Excerpts

PASSION 1--INTO THE RING OF FIRE AS ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN SURROUNDED by creative artists, writers, or musicians knows, creativity often comes along with strong-- even conflicted--personalities who will not stop in the face of obstacles along their way. The drive to materialize their vision is stronger than themselves, and today we enjoy the beauty they have created. Painters and writers such as Van Gogh and Heming- way come to mind. The former never sold a painting in his lifetime, and his wonderful contribution was cut short. The demons of the latter were never conquered, and we are left to wonder what he left unsaid. But even when the best of circumstances are provided, the personalities, the egos, the insecurities, the jealous- ies, create conflict. Though the world created by the Medicis was enviable to anyone outside its aura, even the two creative geniuses sheltered by it, Michelangelo and Da Vinci, could not escape the sting of rivalry. KNOW AND UNDERSTAND CREATIVES Creativity can be a hot fire and you have to love it to gain from it. Fear of managing the passions of creative scientists will only lead to missed opportunities. Not being afraid of moving to free up and channel the energy and the creativity, on the other hand, can open worlds of opportunities. But on most days, this does not feel comfortable. It is not about running teams that are always agreeable and polite, where everybody respects the turn of the other and the unexpected does not happen. It cannot be stressed enough: it is about understanding each one of the players for who they are, where they come from, what drives them, and what they can bring to the solution. And from this understanding, leadership that liberates creativity is about managing conflict--not preventing conflict from arising, but stepping into the ring of fire and managing all its actors and stages. Double Duty Balance Personalities to Realize Team Dynamics Peter Murray, a forceful and creative scientist and one of my early hires as we expanded the glass research group to meet Corning's growth goals in the mid-1990s, personifies the hot fire of creativity. A midcareer hire from one of the national labs, his zeal for all things was palpable from the first day of his interview. His interests were broad and he excelled in everything he did, from playing classical piano, to understanding complex glass systems and predicting their behavior as their composition changed, to cooking any cuisine or debating on any subject. Bright, articulate, and forceful, his presence was felt as he walked into any room. Feedback from some during his interview process was, "He is too good for Corning. He won't last long." It was clear that he was a winner, but it was also clear that we had a good challenge in our hands if we wanted him--and Corning-- to succeed. I assigned him to a project addressing a manufacturing issue in Corning's U.S. display glass plant. Years earlier, Corning had developed a process for making the highest quality ultra-thin glass in the market, used today to manufacture specialized thin glass for display purposes ranging from large-area LCD screens to laptop computers and smartphones. With the world's voracious appetite for large-area displays, the applications continued to expand, and with them the need to develop new glass composi- tions to meet new needs. When we hired Peter, Corning was beginning to open what was then a new market space that today represents a leading business for the corporation. LCD precision glass, a premium product designed to have semiconductors and color filters deposited directly on it, has strict requirements that do not tolerate flaws on its surface. One defect capable of blocking a single pixel on a meter-wide sheet of glass renders the entire sheet unacceptable. In contrast with today, when Corning has manufacturing plants in four different countries and a great deal of flexibility for process development, in the mid-1990s it relied almost exclusively on one U.S. plant for its process development and for a large portion of its supply of product. At the time this was one of only two plants in the world devoted to the manufacture of ultra-thin specialty glass for display applications. And it had been experiencing a manufacturing upset that caused the glass to grow tiny crystals, surface flaws that rendered the huge glass sheets unacceptable. We had strug- gled with the issue in research and in manufacturing, and as Peter joined the team, his new ideas started flowing, expressed in his unique and forceful way and leaving little room for the voices of other team members to be heard. He had a vision, the experience to back it, and the ability to roll over all other team members with his arguments. Other team members, with alternative views and softer styles or shorter appetites for active engagement, could not make their voices heard. He represented the research part of the equation and was willing to take on development and manufac- turing. It was clear that he had the knowledge and experience that could lead us to a solution, so the question was twofold: Could the team survive with him? And could we survive without him? Excerpted from Idea Agent: Leadership That Liberates Creativity and Accelerates Innovation by Lina M. Echeverria All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.