:09museum and they walk around
1:21:11because they all come from different
1:21:12countries and cultures and the first
1:21:13thing they do is talk about the kinds of
1:21:15things that were made in each other's
1:21:16cultures
1:21:17and that he uses that as the icebreaker
1:21:20to then
1:21:21start then these deeper discussions and
1:21:23it's a relaxed way to introduce it i was
1:21:24astounded when he first came our way
1:21:26that
1:21:27way this was quite a number of years ago
1:21:29and if things like that are what make
1:21:31you realize that there are many
1:21:32different ways to use even something as
1:21:34like an art museum collection you'd
1:21:36never think of that well how does that
1:21:38you know help the law school and his
1:21:40program but
1:21:41particularly as yale's become a more
1:21:42global institution the use of the
1:21:44collection
1:21:45and the ability for students people to
1:21:47come here to see themselves and their
1:21:48culture in those collections which why
1:21:50it's important that the collections are
1:21:51now global in scope and range
1:21:53couldn't be more important if you come
1:21:56if you'd come to a place like andover
1:21:57before it was co-ed and all you ever saw
1:21:59was paintings by male artists when the
1:22:01place had gone co-ed and is now 23
1:22:03students of color which is similar to
1:22:05yale you'd be disappointed after a while
1:22:08so that gets back to this notion that
1:22:09the artwork or the creative talent of
1:22:11what's in the institution itself needs
1:22:13to be
1:22:14reflective and informative of the people
1:22:16who are here so that becomes another
1:22:18responsibility of
1:22:19curators faculty board members donors
1:22:22who can participate in that that too has
1:22:24been a wonderful part of
1:22:26what we've worked on in the arts area
1:22:28with our colleagues here
1:22:30and just to add um so um the
1:22:33the the mechanisms that we use to foster
1:22:36innovation do have to be culturally
1:22:37relevant and and sensitive
1:22:39and in our business that has a couple of
1:22:41different um aspects because
1:22:44um we're a u.s based global company that
1:22:47has a
1:22:48um for the most part a single global
1:22:50platform so
1:22:51it so people in other parts of the world
1:22:53aren't free in most parts of the world
1:22:55to just make changes
1:22:56and innovate because that's to come back
1:22:58to the global platform
1:23:00and so um but we have some a few markets
1:23:02where they are on their own platform so
1:23:04for example one of our biggest markets
1:23:05is korea
1:23:06and they have their own platform so they
1:23:08can innovate within
1:23:09within their organization within their
1:23:11geography and within their own cultural
1:23:13context that's quite independent of the
1:23:16rest of the company
1:23:18and one example i'll give you of um so
1:23:21so korea can do their own thing and it's
1:23:22entirely culturally relevant because
1:23:24it's within their cultural context
1:23:26but an example of innovation actually
1:23:28not technology innovation but um on the
1:23:30hr side we're in the process of
1:23:31rethinking our approach to performance
1:23:33management
1:23:34and so we've you know collected a lot of
1:23:36information that um
1:23:37from colleagues in the in the us but
1:23:39wanted to get a european perspective in
1:23:41that
1:23:42and so um so somebody um
1:23:45somebody in europe was tasked to pull
1:23:48together a group of people
1:23:50who would basically create
1:23:53new possibilities for how we could do
1:23:56performance management for the company
1:23:58the what i did to kick it off though to
1:24:01i would say um give permission
1:24:05to it and to invite it was i i kicked it
1:24:07off by saying
1:24:08i welcome it and that was actually very
1:24:10important because i am the owner of
1:24:12performance management for the company
1:24:14and and we felt it was really important
1:24:16for people to understand that i welcomed
1:24:19what could be perceived as the criticism
1:24:21of the current performance management
1:24:23approach that the team would be
1:24:25required to to bring forth and then i
1:24:28did
1:24:29a i basically um did a video conference
1:24:31with them and let them each pitch their
1:24:33ideas each of the teams that the little
1:24:35teams that came up with ideas
1:24:36invited them to pitch the ideas directly
1:24:38to me to to reinforce the message
1:24:41that i welcomed that that i welcomed the
1:24:44change because
1:24:45particularly you know a bunch of people
1:24:46from the uk who would not naturally
1:24:48necessarily be so direct as to say
1:24:50here's what i think you should change
1:24:51but i really wanted them to feel like
1:24:53they were welcome to do that so there
1:24:55are things that we can do with some
1:24:56cultural sensitivity that really
1:24:58invite people to innovate within the
1:25:00context of the multiple
1:25:02cultural contexts in which they operate
1:25:05so when we did this kind of work for
1:25:07manpower which is global
1:25:10company and even though it's a u.s based
1:25:12company most of their business is
1:25:14outside the u.s
1:25:15and it grew up by buying companies all
1:25:17around the world so those companies tend
1:25:19to be
1:25:20local in nature with a very sort of
1:25:23light touch from the u.s
1:25:25we would hold these uh um executive
1:25:28meetings in paris with the video
1:25:30conferencing going on so that we'd walk
1:25:32around the world
1:25:33as each country would report in uh
1:25:36throughout the day which meant some
1:25:37people were
1:25:38very late at night um and what we at
1:25:41least have found of in the kind of work
1:25:44that i talked about was there's almost
1:25:46no difference
1:25:47country to country or culture to culture
1:25:49at the at least at the level we're
1:25:50talking
1:25:51i'm not saying the cultures aren't
1:25:52different i'm saying the nature of the
1:25:54specific
1:25:54kind of work that problem solving is the
1:25:57same
1:25:59same kind of human behaviors right
1:26:01people work better under deadline
1:26:02same kind of fears that if they go to
1:26:05their boss and say hey good news i just
1:26:06found out i've been wasting money
1:26:08over the last five years and i could
1:26:09have easily prevented that
1:26:11that's usually not that's usually not
1:26:13considered good news in any culture
1:26:18so we haven't found it to be very
1:26:20culturally specific
1:26:22but but uh doing what you just talked
1:26:24about which is having the leadership
1:26:25directly involved that's essential
1:26:30because that's saying i mean it
1:26:33and i'm gonna show you with my body
1:26:36language and
1:26:36my words what i really think
1:26:40and not through some email you know that
1:26:42you get so
1:26:43i've been informed by our dean that my
1:26:45job security is in jeopardy
1:26:47this clock counts down below zero zero
1:26:49so unfortunately
1:26:50oh and i have another story
1:26:56so i'd like to first thank our panelists
1:26:59certainly creativity and talent
1:27:10if uh if managing creative talent were
1:27:12as easy and pleasurable as it's been
1:27:14dealing with the four of you then
1:27:15we wouldn't have needed this panel but
1:27:17um so i want to thank the four of you
1:27:19i'd like to thank all of you
1:27:20uh for participating uh and uh
1:27:23we are now officially adjourned thank
1:27:26you
1:27:28very nice great thank you thank you that
1:27:31was awesome
1:27:31thank you that's really a lot of fun it
1:27:33was really funny it was a lot of fun
1:27:35talking with all of you
1:27:36i say we do it again next week yeah
1:27:39that was great thank you you would have
1:27:41you would have thought there was a
1:27:42method here
1:27:42yeah thank you so much
1:27:50usually one harbors tremendous
1:27:52stereotypes
1:27:53yeah yeah people are people yeah very
1:27:56very similar right
1:27:58ben where is there's a lunch for panels
1:28:00oh yeah

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of Managing Creative Talent by Yale School of Management, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 15,725 words across 2,690 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.