Build social capital to get the most out of open innovation networks (consortia, communities, and ecosystems).
The Coordinator of the T2EVOLVE consortium, Michael Hudecek, opened the most recent strategic consortium meeting with the following statement:
"Mission today is for attendees to walk away with a handful of opportunities and then take steps to develop them."
Hudacek's statement is an unusual way to open a consortium meeting.
Usually, something is said about the challenges the group has faced or has overcome, followed by a review of progress. Then something is said about the challenges that lie ahead.
Hudecek was highlighting something that I have long understood to be true. The most considerable value of working in an open innovation network such as a consortium, community, or ecosystem is the unexpected opportunities they create. Nevertheless, more than just bringing everyone together is required.
Accumulating social capital
Watch the video here.
Comparison of low and high social capital. When you have a high amount of social capital you create more opportunities and are better at problem solving. *BioPharma X is BioSci Consulting’s framework for the development of open innovation networks and their evolution into Translational Ecosystems. Learn more about the Precision Medicine and Advanced Therapy Ecosystems.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter describes a study that shows that collaborations, where those involved focused on building relationships and not on what they expected to get from the collaboration, are more likely to be successful [1].
The success Kanter refers to is primarily because by building relationships, one begins to identify new ways to combine ideas, knowledge, and resources.
This is not just some peculiar aspect of our hyperconnected modern life—quite the opposite.
Studies of hunter-gatherer societies have shown that societies where there are small clusters such as family units that then relate to a large group evolve their knowledge and culture much faster than, say, those that are just one big interconnected group [2].
The thinking is that the small clusters develop a diversity of ideas that are then combined in new and unexpected ways when there is more comprehensive large-group interaction. In other words, smaller groups build the Lego blocks and interaction with a larger group allows one to put the Lego blocks together in different ways.
Relationships and trust are what constitute social capital, and social capital enables you to develop new opportunities. This is akin to a consortium or ecosystem where organizations work to combine their ideas with other organizations. By focusing on relationships, there is more opportunity to build trust and combine the ideas of multiple organizations.
Without the trust that develops through solid relationships, those taking part in the network are more likely to be less open to combining with others and more likely to stay within their silo.
Modern leaders leverage social capital.
This same principle is true in modern tribes – companies. In their book Tribal Leadership [3], Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright categorize company cultures into five stages. One core characteristic that drives the progression through the stages is the structure of relationships. At stage four, the authors noted the emergence of leaders who would form triads. They would bring two people together either to solve a problem or to stimulate new ideas. The critical thing is that the leader typically does not mettle with the solution or the ideas the two people they brought together develop. Like hunter-gatherer societies, the way the organization is structured matters. The leaders also reminded people of the shared values within the organization.
An even more important characteristic of this leadership style is that they did not stop at organizational boundaries. They did all that they could to build up the tribe from wherever the components of the triad came originated. One of the companies the authors studied was Amgen. They credited stage four leadership and the use of triads with enabling Amgen to keep its small company agile despite its growth into a large company.
Motivating people to collaborate
Teams, where collaboration serves individual objectives as well as those of the collective, have a much higher level of performance. A study of the Mars corporation found that despite knowing that collaboration was essential, many high-performance employees reported needing more time to collaborate. The employees focused on meeting their own objectives. When the collaboration was framed as something that would help them achieve their objectives, the rates of collaboration and performance rates went up [4].
Complex innovation is better when it is open.
Much innovation, particularly in settings where innovation is a complex process, such as life science and healthcare, requires combined efforts to get to something definitive.
When faced with a complex project, which is most, if not all, of healthcare innovation, the pharmaceutical industry chooses to address that project with an open innovation network even when they have the in-house expertise. This may seem counterintuitive in a field with hyper-competition and a high degree of protectiveness around IP. It shows how they understand that to move a complex project, and they need the collaborations that come with an open innovation project. They need the critical mass to make it happen. They need social capital.
An endless source of new opportunities
The point is that when one works on complex innovation projects, one should focus on the relationships because then one builds up social capital. A simple way to do this is to think about what one's partners need and help them get it. It is also about attending meetings even when there is nothing specific to oneself on the agenda and offering to help. Taking the initiative to produce initial drafts or outlines to help move projects forwards and build momentum is also something one can do to build up relationships.
When one focuses on relationships, it creates a wellspring of opportunities. It is about more than opportunities for new collaborations, more publications, and more funding. It is also about the opportunity to solve problems faster. A consortium, community or ecosystem with substantial social capital operates like a well-trained neural network. It is a collective intelligence one can tap into for problem-solving, even on a fundamental level. We will delve deeper into that in a subsequent post.
Often in an open innovation network, especially when there is a project plan, there is much focus on the transactional aspects. While it is important to deliver the project, you lose out on considerable potential by being transaction-oriented. When is that deliverable due? We were not funded to help with that work package.
Instead, focus on building up social capital and then use that social capital to accumulate the resources (funding, data, samples, technology) to do something truly remarkable.
At BioSci Consulting, we help public, private, and NGOs improve their ability to work together. Get in touch if you want to innovate faster and with less effort. We can help you develop strategies, open innovation networks and projects that build up the social capital you need to position your organization at the forefront of life science research and healthcare innovation.
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References
[1] https://hbr.org/1994/07/collaborative-advantage-the-art-of-alliances
[2] Derex M, Perrault C, Boyd R. 2016 Partial connectivity increases cultural accumulation within groups. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 2982–2987
[3] Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright, Harper businessR5R55
[4] Stop wasting money on team building. Carlos Valdes-Dapena Harvard Business Review September 11, 2018
