The document discusses Sarah Miller Caldicott's exploration of Thomas Edison's collaboration techniques, emphasizing the importance of collaboration in driving innovation. It outlines Edison's four phases of true collaboration and highlights the need for context, coherence, and diverse leadership in modern teams. The text also discusses shifting workforce dynamics and the necessity of adapting collaboration strategies in light of new global challenges.

1. Midnight Lunch: How Context and
Coherence Propelled Edison's
Collaboration Success
Sarah Miller Caldicott
CEO, Power Patterns of Innovation
Great grandniece of Thomas Edison
Books: Innovate Like Edison
Inventing the Future
Midnight Lunch
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

2. America’s Greatest Innovator,
Thomas Edison: 1847-1931
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

3. Miller/Edison Heritage
Robert Anderson Miller
Mina Miller Edison
Lewis Miller
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

4. Researching Edison’s Life and Work
The Edison Papers Archives at Rutgers University
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

5. Edison Built New Markets
Pioneered 6 industries, billions in market value
Document duplication (1873)
Telecommunications (1876)
Recorded sound (1877)
Electrical power (1879)
The Movies (1893)
Storage Battery (1903)
Midnight Lunch © 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

6. Without Collaboration, Innovation Stalls
Today’s Conversation
• Shifts in global environment
• Why collaboration is crucial
• The power of context
• Creating coherent teams

7. New Book: Midnight Lunch (Wiley)
Learn how to collaborate in 21st Century
How did Thomas Edison develop
winning innovation teams?
What new skills would Edison
advocate for the digital age?
Midnight Lunch
in Jan ‘13 edition
of Fast Company!
bit.ly/VY7GkP Book
bit.ly/TlUz9r Article

8. World Innovation Forum
Changes in global playing field for business
• C.K. Prahalad: “Global Reset” (2009)
• Familiar business models shifting
– Media, Finance, Energy, Retail
• Merging of strategy, innovation,
value creation
• New ability of organizations to create with customers
• “Anticipate and create” vs. “Sense and respond”

9. Trends Propelling Collaboration
Collaboration central to staying relevant
• Rishad Tobaccowala - VivaKi
- Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer
1. Staying relevant
2. Innovating
3. Attracting and retaining talent
• Collaboration essential to all 3
• Edison’s use of flat teams to
power collaboration can help us today

10. Trends Propelling Collaboration
Shifts in composition of the global workforce
• 1 billion working age adults: 2020
- Gen Y to dominate: 2025
• Proliferation of smart devices:
- > 5 billion mobile phones globally
- Desire to “be connected”
• Virtual teams increasingly popular
- 40% now in virtual teams (Forrester, 2012)
- 56% in three years
• Organizational hierarchies flattening

11. Edison’s 4 Phases of True Collaboration™
Collaboration powered Edison’s innovation success
• Phase 1: Capacity
• Phase 2: Context (TODAY)
• Phase 3: Coherence (TODAY)
• Phase 4: Complexity

12. Edison Saw Collaboration As…
Applying discovery learning
within a context of complexity,
inspired by a common goal or a
shared purpose.
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

13. Collaboration vs. Teamwork
Collaboration and teamwork are NOT the same
“Collaboration is not the same thing as
teamwork. Teamwork is simply doing
your part. Collaboration involves leveraging
the power of every individual to bring out
each other’s strengths and differences.”
- Greg Cox, President,
Dale Carnegie Training - Chicago
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

14. Phase 1: Capacity
Edison transformed employees into colleagues
• Ritual blending social,
scientific language
• Low “social distance”
• Midnight lunches
• Generated trust, deep exchange via small teams
• Without Phase 1, all the other three Phases are harder

15. Phase 2: Context
Solutions Through Discovery Learning vs. Tasks
• Activate the brain’s “creating centers”
• Solo Meld:
- Reading, analogical thinking,
preliminary questions
 “Are light and electricity related?”
• Mental models and flawed thinking
• Examining “how you think” (Peter Senge)

16. Solo Meld
Evaluate your mental model first
• Failure: electronic vote recorder
• Edison re-evaluated his thinking:
1. I am seeking utility
2. I will address needs
3. I am seeking radical solutions
4. I desire creative freedom
5. I am open to discovering new phenomena

17. Group Meld: Questions & Dialogue
Form master questions – not problem statements
Casual team dialogue engages creating
centers of the brain
- “How do substances burn?”
- “How does the eye perceive motion?”
- “How can I capture sound so it can be
replayed again and again?”

18. Form Hypotheses
Context allows creation from future states
Explore master question by forming
hypotheses: if/then statements
- If we could minimize…then…
- If it would be possible to… then…
- If we could increase the amount
of … then …
- “If I can mechanically capture sound, then I can create
a commercial market”

19. Edison’s Botanic Laboratory - Ft. Myers, FL
© 2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott

20. Edison Valued Experimentation
Context emerges when solutions are still forming
• Don’t lock down too soon
• Platform of discovery, not tasks
• Dialogue: share outcomes, scenarios
• “No experiments are useless.”
- Thomas Edison
• Experimentation: common currency

21. Prototypes Embed Discovery Learning
Practice risk-taking, hands-on engagement
• Faster “learning cycles” by
combining experiments,
prototyping
• Iterating allows us to
“anticipate and create”
• Many prototypes possible:
• Notebooks
• Video
• Narrative
• 3D

22. Phase 3: Coherence
Diverse forms of leadership are essential
• Inspirational leadership
- Different from “command and control”
“An inspirational leader anchors you
at the starting point and at the ending
point. The distance between those
points feels long, it feels far.
It feels impossible.”
- Greg Cox, President
Dale Carnegie, Chicago

23. Importance of Shoulder-to-Shoulder Leaders
Bridge knowledge assets within and across teams
• These leaders “emerge”
• Build innovation momentum within
and across teams
• Catalysts:
- Collegiality
- Optimism
- Expertise
• Microcultures
- Microsoft Kinect
- 3M - GRIT

24. Create a Culture of Progress
For Edison, diverse factors were linked to progress
Experimentation = Progress:
“The only way to keep ahead of the procession
is to experiment. If you don’t, the other fellow
will. When there’s no experimenting there’s
no progress. Stop experimenting and you
go backward.”
Today:
- Multi-generational workforce
- Diverse definitions of progress: title, pay, tenure, span-of-
control, “meaning”

25. How We Cognitively “Process” Progress
Progress links to purpose, the meaning of daily work
• “The Power of Small Wins”
- Theresa Amabile and Steve Kramer
• Consciously communicate progress
• Transparency crucial: Gen Y
- Not all the news has to be good
• Empowers shoulder-to-shoulder leaders
• EDISON ENABLED TEAMS TO OWN THEIR GOALS

26. Collaboration a Crucial Superskill
Foundations for Collaboration to Thrive
• Connecting small, diverse groups
• Create collegiality
• Develop new context: solo, group
• Experiments, questioning, hypotheses
• Coherence through common content
• Shoulder-to-shoulder leadership
• OWNING GOALS

27. Do a Team.Read™ of Midnight Lunch
Continue momentum - Edison’s Birthday Week
• Do a Midnight Lunch Team.Read with
your team or group
• LinkedIn groups
• Project teams
• Blog groups
• “4 phases of collaboration in 4 weeks”
• Purchase copies of Midnight Lunch
- www.powerpatterns.com/Books
• Receive a free Team.Read workbook
and Midnight Lunch™ Kit!

28. Expand Your Network
Sarah Miller Caldicott
CEO, The Power Patterns of Innovation
info@powerpatterns.com | www.powerpatterns.com
Twitter: @sarahcaldicott | LinkedIn: Sarah Caldicott
Facebook: Power Patterns of Innovation
Fast Company article: bit.ly/TlUz9r
YouTube book trailer: bit.ly/UTBFN8
Book Slideshare: slidesha.re/YpH0wz
Book purchase: www.powerpatterns.com/Books
Midnight Lunch (Wiley) also available from Amazon, major book sellers
©2007 - 2013 Sarah Miller Caldicott