Midnight Lunch Book Preview
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Without collaboration, innovation stalls. "Midnight lunch" was the unique practice Thomas Edison used to power collaboration within his innovation colossus. True collaboration has four phases: Capacity, Context, Coherence, and Complexity. Learn how to apply them in the digital era!
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Midnight Lunch Book Preview
- 2. Book Overview Midnight Lunch offers a vision for how collaboration teams can operate today Collaboration serves as the backbone, the sinews, the ligaments that allow innovation to advance, not stall out Collaboration enabled Thomas Edison’s innovation colossus to flourish. Midnight Lunch reveals how you can use collaboration to power innovation success in the digital era
- 3. Gravity Gravity is a unique and pervasive force in the universe Though it holds the power to shape planets, stars, and solar systems, we often take gravity for granted It operates in the background
- 4. Collaboration Like gravity, collaboration is a force that constantly surrounds us, yet is rarely noticed Like gravity, collaboration is a subtle yet pervasive force that lies at the heart of what shapes teams and organizations
- 5. But now, our understanding of collaboration is changing. It can no longer be a background force... …Collaboration is about to take Center Stage
- 6. One Billion in One Decade Between 2010 and 2020, a record 1 billion working-age adults will enter the global workforce Uniquely, a majority of this new workforce will have access to mobile phones and smart devices This combination of people and technology will set in motion a wave of collaboration unprecedented in human history
- 7. Future Factors Three factors will differentiate companies and governments that thrive in the coming era: 1) staying relevant 2) innovating 3) attracting and retaining talent Collaboration is essential to all three To thrive in this newly collaborative environment – often dubbed the Innovation Age – individuals and organizations must re-skill themselves to align with these three mandates, or fade into irrelevance
- 8. Challenge How can we create the foundations for collaboration to thrive, especially in our digital era? What can we do to nourish collaboration as a central force in our organizations now, harnessing it in a way that creates value?
- 9. Starting Point We can look to the revolutionary practices of Thomas Edison – one of the world’s greatest innovators – for collaboration approaches that can be translated for the digital era… indeed, the Innovation Age
- 10. Pioneer Thomas Edison pioneered 6 industries in less than 35 years… All 6 of these industries remain in existence today: a feat which has yet to Document duplication…1873 be repeated Telecommunications…1876 Recorded sound…1877 Incandescent electric light and power…1879 Motion pictures…1897 Portable power…1903
- 11. Impact As of 1910, the patents and industries Edison and his teams established were valued at $6.7 billion, or roughly $100 billion today The ripple effect of Edison’s innovations since his lifetime exceeds $1,000,000,000,000 globally
- 12. Learning There is a great deal we can learn from Edison about value creation By studying the core components of his collaboration methods, we can translate them for the 21st century
- 13. True Collaboration True Collaboration Edison could not have created billions of dollars in market value without the power of “true collaboration.” “When you honor me, you are also honoring the vast army of workers but for whom my work would have gone for nothing.” - Thomas Edison
- 14. More than Teamwork Collaboration is not the same thing as teamwork. Teamwork involves just “doing your part” Collaboration involves engaging the unique strengths of each team participant, creating a multiplying force…not just an additive one
- 15. Knowledge Assets True collaboration creates knowledge assets These knowledge assets can be reshaped and reconfigured over time…yielding a sustaining engine for value creation, and innovation
- 16. Collaboration is a Continuum For Edison, true collaboration operates as a continuum, not a stop-start process True collaboration balances discovery learning and performance. It moves beyond tasks.
- 17. Edison’s Four Phases Let’s examine Thomas Edison’s Four Phases of True Collaboration™, and identify how each phase can be applied now…in the Innovation Age CAPACITY Assemble small teams of 2 to 8 people Ensure each team includes a diversity of expertise, talents, and thinking styles.
- 18. Midnight Lunch Edison created invisible glue between the employees on these small collaboration teams through a process his Menlo Park workers called “midnight lunch”
- 19. Making of a Midnight Lunch After a full workday, Edison would sometimes return to the lab after dinner with his family, and check in on key experiments that were taking place He encouraged others who stayed late to share their experiments with each other, and exchange their expertise At 9 pm, after roughly 2 hours of dialogue, Edison ordered in food and beverages for everyone from a local tavern
- 20. Employees Become Colleagues The assembled cadre of workers hung out with Edison for about an hour to eat, sing songs, tell stories, and play musical instruments They called this “midnight lunch.” After midnight lunch, everyone went back to work until the wee hours of the morning Through midnight lunches, Edison transformed employees into colleagues. Colleagues feel part of a larger whole. They feel connected beyond social standing or education
- 21. Phase Two CONTEXT Edison was rarely content accepting things as they were, preferring to change the playing field entirely, or improve what already existed to deliver new value Edison savored the creation of new context for working and thinking. Through collaboration, he asked different questions than his competitors did, yielding breakthrough insights and unique experiments
- 22. Analogical Thinking In Phase 2, instead of brainstorming, Edison’s collaboration teams employed analogical thinking… the process of comparing two things that seem unlike and identifying how they are alike This activates the brain’s innate creating centers, yielding fruitful questions, experiments and patterns In creating context, Edison also triumphed through the development of prototypes, which provide physical and visual feedback to the brain, and enable rapid learning cycles
- 23. Casual Discussion In Phase 2 Edison also embraced casual discussion…a means for the brain to organize and reorganize concepts without locking down on them too soon This helps create new scenarios without a concern for “being right” or looking foolish Through casual conversations, individuals are encouraged to contribute their best stuff, and not hold unique knowledge in reserve
- 24. Phase Three COHERENCE Physicist David Bohm describes coherence as “sharing a common content.” It is an organic rather than a static force Coherence can be present even if there is some “noise” in the environment
- 25. Coherence and Inspiration Coherence enables teams to stay together and remain functional even when there is disagreement, or when obstacles arise Just as we experience today, in Edison’s time resource constraints often strain the coherence of a team Inspirational leadership is a key factor which helps collaboration teams continue to move forward
- 26. New Definitions of Progress Inspirational leaders like Edison, or Steve Jobs, help teams see the big picture. They lay out a vision of where they’re headed even if the road to achieving it seems uncertain Edison helped teams define how progress could be gauged New definitions of progress are emerging today as Generation Y enters the workforce. Creating measures of progress that motivate your entire team is essential
- 27. Grooming New Leaders Edison served as a catalyst for inspirational leaders to arise in his labs as well as his factories Edison also provided shoulder-to- shoulder leadership by sharing insights, stories, and helping to synthesize the knowledge assets from one team with another In developing coherence, Edison uniquely groomed new leaders and cross-trained his workers
- 28. Phase Four COMPLEXITY As never before, manmade complex systems surround us in daily life. Examples include familiar systems like the Stock Market and the Internet But now, we have new manmade systems like social networks, and realtime data gathering from smart devices, driving new forms of complexity Edison viewed complex systems as a central part of collaboration and innovation. Rather than running from complexity, he embraced it
- 29. Teams as Complex Systems By drawing from different disciplines, each small team Edison formed represented a complex adaptive system Each of Edison’s collaboration teams included all three facets which define complexity as we know it today: 1. Multiplicity – the number of potentially interacting elements in a system 2. Interdependence – the level of connection among the elements in the system 3. Diversity - the degree of uniqueness or heterogeneity of elements in the system
- 30. Smart Layers Rather than Hierarchies Edison built his teams in smart layers rather than as hierarchies. This allowed collaboration to operate more rapidly and be productive – even without computers Smart layers engage rapid research, analysis, and synthesis Today, we can turn to social networks and digital technologies as tools to navigate complexity inherent in collaboration, and innovation.
- 31. Conclusion By engaging the practice of midnight lunch, and applying the 4 Phases of True Collaboration™ -- Capacity, Context, Coherence, and Complexity -- your collaborations can be a pervasive force powering innovation, anywhere Begin today Book: bit.ly/VY7GkP Website: www.powerpatterns.com Email: info@powerpatterns.com Twitter: @sarahcaldicott LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarahcaldicott Facebook: www.facebook.com/powerpatternsofinnovation
- 32. About the Author Sarah Miller Caldicott is a great grandniece of Thomas Edison. She works with organizations that want to bring innovation practices to the center of their business culture, driving new levels of growth and relevance. Sarah is a highly sought after speaker and content developer on the subjects of enterprise innovation and collaboration. Sarah offers consulting services which apply Thomas Edison’s world-changing innovation methods in the digital era. Sarah's books have been featured in The New York Times, Fortune Small Business, Fast Company, and USA Today. Sarah has also appeared as an innovation expert on PBS television, CNBC, the Fox Business Network, and NPR. Her clients include Intel, Motorola, Microsoft, John Deere, Emerson, Aon, and the Mayo Clinic among many others. Sarah received a BA from Wellesley College, where she was named a Wellesley College Scholar. She holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. CEO, The Power Patterns of Innovation 7115 North Ave, Suite 312 Oak Park, IL 60302 Phone: +1-708-445-9335 http://www.powerpatterns.com