USBO Innovation Academy Syllabusorgworks.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/USBO Innovation...

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Syllabus

1 © 2018 Management Lab

What is the USBO Innovation Academy? The Innovation Academy is an online experience aimed at equipping every one of us to think and act like business innovators. It is both an investment in your own creative capacity and an effort to grow the innovation quotient of the company. Designed by Gary Hamel and the team at the Management Lab (MLab), the Academy will:

• sharpen your practical understanding of what innovation is (and what it isn’t);

• awaken and develop your creative mindsets, instincts, and habits;

• offer up a set of practical tools for generating unconventional insights and developing new, potentially game-changing, opportunities

• engage you and your colleagues on a state-of-the-art collaborative platform purpose-built to encourage the collision of ideas and connections across boundaries

The Innovation Academy is part of our larger journey to build a vibrant culture of innovation inside our organization. It’s our way of enlisting every person inside this company to help invent our future.

Why Innovate?

In a world of relentless, disruptive change, innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance. Stop innovating, and someone else will grab the future.

In a world where knowledge itself is being commoditized, innovation is the only defense against margin-crushing competition.

And in a world where customers wake up every morning asking “what’s next, what’s amazing?”, innovation the only way to ensure long-term loyalty.

And for Amgen the urgency has never been greater—the healthcare ecosystem is ripe for disruption; our customers are demanding more from us. Innovation will be the foundation to helping us achieve our 2027 Ambition.


The ultimate goal: an USBO culture than inspires, motivates, and unites us to create the future – together. The only way we’ll meet those aspirations is by building the creative capital of our company and creating a genuine culture of innovation here.

Building the creative capital of our company requires progress on two fronts:

• Upgrading the innovation skills of all of our people

• Creating a pro-innovation environment—one in which innovation happens BECAUSE of the system, not in spite of it. This means: embedding innovation DNA in the management systems and processes that govern every day work and operations.

The Innovation Academy is the first step on that journey. In less than three months, you’ll have a new set of skills, a shared portfolio of innovation tools, methods, and language, a powerful collection of insights on customers, the industry, major trends, and our distinctive skills and assets—as well as some early-stage business ideas built on those insights.

Think of it as a virtual boot camp for building your skills as a business innovator. But it’s not just a “course”—it’s an online platform for connecting you to your colleagues in every part of the business, and, we hope, the beginning of a vibrant collaborative community here in USBO.

Innovation Academy Faculty Gary Hamel and his co-founders at the Management Lab (MLab), Polly LaBarre and Michele Zanini, are leading thinkers and practitioners on business innovation and what it takes to build a robust culture of innovation. Hamel led a pioneering project twenty years ago to analyze the roots of business innovation, the process through which fundamentally new business ideas emerge and the thought patterns and behavior that spawn breakthroughs. The MLab works with leading-edge firms and a global community of innovators to create tomorrow’s new practices today and has a deep capability around making innovation a wide-spread and deep-rooted capability. The MLab spearheads a collection of initiatives all aimed at making organizations fundamentally more adaptable, innovative, and inspiring.


Key Course Elements • Video Lectures with Gary Hamel and the MLab faculty

• Exercises: optional practice rounds designed to embed key concepts

• Assignments: final assignment for each module designed to link core lessons of each module to your company’s challenges and opportunities

• Cheat Sheets: Downloadable study guides for each module featuring key concepts, questions, exercises & assignments, and supplemental resources.

• Office Hours: Live Q&A sessions with key faculty and hosts at regular intervals during the course.

Platform Elements

• Blog: read, like, and comment on regular features relevant to current module, synthesis of learning and activity on the platform, interviews with company leaders, relevant case studies, and more.

• Personal Profile Page: Your personal hub on the platform, featuring a dashboard of your activity on the platform, your exercises & assignments, collections, and other activity.

• Innovator Score: Your participation quotient, an aggregate of all of your contributions and activity on the platform—and visible to all. Your Innovator Score will help determine whether you earn the highest level of certification—and it’s one of several factors considered in determining who receives an invitation to the in-person INNOVATION LAB event

• People Pages: Here you can find all of your fellow participants and see their contributions and activity.

• Discussion Forums: A crucial part of the learning experience—here you can compare notes with your peers, ask questions and build on what you’ve learned in the modules, and interact with the MLab faculty and your company’s hosts and ambassadors.


Learning Objectives The Innovation Academy experience aims to significantly upgrade the underlying creative capital of the organization, to provide the groundwork for a vibrant culture of innovation inside your company, to develop a shared portfolio of innovation tools, methods, and language, and to deliver a set of potentially game-changing early-stage business ideas.

By the end of the course, participants will have:

• A shared and nuanced understanding of what innovation is—and isn’t;

• Developed and honed their creative mindsets, instincts, and habits;

• Acquired the skills and tools to generate the unique insights which underlie truly innovative ideas;

• Learned how to turn insights into radical yet practical business ideas


Course Outline MODULE 1: Getting Serious About Innovation As human beings, we were born to create, but we seldom get the opportunity to invest in our own

creative capacity. That’s what this course is all about. The first step is to get clear on what

innovation is, and isn’t. In this unit, we’ll outline some simple tests for identifying truly innovative

ideas. We’ll debunk some persistent myths about innovation and risk and unpack the innovation

“power law.” Our goal here, and in the units that follow, is to help you increase the odds of

generating a game-changing idea.

Unit 1: From Creative Urge to Creative Capability Unit 2: Why Innovate? Unit 3: Defining Innovation Unit 4: Exercise 1.1 Unit 5: The Risk Myth & the Arithmetic of Innovation Unit 6: Course Overview Unit 7: Assignment 1: Innovation Inside USBO


MODULE 2: Exploring the Innovation Landscape

Most people have a cramped view of innovation. They think of it either in terms of cool new

products—like Tesla’s Model 3 or the latest paper-thin TV that rolls up like a poster—or they view if

through the keyhole of their particular function, department, or role. But, to be an innovator, you

need a holistic view of the business model. In this module we’ll help you expand your innovation

map by introducing a simple framework that deconstructs the business model into six essential

components. We call this the business model landscape. We’ll offer up examples and tools that will

help you spot opportunities for innovation across all of those components—and we’ll show you how

re-imagining a business model in its entirety can unlock a ton of value and make it virtually

impossible for your competitors to catch up.

Unit 1: Expanding the Innovation Map Unit 2: Exercise 2.1 Unit 3: Business Purpose Unit 4: Exercise 2.2 Unit 5: Value Proposition Unit 6: Exercise 2.3 Unit 7: Strategic Resources Unit 8: Exercise 2.4 Unit 9: Customer Interface Unit 10: Exercise 2.5 Unit 11: Value Networks Unit 12: Exercise 2.6 Unit 13: Profit Engine Unit 14: Exercise 2.7 Unit 15: Putting it All Together Unit 16: Assignment 2: Expanding Your Innovation Map


Introduction to MODULES 3-6: Seeing Differently

In the next four modules, we’ll give you some very practical tools for generating the sort of unconventional insights that point to new opportunities. Some years back, we interviewed hundreds of business innovators with the goal of answering one simple question: Why do some individuals see opportunities the rest of us miss?

The answer: because they had a set of “lenses,” or perspectives that helped them see around corners and over the horizon.

They were rebels who challenged industry orthodoxies.

They were explorers who could play out the implications of emerging trends.

They were architects who saw how to take existing competencies and assets and put them together in new combinations.

They were advocates, with a big sense of empathy, who were eager to free customers from the vexations, large and small, that make life less joyful than it might be.


MODULE 3: Overturning Orthodoxies

The biggest barriers to innovation are our own axiomatic beliefs—the self-limiting and mostly

unquestioned assumptions that blind us to new possibilities. Innovators look at the world in a way

that inverts conventional wisdom. They are contrarians eager to challenge long-standing practices.

They question the unexamined orthodoxies everyone else holds dear. It’s not easy to escape the

gravitational pull of the status quo, but well worth the effort. Tired, old beliefs yield tired, old

results. In this module, we’ll show you how to shake off the shackles of dogma in order to set your

creativity free.

Unit 1: Seeing Differently: An Introduction to the Four Lenses Unit 2: The Power of Contrarian Thinking Unit 3: Exercise 3.1 Unit 4: Uncovering Orthodoxies Unit 5: Exercise 3.2 Unit 6: Summing Up Unit 7: Assignment 3: Challenging Orthodoxy


MODULE 4: Discovering Discontinuities

We live in a world of accelerating change. Change is multifaceted, relentless, seditious, and

occasionally shocking. In this melee, where just about everything is up for grabs, experience is a

handicap and nostalgia is a deathtrap. Tomorrow’s winners will be distinguished by their capacity to

embrace and exploit the new. That’s the challenge we will tackle in this module: how to live in the

future. That doesn’t mean making bold predictions about the year 2050, but instead, being forever

on the hunt for revolutions in the making, for the small, accelerating trends, that can be harnessed

to challenge the status quo. We’ll teach you how to spot discontinuities—and, importantly, how

those discontinuities can be used to redraw the industry landscape and your company’s place in it.

Unit 1: Accelerating Change Unit 2: Find the Future Unit 3: Exercise 4.1 Unit 4: Look Where Others Aren’t Unit 5: Anticipate the Ripples Unit 6: Create a Tapestry Unit 7: Guard Against Denial Unit 8: Assignment 4: Innovating around Trends


MODULE 5: Leveraging Competencies

Most of us define a business as a portfolio of products and services. And most companies are

structured into units defined by products, channels or customer segments. There’s nothing wrong

with this, but a product-centric view of a company can lead to innovation myopia. Leaders can

spend so much time trying to eke out the last point or two of market share in an existing business,

that they fail to see how a foundational capability might help them win in entirely new markets.

Innovators, by contrast, view the world as an enormous Lego kit of capabilities and assets. They

assemble familiar components into surprising new structures; and they look for under-leveraged

competencies that can be used to build new products and businesses.

As an innovator, you need to ask: What are the capabilities embedded deep within our existing

businesses that could be used as platforms to grow in new areas? In this module, we are going to

help you answer that question. We’ll help you develop a deep understanding of what a core

competence is, unpack examples, and teach you how to uncover them inside your business and

imagine opportunities to leverage them.

Unit 1: Innovation Platforms Unit 2: What is a Core Competence? Unit 3: Exercise 5.1 Unit 4: Uncovering Core Competencies Unit 5: Weed out the Wannabes Unit 6: Find the Right Level of Abstraction Unit 7: Imagine Opportunities for Leverage Unit 8: Assignment 5: Exploiting Core Competencies


MODULE 6: Unearthing Unmet Needs

The first test for a potentially innovative idea is this: Does it dramatically recalibrate customer

expectations? To answer yes, it must either fill a recognized need in a radically new way, or solve an

emerging need that customers can hardly yet name. To find ideas of this sort, you have to be

deeply attuned to the hopes and frustrations of existing and potential customers. You must be

passionate about improving their lives. This goes beyond being customer led, or customer-centric.

Innovators are deeply empathetic and emotionally attuned to customers. They strive to meet the

unarticulated and unmet needs that have been ignored by industry. In this module, we’ll teach you

how to uncover unmet needs—and how to find opportunities to meet them across the entire

spectrum of the customer experience.

Unit 1: The Heart of the Innovator Unit 2: Exercise 6.1 Unit 3: Map the Journey Unit 4: Get Emotional Unit 5: Move in Close Unit 6: Borrow from the Best Unit 7: Assignment 6: Finding the Opportunity in Unmet Needs


MODULE 7: Finding the Big Idea Now that you’ve flexed your creative muscles by working with the four innovation lenses, and

generated a bunch of insights, it’s time to hone in on your best ideas, and get them ready for their

public debut. This is a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-hands-dirty module. We’ll push you to add to

your fledgling portfolio of ideas, teach you how to screen those ideas for those with the most

potential to hit it big, and work with you to turn those ideas into prospective business models.

Unit 1: Expanding Your Idea Portfolio Unit 2: Exercise 7.1 Unit 3: Finding the Winners Unit 4: Finding the Winners: Questions 2 & 3 Unit 5: Finding the Winners: Questions 4 & 5 Unit 6: Finding the Winners: Questions 6 & 7 Unit 7: Stars & Balls Unit 8: Exercise 7.2 Unit 9: Crafting an Elevator Pitch Unit 10: Exercise 7.3 Unit 11: Building out the Business Model Unit 12: Assignment 7: Sprouting Your Idea


MODULE 8: Making Innovation a Habit By this point, you’ve come far in your journey to build and strengthen your creative capacity. Now,

we want you to become an innovator-for-life. That’s what this module is all about—embedding the

mindsets and practices of creativity so deeply in your DNA that they engage automatically and

powerfully every time you approach a problem, tackle an assignment, try something new, or

interact with the important people in your life.

So, what does it mean to be a perpetual innovator? How do you, in effect, make creativity a habit?

Turns out, successful innovators do think, feel, and behave differently—but those differences aren’t

a matter of IQ or even unique life experiences. They are the product of good innovation habits. Just

as an athlete needs a foundation of good habits—nutrition, sleep and fitness—to excel at her sport,

so you, as an innovator, need a foundation of good habits to maximize your innovation potential.

The goal here is to get you in great creative shape—and to give you the mindsets, tools, and

practices to stay that way for the rest of your life.

Unit 1: The Creative Habit Unit 2: The Curiosity Habit, Part 1 Unit 3: Exercise 8.1 Unit 4: The Curiosity Habit, Part 2 Unit 5: Exercise 8.2 Unit 6: The Exploration Habit Unit 7: Exercise 8.3 Unit 8: The Experimentation Habit Unit 9: Exercise 8.4 Unit 10: The Rebel Habit Unit 11: Exercise 8.5 Unit 12: The Intuition Habit Unit 13: Exercise 8.6 Unit 14: Assignment 8: Developing YOUR Creative Habit


Faculty Bios The Management Lab (MLab) works with leading-edge firms to help them create tomorrow’s new practices today. Our aim is to support these pioneering companies in creating genuine management innovation.

MLab brings together some of the world’s leading business thinkers, academics, executives, institutions and organizations to invent the management processes and practices that will define competitive success in the 21st century.

Gary Hamel

Gary is a world-renowned author, speaker, and thought leader on strategy and the future of management. Hamel has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and is co-founder and director of the Management Lab. Hamel’s landmark books, Competing for the Future, Leading the Revolution and The Future of Management have appeared on every management bestseller list and have been translated into more than 20 languages. Hamel’s most recent book, What Matters Now, was published in February 2012. Hamel has written 17 articles for the Harvard Business Review and is the most reprinted author in the Review’s history. As a consultant, Hamel has worked for companies as diverse as General Electric, Time Warner, Nestle, Shell, Procter & Gamble, 3M, IBM, Microsoft, and Chevron. His pioneering concepts such as “strategic intent,” “core competence,” and “management innovation” have changed the practice of management in companies around the world.

Gary is one of the most sought after speakers in the world on management, leadership, and the future of work. You can find more about Gary and his books, articles, and speaking, here: garyhamel.com

Polly LaBarre

Polly is cofounder and editorial director of the MLab and the MIX. She is the coauthor of the bestselling book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win, which was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller. Published in over 20 territories, The Economist called the book "a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great." CNN, CNBC, and GMA all created series around Mavericks. Polly was a member of the founding team of Fast Company magazine, where she was senior editor, author of dozens of cover stories, and co-creator of the events franchise. Polly’s writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Fast Company, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review online, Fortune.com, the McKinsey Quarterly, and she has served as business and innovation correspondent for CNN.


Polly has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses to top executive audiences around the world and made regular television contributions (on CNN, CNBC, PBS’s Nightly Business Report, Good Morning America, Today NY).

Michele Zanini

Michele is co-founder of the MLab and the MIX. Michele’s writings on busting bureaucracy and changing the way organizations change have appeared in a variety of publications, including the Harvard Business Review online, Fortune.com, and the McKinsey Quarterly; his work on the “tax” bureaucracy imposes on organizations has recently featured on the Financial Times. Prior to joining the MLab, he was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company, where he directed engagements focused on organization, strategy, and innovation for leading global institutions. Michele also spent five years as a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he advised senior policymakers on national security issues such as global terrorism and NATO’s strategy. In 1999, he co-authored the best-selling book Countering the New Terrorism.

Michele has spoken at a number of major events, including: Enterprise 2.0, the Human Capital Learning and Leadership Development Conference, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development annual gathering, the Change Management Institute, Haier’s Management Conference, and the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable.

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