We are living in a time of unparalleled transformation and potential. The integration of technology and communication has created a world where industries are interconnected, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and the sharing of ideas. Organizations are forming multi-disciplinary teams, and interdisciplinary fields, such as data science and digital marketing, are on the rise. The traditional boundaries between industries are becoming blurred as companies and individuals work across multiple sectors and disciplines. Another example is the automotive industry, which is merging with tech, data, and the energy business. This rapidly evolving landscape requires us to be flexible and adaptable. By breaking down borders and stepping outside our comfort zones, we can discover what we are truly passionate about and find our strengths. It’s the path to self-discovery and the foundation of our careers.
“The topic of “how to innovate better” is rising in the news in Europe. What is the secret? In this blog post, let’s dive into what Europe is actually looking for and how it could potentially achieve it.
This week, I was invited to talk to the community of the EIT Food Seedbed Incubator with Sarah Luiz. We talked about our passion for innovation and building global ecosystems to achieve paradigm shifts. We spent an hour in conversation with other accelerators, but specifically with Tech Transfer Officers (TTOs) from all around Europe.
The conversation ended up focusing on:
- The need for a culture of openness and collaboration
- The need for a culture of mentorship
- The need for a growth mindset for business
… and most importantly…
Breaking academic silos.
This is true for the world, but especially in Europe. The reality is that we still live in a very siloed economy, where departments within companies are not collaborating and the same happens in academic institutions. Despite this, the data is clear: teams with greater diversity, including gender diversity, make better decisions and have higher levels of innovation. (McKinsey, 2020)
The reasons of resistance to interdisciplinary collaboration
Consider this, it is about the human brain, people want to feel in control, make thinks simple and comfortable, avoiding uncertainty,
- In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman—psychologist, behavioral economist, and Nobel laureate—says the human mind rejects complexity in the world in favor of simplicity.
- Our world is full of unpredictable events. According to research published in The Journal of Neuroscience, “unpredictability is sufficient to induce sustained neural activity in the amygdala and to elicit anxiety-like behavior” (Herry et al., 2007). We humans will unconsciously try to make things “predictable” to avoid a sense of fear.
- As Nir Eyal, author of the book Hooked: How to Build Habit-forming Products, writes in his article on motivation, all behavior is prompted by a desire to escape discomfort. Everything we do is about the need for homeostasis to restore psychological balance (Nir and Far, 2022).
- According to Brad Feld and Ian Hathaway in their book The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, companies used to work in hierarchies, which was suitable for tight control of production, information, and resources.
- People looking for processes and structures are linear system thinkers; they avoid diversity, making predictive models more challenging and harder to calibrate and maintain. Networks are complex systems, but there, variety is of central importance. It builds resilience and produces different outputs and results (Page, 2017).
The Evidence is here: you can only benefit from it
Conclusion:
However, most employees in today’s corporate world try to solve problems on their own and only ask questions of their direct manager. Despite decades of the “corporate innovation renaissance,” it is still very difficult, if not impossible, for many organizations to open up their innovation process across the silos of the organization.
The first step you can take today is to ask yourself these following questions?
- Am I surrounded by diverse talents?
- Am I trying to learn a new enviroment? If I am a scientist; do I understand marketing? If I am a marketer; do I understand design & Ux?
Take action today and go to meetups, conferences, and meet people from other environments. Be genuinely interested in their work. Not only does this help us better understand ourselves, but it also opens us up to new perspectives, removing confirmation biases and boosting our creativity.
You’ll become more empathetic, make better products for the world, and succeed faster! So let’s embrace this era of change and blow up those borders. It’s time to create connections and seize the opportunities for growth and innovation.
What other suggestions do you have?
Ps:
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Source:
Nir and Far. Exactly What Is Motivation? Surprisingly, Not What You Think. Accessed February 23, 2022. https://www.nirandfar.com/what-is-motivation/
Feld, Brad, and Ian Hathaway. The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2020.
Page, Scott E. The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in the Knowledge Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017.
Collins, Randall. The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1998.
https://a16z.com/2019/01/13/pharma-business-innovation-medicine-next-therapeutics/