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Musk case-study takes mystery out of innovation
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In a recent article, I wrote about Elon Musk, who has launched several successful businesses including PayPal, one of the first secure online payment systems; SpaceX, a private space company which is trying to beat NASA to Mars; SolarCity, a solar panel producer which hopes to fight climate change; and Tesla, a high-end electric auto company working on making its cars driverless.
We usually associate such technological and commercial advances with the extraordinary talents of industry captains: superhuman beings, visionaries with unique entrepreneurial capacities who live in the future and who have ground-breaking ideas before everyone else. Elon Musk is seen almost as a hero who creates progress while others are busy keeping up with day to day tasks. But, this is a romantic way to look at it.
The reality is different. Of course some people innovate while others prefer the status quo. After all not everybody is meant to change the world. But if we look at Elon Musk’s career in further detail without just accepting the myths that surround it, there is nothing magic about what he has done.
Here are three real world tips to become an innovator. First, new business opportunities don’t invent themselves, they are created. People say that Elon Musk is trying to make the impossible possible. But, he is also constantly taking steps to make his projects concrete and less improbable. Before building a huge electric battery factory in Nevada, he organized an open and transparent bidding process between potential host states for the site and its 6,500 jobs. This was a great way to test his idea, and at the same time to mobilize the resources and funds needed to make it happen. We definitely need to think big to innovate, but we have to move forward step by step.
Second, you can’t start a revolution while you’re asleep
Elon Musk is a demanding boss who works nearly 100 hours per week and is never satisfied. His performance criteria are so high that he looks for “special forces” type elite personnel, almost like in the military, to make up his teams. Dolly Singh, former head of talent acquisition for SpaceX, described it like this: “Diamonds are created under pressure, and Elon Musk is a master diamond maker.”
This is a great example of the “virtuoso teams” theory. The idea is that by bringing together the most skilled talent in a super team, you will have constant clashes of big egos, but also amazing results.
Third, to innovate you have to think differently.
Elon Musk studied physics at the University of Pennsylvania. This wouldn’t seem to make him qualified to revolutionize electronic payments, electric vehicles or conquer space. But maybe it is this lack of specific expertise of certain industries that has allowed him to have a fresh look at the fields he sought to reinvent.
It is very difficult for someone who has become an “expert” in a certain field to question beliefs that are held to be absolute truths.
So, should we forget what we know during the innovation process? Definitely not! But it is absolutely necessary to have varied points of view — innovative teams are “pluridisciplinary” — and provide structure to discussions in order to avoid endless debates.
Cyril Bouquet is Professor of Strategy at IMD.
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