Collective Genius is a great book for anyone trying to bring about a change within their organisation. This book is a collection of case studies and learnings derived from them to structure a framework that can be used by anyone at any level in the corporate / entrepreneurial life.

1. Book Summary

2. Innovation
Innovation = Team sport
Innovation = The art of combining individual member's separate slices of
genius into a single work of collective genius
A leader of innovation creates a place - a context, an environment - where
people are willing and able to do the hard work that innovative problem
solving requires

3. Role of a Leader: Case study - HCL
Problem Statement
Context: 2005 - HCL - Vineet Nayar was tasked with turning around HCL.
Realization: Market had shifted- real value zone is relationship between HCL people & Customers
Real Problem: To become a transformative partner for customers, HCL has to transform internally
Early Steps
Bidding for small, project-based work
Business Finance Group to structure deals as win-win for HCL & Customers
“Young Sparks” a team of 30 young people to work on changing mindset within HCL
“Young Sparks” came up with “Thambhi” Intranet - Employee First, Customer Second
Trust Pay - 85% of employees
Smart Service Desk - only the employee who opened the ticket can close it
U & I - an online channel for employees to connect with Nayar
Implementation

4. Outcome : 2005 - 2013
32 countries
$764 million to $4.7 billion
85,000 employees
Highest revenue per employee amongst peers
“ If your goal is innovation, your role must instead be to create an environment - a setting, a
context, an organization - where people are willing and able to do the hard work of innovation
themselves: to collaborate, learn through trial and error, and make integrated solutions. “
Role of a Leader: Case study - HCL
“My Blue Print“- every manager including Nayar would post their 8 month plan publicly
“My Problems” within U& I - Nayyar asked strategic questions he couldn’t solve
360-degree reviews
Implementation

5. Paradoxes of Innovation
Unleash Harness
Support Confrontation
Learning & Development Performance
Improvisation Structure
Patience Urgency
Bottom Up Top Down
Individual Collective
Creative
Abrasion
Creative
Agility
Creative
Resolution
The paradox at the heart of innovation is the need to unleash the talents of individuals and, in the end, to
harness those talents in the form of collective innovation.

6. Innovation - Framework
Purpose
Collaboration /
Creative Abrasion
Discovery-based
Learning /
Creative Agility
Integrative Decision
Making /
Creative Resolution
Shared
Values
Engagement
Rules
Create
Ability
to
Innovate
Create
Willingness
to
Innovate
Sense of Community

7. Sense of Community
Case study: Pentagram ( A collective of well-established designers)
Purpose: To come up with innovative solutions to a client’s problem, on time and on budget
Greater Purpose: To exert the maximum impact on society through good design
Shared
Values
Bold Ambition Collaboration
LearningResponsibility
Engagement
Rules
Mutual Influence
Mutual Respect
Mutual Trust

8. Creative Abrasion
• Defintion: Ability to develop a marketplace where rich diverse ideas compete through discourse and debate
• Case study: Pixar - Disney driving 250 computers server farm overnight to render both “Up” and “Cars Toons” on
Time
• Paradoxes:
• Individual vs. group identity
• Support vs. Confrontation
• Ingredients
• Diversity - People who think differently
• Conflict - cognitive conflict - conflict over ideas and approaches. Aimed at learning and improving not winning/
losing/dominating.
• Leader’s Role
• Espouse, encourage, expect and practice communal norms that values and even amplified diversity.
• Push people together and create situation in which diverse thinkers were put in close proximity
• Create organizational bridges

9. Creative Abrasion CaseStudy: Pixar
Short Cartoon
Requirement:
2 weeks of render farm
Feature film
Requirement:
9 months of render farm
Cars Toon & Up had to be rendered at the same time
if both has to hit the screens on schedule
• Buy new computers
• Rent / Lease more computers
• Push Cars toon late by 9 months
• Optimisation-[preparing frames beforehand so render time is less]
• Rendering at Disney Farm in Burbank
Problem Statement
Market place of Ideas
Solution
Server Farm
in Burbank
(Disney)
250 of render farm computers
shipped to Pixar
Disney Server Farm
arrives in Emeryville
(Pixar)
Thursday night Friday Morning Sunday night
• Hardware hooked
• Softwares installed
• Frame rates synched

10. Creative Agility
Defintion: Organisation’s ability to develop and test different options, learn from outcomes and try again and again till the
optimal option is evolved
Case study:
e-bay Germany [Merging Alando & eBay]
eBay german;y micro projects (simpler listing forms, treasure hunts during festivals etc)
Innate paradoxes:
• L & D vs. Performance
• Improvisation vs. Structure
Ingredients:
• Nimble Mind
Leader's role:
1. Pursue - new ideas - vigorously, proactively again and again
2. Reflect to harvest knowledge. Should be done consciously, collaboratively and openly
3. Adjust -Identify next steps in seeking a solution
Creative agility requires a community. Common purpose and shared values provide a framework for creating and assessing
experiments.

11. Creative Agility CaseStudy: eBay
After Alando founders quit,
Justus, an outsider is selected to lead eBay Germany
Problem Statement
1999 eBay buys Alando for $47 million
eBay Germany site migrated from local servers in Berlin to global platform
Late 1999
2001
Late 2001 Post migration, German customers complains about complex features
and most functions missing.
2002 Growth plummets and change requests to site has to be
scheduled though eBay’s normal procedures
Solution
eBay Germany’s Micro Projects
Treasure Hunt with
$1000 Christmas bonus every hour
Get rid of unwanted Christmas Gifts
Micro Projects
were run on legacy
Alando servers locally
with Justus blessings
• 8 micro-projects
• 24 million registered users
• 2nd biggest market for
eBay by trade volume
Outcome (By 2007)

12. Creative Resolution
Case study:
Google - To power it’s explosive growth - two file systems (build from scratch and Big Table) were explored. Big table
was selected to build a layer on top of the Google File System as it proved to be the best alternative for the short-term.
But The team that worked on the new system from scratch was asked to work on the" Next Gen" along with a few senior
Engineering Directors (EDs)
Paradoxes:
• Patience vs. Urgency
• Bottom-up vs. Top-down initiatives
Ingredients:
• “Either - Or” to “Both - And” Thinking
Leader's role:
1. Guide their Organizations to keep multiple options open
2. Create the space for integration by keeping things simple, flexible and open
3. Lead differently - Eric Schmidt "Managers at Google were intended to be aggregators of view points, not
the dictator of decisions

13. Creative Resolution CaseStudy: Google
Problem Statement
Coughran, ex-Bell Labs, head- Infrastructure group -Google
had to come up with a new file / storage system other than the existing
Google File System (GFS) to keep up with Google’s explosive growth
Build From Scratch The Big table
• New York Based
• task: Invent a new storage system
• Marketplace of Ideas
• California Based
• Task: A new storage stack that sits on GFS
• Marketplace of Ideas
Two Approaches & Two Teams
Coughran & Team - Reviews every 6 weeks
Acts as cross-pollinator
• After 2 years
• “The Big table” is chosen to be implemented
• “Build from scratch” team is part of
developing the “Next Generation System”

14. Collective Genius 2.0
• Calit2 - Goal: To create an environment where
research could move quickly to pursue large,
complex projects that cut across multiple
departments, campuses and discplines.
• Pfizer Legal Alliance - Goal: An ecosystem
comprising of 19 of Pfizer’s external law firms that
would perform the lion’s share of it’s legal work
collaboratively

15. Takeaway
• Create a community based on shared values,
purpose and engagement rules
• Set an environment where people can engage in
• Collaboration
• Discovery based learning
• Integrative decision making

16. Thank You!