Issue 175 The impetus for innovation: induvidual enterprise or team work?
The speaker claims that individual enterprise, energy, and commitment, and not team-work, provide the impetus for innovation in every case. In my view, although the claim is not without merit, especially when it comes to business innovation, it overlooks the synergistic relationship between individual effort and teamwork, particularly with respect to scientific innovations.
With respect to business innovation, I agree that it is the vision and commitment of key individuals--such as a firm's founder or chief executive--from which businesses burgeon and innovative products, services, and marketing and management strategies emerge. One notable example involves the Apple Computer debacle following the departure of its founding visionary Steve Jobs. It wasn't until Jobs reassumed the helm, once again injecting his unique perception, insight, and infectious fervor, that the ailing Apple was able to resume its innovative ways, thereby regaining its former stature in the computer industry. Admittedly, the chief executives of our most successful corporations would no doubt concede that without the cooperative efforts of their subordinates, their personal visions would never become reality. Yet, these efforts are merely the carrying out of the visionary's marching orders.
Nevertheless, the speaker would have us accept a too-narrow and distorted view of how innovation comes about, particularly in today's world. Teamwork and individual enterprise are not necessarily inconsistent, as the speaker would have us believe. Admittedly, if exercised in a self-serving manner--for example, through pilfering or back stabbing--individual enterprise and energy can serve to thwart a business organization's efforts to innovate. However, if directed toward the firm's goals these traits can motivate other team members, thereby facilitating innovation. In other words, teamwork and individual enterprise can operate synergistically to bring about innovation.
We must be especially careful not to understate the role of teamwork in scientific innovation, especially today. Important scientific innovations of the previous millennium might very well have been products of the epiphanies and obsessions of individual geniuses. When we think of the process of inventing something great we naturally conjure up a vision of the lone inventor hidden away in a laboratory for months on end, in dogged pursuit of a breakthrough. And this image is not entirely without empirical support. For example, Thomas Edison's early innovations--including the light bulb, the television, and the phonograph--came about in relative isolation, and solely through his individual persistence and commitment.
However, in today's world, sdentific innovation requires both considerable capital and extensive teams of researchers. Admittedly, in all likelihood we will continue to encounter the exceptional case--like Hewlett and Packard, or Jobs and Wozniak, whose innovations sprang from two-man operations. But for the most part, scientific breakthroughs today typically occur only after years of trial-and-error by large research teams. Even Thomas Edison relied more and more on a team of researchers to develop new innovations as his career progressed. Thus the statement flies in the face of how most modern scientific innovations actually come about today.
To sum up, I agree that, when it comes to the world of business, true innovation is possible only through the imagination of the individual visionary, and his or her commitment to see the vision through to its fruition. However, when it comes to scientific innovation, yesterday's enterprising individuals have yielded to today's cooperative research teams--a trend that will no doubt continue as scientific research becomes an increasingly expensive and complex undertaking.
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