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WHITEPAPER EXPERTS CREATE PROBLEMS Learn about the three main species of experts. Discover the ideal profile of experts. Understand how your company can better leverage experts. © Presans 2010 – 2020 © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRESANS 2020 1
“Experts create problems!” This is how Hervé Arribart, Fellow at Presans and former scientific director at Saint-Gobain started our interview when I was writing my book Innovation Intelligence back in 2014. By saying this, Hervé meant two things: first, experts have the ability to see new interesting intellectual problems – and ways to address them. This is the good side. The second aspect is less positive: experts can have a tendency to turn into gurus and become difficult to manage. Presans is a platform-driven consulting company founded in 2010 at the crossroad of expertise in science & technology and of strategy consulting & innovation. Presans’ service portfolio relies on a digital platform, a network of six-million experts and a team of Fellows. Based on these 3 pillars, Presans delivers complex problem solving and strategic guidance on innovation to 50+ industrial multinationals. Over the last 10 years, Presans was involved in hundreds of engagements in various industrial sectors covering pretty much all the fields of science and technology, ranging from technologies relevant for any sector (ex. 3D printing) to very niche technologies such as computational optics or Promethium 147, each time, engaging on demand one or several of the best experts in the world. Hervé Arribart’s citation above is a very good illustration of what we sometimes hear from our clients. “Experts create problems”. “We don’t know how to manage them”. “We don’t know how to evaluate them”, etc. With the present whitepaper, we want to share with you some of our operational knowledge on experts and expertise, accrued over the course of 10 years, in a context of industrial innovation. We want to share with you some of the key things we learned. – Albert Meige PRESANS, founder and CEO HEC Paris, Academic director Presans2010 ©©Presans 2020 2010––2020 2 2
INTRODUCTION SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY ARE BACK ON In this whitepaper, we THE FRONT STAGE. uncover and describe: EXPERTS ARE THE NEW ROCKSTARS. 10 YEARS AGO: R&D IS DEAD, INNOVATION IS KING A decade ago, innovation, open innovation, and quite a few other buzzwords became popular. It was not fashionable anymore to be an R&D director. It was 1. Three distinct trendier to be an innovation director. Research centers were has-been. Innovation labs were the new places to be. Innovation was no longer about developing science species of experts. and technology. Innovation was about usages, business models, post-its, colored sofas and walls you can write on. And also about startup-corporate collaborations. We thoroughly described this new era in our previous book Innovation Intelligence. STARTUPS AS CORPORATE R&D LABS, ENTREPRENEURS AS ROCKSTARS 2. Essential skills of All industrial revolutions and more generally all innovation waves follow the same experts. pattern: scientific discoveries are made; based on these discoveries, technological bricks are developed; these bricks are first adopted by a limited number of people, and then they are massively adopted and combined by a majority. This is when disruptions at the business level occurs. In this era, innovation is about use-cases and business model. About combining stuff. Startups are combination attempts. Many die along the way. A few get acquired or listed. To some extent, in the 3. How companies combination phase, startups are the R&D labs of corporate groups. Entrepreneurs are their rockstars. But guess what? The combination phase is transient. can better leverage experts. TODAY: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EXPERTS ARE MAKING A COMEBACK At some point, the new cycle needs to be prepared. Scientific discoveries need to be made. New technological bricks need to be developed. And this is exactly what we have been observing over the last couple of years: science & technology are back on the front stag. Experts are the new rockstars of innovation… once again. –––––– IF YOU’RE IN A HURRY, JUMP TO THE © Presans 2010 – 2020 Sources: CONCLUSION ON PAGE 28 è Innovation Intelligence, A. Meige & J. Schmitt, absans publishing (2015). The Return of the scientific and technological expert, J. Knight, open-organization.com (2020). 3
Nobody knows what trait in a future expert triggers the quest for knowledge. We tend to think of experts as similar to collectors, but instead of accumulating postcards or luxury vintage cars they collect knowledge. What is the personal reward that justifies such effort and dedication? Could it be curiosity and the satisfaction of a desire to know? Could it be the need to create a virtual security blanket? We do not know, but it is probably a mixture of both of these factors, as well as other ingredients. What counts is the result: experts do exist, and some of them reach a superior level of mastery in their fields of knowledge. In this first section of the whitepaper, we will discover: What an expert is What it takes to become and remain an expert Two distinct species of experts: How certain experts mutate silo diggers and chipmunks into polymaths © Presans 2010 – 2020 4
“ The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. K. ANDERS ERICSSON FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCHER © Presans 2010 – 2020 5
WHAT IS AN Dr K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Dr Olga Lelebina, in her doctoral thesis La gestion des Florida State University, is an expert on experts. In experts en entreprise (2014) provides a detailed The Making of an Expert, Harvard Business Review description of an expert’s output for her company: EXPERT? AND (July-August 2007), he defines an expert as a person who, in resolving problems related to her field, will: SPOTTING PROBLEMS WHAT CAN A PROVIDE CONSISTENTLY SUPERIOR ANSWERS COMPARED TO HER PEERS Efficient in detecting problems and determining their causes. COMPANY The word superior implies that an expert has reached a very high level of knowledge and agility with the STRATEGY EXPECT FROM topic. As we will see, this also implies hard, constant work. An expert is, by necessity, a person who is willing to dedicate a significant amount of time and Efficient in selecting the best strategy for solving a problem. HER? energy to learning and mastering a field of knowledge. SOLUTIONS Proposing the best solutions, faster and with more accuracy than do other individuals. PRODUCE CONCRETE RESULTS Concrete results are key. It is not sufficient to perform QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS a brilliant analysis of a situation to be an expert. An expert leaves a trace: the situation is different after Focused on qualitative analysis and novel points of view. the expert has provided input, the situation has progressed, the degree of uncertainty has decreased, MONITORING or some of the potential solutions have been Acute observers, thanks to their error-detection capacity. considered and discarded. –––––– COGNITIVE EFFORT Source: The Making of an Expert, K. Anders Ericsson, Harvard Business Review (July-August 2007). Extracting key messages from complex knowledge with less effort. –––––– Source: La gestion des experts en entreprise, Olga Lelebina (2014). © Presans 2010 – 2020 6
TEN YEARS Ten year is the typical amount of time required for the making of a high-level expert1. And since Presans is 10 years old in 2020, we can officially declare that Presans is an expert on experts. Ten years is not the end of the expert’s development, but rather the moment where the expert has reached a sufficiently deep level of knowledge. When the expert has reached this deep level, her efforts are not over: permanent updating, enlargement, and refinement are the key to maintaining her level of expertise. Applying expertise in daily practice is not sufficient for this. Research has shown that an estimated two hours per day are required to maintain expertise. –––––– 1 Estimation based on Presans’ experience and confirmed through a number of scientific analyses. © Presans 2010 – 2020 7
WHAT SPECIES OF Even though reality is slightly more complex (as expertise is actually a spectrum), at Presans, we like to consider that experts fall into two distinct categories: silo diggers and chipmunks(*). EXPERT ARE YOU? A SILO DIGGER OR SILO DIGGERS dig deeply in their field of expertise. A CHIPMUNK? Deep diggers are usually among the best experts in the world in their field of expertise. CHIPMUNKS build a network of interconnected burrows, each burrow being a field of expertise. Chipmunks’ expertise may not be as deep as that of the silo diggers, but it covers a much larger territory. Both species of experts are extremely useful for a company. In innovation projects, chipmunk experts will be highly valuable and creative as they will leverage and assemble together knowledge from silo digger experts. © Presans 2010 – 2020 –––––– (*) Chipmunks (or tamias) are cute little animals, part of the squirrel family. 8
“ An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually she knows everything about nothing. ANONYMOUS QUOTATION © Presans 2010 – 2020 9
HOW CERTAIN EXPERTS MUTATE INTO POLYMATHS! The polymath is the ultimate chipmunk – the one your company should definitely consider involving in innovation projects The word polymath, of Greek origin, is not found in all English dictionaries. Even less common is the equivalent word polyhistor. Both words designate a person who has superior knowledge in a multiplicity of domains. Polymaths, able to switch easily from one domain to another, have built up expertise in several fields. In fact, they represent the highest level of what we called chipmunk experts. Nowadays, some call polymaths multipotential or Renaissance persons. At Presans, we call them Fellows. This type of expert is a partner of choice in innovation teams. Unfortunately while silo diggers are generally present in companies, chipmunks are rarer and polymaths are almost inexistent – the main © Presans 2010 – 2020 reasons are that (1) the population in itself is smaller, (2) they are often scary for human resources and (3) they tend to end up in managerial positions. –––––– Source: How much multipotentiality does innovation need?, Jacques Knight, open-organization.com (2016). 10
Architecture is a very interesting indicator of how Research & Innovation is organized. A significant number of our clients are currently re-thinking their research & innovation centers, such as Danone, Total, Air Liquide, etc. These projects exhibit one invariant trait: they are designed for collaboration and sustainability. They are open to the world. It’s important to realize this was not always so. Back in the 1950s, research centers looked very differently. And they looked differently because R&I was organized differently. In this second section of the whitepaper, we briefly describe: Three different research & Zoom in on modern innovation eras experts • Concentration & focusing We describe a set of 3 essential skills that modern experts need: • Cross-fertilization • Abstracting • Connection • Screening & Modeling We illustrate each of these eras with an emblematic research center and we • Connecting describe the archetype of the corresponding expert. © Presans 2010 – 2020 11
ERA #1: CONCENTRATION & FOCUSING 50S TO MID-70S EXPERTS ARE STRONG SILO DIGGERS • Researchers push their own research. • Very little collaboration between researchers. • The organization fishes in its own thinking tank and innovations pop up. • Big corporations have plenty of time for deploying industrially their basic discoveries. 2020 2010 –– 2020 Presans 2010 –––––– © Presans Emblematic research center of the concentration & focusing era: Bell Labs (Murray Hill – New Jersey) 12 ©
ERA #2: CROSS-FERTILIZATION MID-70S TO LATE 90S THE RISE OF CHIPMUNK EXPERTS What’s new? Getting to the bottom of the silo takes too much time and industrial systems are more and more complex. The consequences are: • In addition to the still very useful silo digger experts, we observe the rise of chipmunk experts who are more system-oriented. • The best experts track novelties through their networks. • Fertility arises from collaborative interactions between various fields. Presans2010 ©Presans 2020 2010––2020 –––––– Emblematic research center of the cross-fertilization era: Xerox Parc (Palo Alto – California) 13 ©
ERA #3: CONNECTION BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY EXPERTS ARE KNOWLEDGE SCOUTS WHO CAN SHIFT BETWEEN NEW FIELDS WITH SPEED AND TALENT What’s new? Knowledge inflation and the Internet. The world of industry has discovered that it is cheaper and faster to acquire new knowledge coming from outside the walls of the company. The consequences are: • Knowledge is out there and it circulates in a fluid way. • The new added value of research in companies is to scout and organize knowledge. 2020 Experts are experienced in changing topics (and therefore can more swiftly enter novel areas). 2010––2020 • Presans2010 ©©Presans –––––– Emblematic campus of the connection era: Apple Park (Palo Alto – California) 14
THE LONGITUDE PRIZE… RE-INTERPRETED BY PRESANS Although ships exploring the world during the XVII and XVIII centuries could easily measure their latitude, nobody knew how to measure longitude. To measure longitude, one needs to keep track of time while on board. No clock was able to keep the proper time throughout the hazards of a transoceanic journey. England, the dominant maritime nation, was eager to maintain its leadership. In 1714, the British Parliament passed the Longitude Act, establishing the Board of Longitude and offering a Prize of £20,000 (more than EUR 3.5 million in today’s terms) to whoever could find a practical method of measuring longitude to within 30 nautical miles (56 kilometers). Among the initiators of the project were astronomy experts, including Isaac Newton. These experts were convinced that only celestial mechanics was sufficiently precise and delocalized to provide a solution. But another expert, the clock master John Harrison, worked from 1730 to 1761 at refining a series of improved chronometers. In 1761, although Harrison’s timepiece was demonstrated by real navigation tests to provide a sufficiently accurate measurement of longitude, the Board of Longitude continued to delay recognition of a solution developed by a mere ironsmith. Harrison had to go to court and enlist the support of the King George III to finally get credit and be awarded a fraction of the prize in 1773. The official prize was never awarded to anyone. Why did Newton fail to identify John Harrison as an expert in relation to the longitude problem? With the famous longitude prize story we want to introduce what we consider to be the 3 essential skills of experts: Equipped with better operational Despite being a polymathic genius, knowledge about navigation, Newton was reluctant to abstract from Newton’s screening process would the details of celestial mechanics and have picked up the fact that John reconsider other aspects of the big Harrison had achieved a greater level of expertise in the field of picture beyond that silo, such as SKILL #1 SKILL #2 clockwork design, and that this fact improvements in another area of knowledge (clockwork design). Instead, ABSTRACTING SCREENING & was very relevant to solving the longitude problem. he ruled out the possibility such improvements would be able to make a MODELING difference. Newton’s expert network (scientists) was far removed from John Harrison’s expert network (people relevant to clock building). The lack of hubs connecting these networks META-EXPERTISE SKILL #3 eliminated opportunities for them to trade knowledge between each CONNECTING other. Nobody was there to © Presans 2010 – 2020 reformulate the longitude problem EVEN NEWTON in a way that would have made it easier for John Harrison to obtain full recognition for his contribution. COULD BE WRONG! –––––– Source: Even Newton Could be Wrong, Albert Meige, open-organization.com (2009) 15
SKILL #1: In just a few decades, we have gone from a world in which knowledge – the fuel of innovation – was rare and in the hands of a few very big players MODERN EXPERTS OPERATE ON A MORE ABSTRACT LEVEL ABSTRACTING (major companies or universities) to today's world As a result, modern experts are more conceptual in which new knowledge has become a than their predecessors were. They use commodity produced by a multitude of players sophisticated tools, whether theoretical concepts, whose mean size is decreasing. From the 1950s computer modeling, or equipment, but they set The ability to remain at the to the 1970s, the best experts knew all of the theoretical foundations of their fields and all of aside the details of how the tools work until they have pushed a tool beyond its limits. Expertise frontier of knowledge and the basic properties of the objects they were manipulating. Mathematicians knew how to prove today probably requires a greater capacity for abstract thinking than did expertise in the past. seeing the big picture the theorems they were using, experimentalists could open and repair the sophisticated The knowledge required today is itself more abstract than knowledge in the past. Imagine beyond the silos. measurement systems they were using, chemists knew how the compounds they were using had using a theorem that you know is valid but whose proof you learned in college and have forgotten. This theorem is more abstract than the solid chain been prepared. In other words, experts were able to go all the way down to the bottom of the of proof that backs it. Experts must be skilled at pyramid of knowledge. and comfortable with using black boxes. MODERN EXPERTS STILL NEED TO MODERN EXPERTS OPERATE ON THE LATEST FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTAND THE LIMITS OF THE TOOLS THEY USE In the years since, this deep basic knowledge has gradually eroded. Experts may have been taught The best experts remain conscious that whatever tool they use has limits and that, if operating in those basic elements when they were at school, non-standard conditions, they must double-check but they are no longer part of the operational its basics, at the cost of significant intellectual knowledge of experts. Today’s experts are too effort. Experts must be able to understand the busy dealing with the latest layer of knowledge to black boxes they use. make sure they can explain in detail the principles of their phase contrast microscope or the exact logic of a convergence algorithm. Experts must remain at the frontier of knowledge and see the big picture. © Presans 2010 – 2020 16
“NANI GIGANTUM HUMERIS INSIDENTES” This Latin metaphor of dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants expresses the fact that new discoveries are always built on the foundation of previous discoveries. The metaphor is generally attributed to Bernard of Chartres. It is also found in a letter written by Isaac Newton in 1676: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” © Presans 2010 – 2020 17
SKILL #2: Louis Pasteur said that “fortune favors the prepared mind”. An expert is not only at the frontier of knowledge, she must be able to screen relevant MODERN EXPERTS KNOWLEDGE MASTER OPERATIONAL SCREENING & knowledge for her organization. She must be able to systematize serendipity. The word serendipity is an old Another key skill of modern experts is to quickly screen many pieces of knowledge and determine which ones of them match present or future needs MODELING neologism; coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole, it was inspired by an old Persian tale, The Three Princes of of the company (hence the notion of modeling). Serendip, in which the heroes make discoveries by This process is serendipity at work. Most brilliant observing their environment and making shrewd inventions and innovations were, after analysis, no more than joining two pieces of knowledge The ability to screen deductions based on their observations. The word is applied to unexpected and accidental discoveries, together. To be able to efficiently perform this screening, an expert, in addition to mastering the relevant knowledge and such as Fleming discovering penicillin by examining an theoretical state of the art, must master what we old Petri dish that was contaminated by mold. Even call operational knowledge. Knowledge based on expertise for the though serendipity of course requires luck, it is her experience of her industry and her company (in unfortunately increasingly being used to mean just the terms of science & technology, but also in terms of organization. luck aspect. In fact, serendipity is a manifestation of creativity: it is the ability to see relevant connections — organization, business, competitive landscape etc.), even among needs not on today’s agenda. while avoiding various cognitive biases. Mastering operational knowledge requires spending sufficient time in a given industry and company. MODERN EXPERTS MASTER THE THEORETICAL STATE OF THE ART MODERN EXPERTS ARE ARTISTS In a world flooded by knowledge production, one of the key skills for an expert is the ability to master the Presans’ Fellows are, we hope, the incarnation of modern experts – actually they are meta-experts state of the art. What are the most recent scientific (i.e. experts on expertise). We have noticed that discoveries and technological bricks? What is their most of our Fellows have a very developed artistic maturity level? What are the associated trends? What fiber. We originally thought it was a coincidence, are the main hurdle to overcome before these bricks but we are now convinced that it is a key skill. are available in an industrial context? How long is it likely to take? Who are the main players? Mastering Artists see connections that most people don’t see. the state of the art requires dedicating sufficient time This is why they are creative. We are now to read publications, participate in conferences, visit convinced that modern experts must have a strong labs, startups etc. artistic fiber to favor serendipity and the screening & modeling process described above. © Presans 2010 – 2020 ––––– Sources: Innovation Intelligence, A. Meige & J. Schmitt, absans publishing (2015). Private discussions with Presans’ Fellows. 18
“ Fortune favors the prepared mind. LOUIS PASTEUR CHEMIST & MICROBIOLOGIST © Presans 2010 – 2020 19
SKILL #3: Graph theory, a branch of mathematics, is the study MODERN EXPERTS ARE TRADERS of graphs, collections of nodes or vertices possibly attached in pairs by links or edges. The degree of a Whether activating the network by contacting CONNECTING node is the number of links attached to it. A path is a another expert or having a beer nearby a conference way to connect two nodes via links. The distance with a new, interesting contact, an expert will, one between two nodes is the number of hops on the way or another, have to enter into a give and take shortest path linking the nodes. Graph theory is often ritual. Experts love knowledge and will be happy to applied to the study of human networks. A surprising share a piece of their knowledge with another expert, but the quality and durability of the The ability to create fact about real-world human networks is that they often contain highly interconnected subgroups (often relationship will depend on how well the taker pays back the giver by sharing her own knowledge. relevant weak ties with named cliques or small worlds). Most humans belong to several cliques, such as their family, neighbors, Modern experts should also have a well-developed capacity to reformulate questions from their other small worlds of colleagues, tennis club, catacomb explorer group and so forth. Any two cliques are, at least, weakly companies, to avoid cognitive biases and to extract the right insights from peer experts. knowledge and expertise. connected to each other thanks to the few nodes they share. Nodes of a high degree are critical in creating network connectivity; they are called hubs and play a MODERN EXPERTS ARE HUBS AT THE major role in connecting cliques; which is essential INTERFACE OF SEVERAL SMALL WORLDS when it comes to innovation. In any expert network the key players are hubs, experts who have far more contacts than the average MODERN EXPERTS HAVE A WIDE NETWORK expert. The best experts are these hubs, in particular An expert’s network provides access to a far wider hubs connected to hubs. In our global environment, base of knowledge than the one based on her field experts in the same field tend to know each other and to form cliques. The most valuable connections alone. Networks are common among experts and for extending knowledge coverage beyond this field contribute significantly to raise the value of an expert: are the nodes that connect this field, or silo, to other experts in the same field know each other, they read fields. Chipmunk experts are often such nodes, each other’s papers, they meet at conferences, and connecting different cliques – which is key for they often visit each other when traveling. Based on our experience, the network distance for information systemic innovation. access is in practice not much longer than two. The value of a recommendation decays rapidly with ––––– Sources: distance. Innovation Intelligence, A. Meige & J. Schmitt, absans publishing © Presans 2010 – 2020 (2015). Private discussions with Presans’ Fellows. 20
“ The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts. MALCOLM GLADWELL NON-FICTION WRITER, JOURNALIST, PUBLIC SPEAKER © Presans 2010 – 2020 21
We have seen that several types of experts exist and that modern experts share 3 essential skills. Any company absolutely need both silo diggers and chipmunk experts. Chipmunks – and their ultimate form, polymaths – are particularly useful for innovation and are very often rare in companies due to the following reasons: • Short-term pressure: experts tend not to get enough time for exploration to become and remain chipmunks; • No dedicated box: potential chipmunk experts don’t fit the usual “boxes” of the company, i.e. neither the management path, nor the expert ladder; • Management: experts with the potential to become good chipmunks more often end up in managerial position – the company hence looses good experts and risks getting bad managers. There are three distinct levels at which experts can make decisive contributions within a company’s innovation process: • Intelligence: technology watch and broadly speaking innovation intelligence; • Strategy: contribution to the definition of the innovation strategy and roadmaps; • Implementation: contribution to the implementation of the innovation roadmaps and problem solving. Although potentially extremely rewarding, this task often generates a lot of frustrations within an organization. In this third section of the whitepaper, we provide 3 managerial recommendations to better leverage experts and minimize frustrations: Ask for confirmed Ask for anticipation Open yourself to knowledge chipmunks and © Presans 2010 – 2020 leverage external experts 22
“ The long-term vision should reconcile and integrate possible disruptions, from which short- term knowledge strategies may be deduced. ERICK LANSARD THALES, DIRECTOR OF INNOVATION © Presans 2010 – 2020 23
ASK FOR ASK FOR CONTEXTUALIZED STATE-OF-THE-ART ASK FOR MISSING KNOWLEDGE PAPERS (1) As well described in the so-called C/K theory, innovating CONFIRMED The company should ask its experts to produce a requires creating new concepts (C) leveraging contextualized state-of-the-art paper for each of the knowledge (K). This knowledge can already exist – in key domains. The paper should be a document that which case it should be covered in the state-of-the-art KNOWLEDGE will serve as a reference within the company on a given key domain; a way to get some sort of common operating system. On a given key domain, the state- papers. If the knowledge is not readily available, the expert should identify a way to either acquire this knowledge outside of the company if it exists or develop of-the-art paper should: it in-house if it does not exist. In order to efficiently • Provide an exhaustive, detailed and comparative ASK FOR RAPID SOLUTIONS solve problems and list of the sciences and technologies; • Analyze which of them are the most appropriate Experts, although very knowledgeable, do not have the contribute to roadmaps, to the company’s business; answers to all the questions. However, thanks to both her • Evaluate the maturity level of these technologies; theoretical & confirmed knowledge (science & the company should • Describe the associated trends; technology) and her operational knowledge (modes of • Define the vocabulary; operation, tools, processes etc.) an expert should be Provide orders of magnitudes; consider that the primary • able to extract relevant elements from her brain and • Map key players related to the domain. build an ad hoc method to deliver answers rapidly to any and immediate function Answering such questions is bread-and-butter type work for experts. The answers should be problem in her field of expertise – avoiding blind spots (which can be tricky for experts). of an expert is to provide documented. In addition, the contextualized state-of- the-art paper should take into account the strategic ––– confirmed knowledge. Source: and operational business context of the company. C-K design theory, A. Hatchuel & B. Weil, Research Engineering (2009). Such reference state-of-the-art papers will facilitate decision making, communication between collaborators, or the integration of new collaborators. ––– (1) In French we would call such a document a “référentiel de connaissance” rather than “état de l’art” to stress the fact that it is customized for the considered industry, company and business context. © Presans 2010 – 2020 24
ASK FOR GO BEYOND CONFIRMED KNOWLEDGE AND INVOLVE EXPERTS IN YOUR INNOVATION AND ASK FOR INSIGHTS AND OPINIONS STRATEGIC ROADMAPPING ANTICIPATION Experts’ inputs also include insights and opinions. Involving experts in innovation and strategic These may touch on the unstable frontier of roadmapping has a dual benefit: knowledge, particularly during the early phase of an First, insights from experts remove some of the fog that innovation. Both the questions and the answers are surrounds the always uncertain path of innovation. Of In order to put together about the future. Given a field of science and course, when discussing innovation with an executive, a technology, in addition to the questions listed in the project manager, or other team members, the expert technological roadmaps, previous page: should outline the contours of the future based on her • What are the main hurdles to overcome to make expertise, including any speculative insights (which may companies need experts • theses fields usable in an industrial context? What is the corresponding time horizon? be contrary to the expert’s training and natural inclination). The expert is expected to do such to be able to state • How to make a technology compatible with the targeted application? extrapolations, provided she also describes under what conditions the extrapolations would be confirmed, and technological opinions • • What are the most probable scenarios? What signals are we likely to observe in the elaborates on the uncertainty that needs to be eliminated, or lists alternative scenarios. even if these opinions • future if such or such scenario becomes true? What issues are we likely to face during the Secondly, by involving experts in the process of aren’t yet fully confirmed roadmap definition, a company in return sharpens the scale up and industrialization phase? • Etc. ability of these experts to screen the global flows of new by a solid set of knowledge, ideas, tools, results and discoveries. Only high-level experts who regularly visit experimental facts. international conferences in their fields can provide thoughtful answers to forward-looking questions such as these. © Presans 2010 – 2020 25
WHY VERSATILITY IS ESSENTIAL OPEN YOURSELF WHY YOUR COMPANY SHOULD OPEN ITSELF TO CHIPMUNK EXPERTS Experts have made the choice to cherish knowledge, and they are consistent in that behavior. In most cases, this TO CHIPMUNKS Any company needs both types of experts (silo diggers and chipmunks). Chipmunk are rarer and companies choice is not compatible with managerial responsibilities. should open themselves to them because: Human Resource (HR) management experts have addressed AND LEVERAGE this problem. Among the many solutions proposed, the dual • Versatility: chipmunks can change their field of ladder, a system introduced in the United States in the late expertise when the environment of the company 1970s, has had some success and provides experts with a EXTERNAL EXPERTS evolves; career path. However, the results of such a system range from fair to disappointing. Managing experts is difficult: it is • Innovation: chipmunks efficiently connect straightforward and rewarding when their assigned tasks are knowledge and communities that are far apart, they within their expertise, but it may become very difficult when In order to remain versatile are creative and they know how to interact with silo diggers. the company’s priorities are only marginally related to those of the experts. and agile, your company should hire experts who show HIRE POTENTIAL CHIPMUNKS AND PROVIDE THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT LEVERAGE ON-DEMAND EXTERNAL EXPERTS The knowledge distribution among the experts in a company signs of being or becoming At the time of hiring, select experts who show signs of being or of becoming chipmunks. This can be done as part always reflects the history of the company. Companies should cultivate an awareness of the future relevance of chipmunks and should of the interview: discuss the expert’s fields of interest, and gauge her response when presented with a challenge that fields of knowledge that currently are not part of their knowledge base. leverage on-demand external lies outside those fields. In a world of continuous and accelerating change, experts. The company should then provide the right environment allowing chipmunk experts to develop: mismatches arise between the pool of in-house experts and the strategic avenues the company may need to consider. Such mismatches are frustrating both for experts and • Identify internal experts with the right potential; managers, but relatively normal. • Nurture internal experts by allowing them to spend Strategic anticipation alone may not be sufficient to ensure enough time outside of the company and to interact that companies will be able to integrate new knowledge fast with external seasoned chipmunk experts; enough. Most companies today, particularly the front- • Release these experts from excessive short-term runners in the innovation race, are solving the problem—at least in part—by relying on external experts. © Presans 2010 – 2020 pressure. Needless to say that the company should maintain a real- ––––– time mapping of its internal experts. Source: Innovation Intelligence, A. Meige & J. Schmitt, absans publishing (2015). 26
CONCLUSION: MODERN EXPERTS HAVE A CHIPMUNK MINDSET A NEW ERA FOR MODERN EXPERTS RECOMMENDATIONS LEVERAGE EXTERNAL INNOVATION ARE CHIPMUNKS FOR COMPANIES EXPERTISE The present era retains the legacies of We have seen that various species of Experts in a company can have a strong Meta-expertise is of course an attribute open innovation and entrepreneurship experts co-exist: silo diggers who impact at three distinct levels: of chipmunk type experts. Once your that were so central to the early 2010s. master a very narrow and deep field of intelligence, strategy and organization starts to cultivate the But it combines these approaches with knowledge and chipmunks who cover a implementation. To maximize their chipmunk mindset, it is ready to a strong drive to advance technological wider and more diversified field of impact, the company should make sure leverage external expertise of any kind. innovation within a business knowledge. Ultimate modern experts to: Tap into the deeply specialized environment that is more and more (especially for innovation) are knowledge of silo diggers, or expand 1. Ask for confirmed knowledge; complex. Companies are increasing polymaths (cross breeds between silo your big picture vision and networks 2. Ask for anticipation; their investments in scientific and diggers and chipmunks). Polymaths are with chipmunks. By using the services 3. Open yourself to chipmunks and technological knowledge to create generally also experts in expertise, i.e. of an intermediary with robust leverage external experts. unassailable competitive positions and meta-experts. At Presans, we call them processes, such as Presans, you Your company may also want to asses are adopting more and more a systemic Fellows. Modern experts share 3 combine the advantages of speed and in-house expertise leveraging the approach. essential skills: abstracting, screening risk management with the added essential skills we have described and and connecting. benefit of confidentiality. Openness use them as a framework or as a and secrecy can very well be used barometer. together. © Presans 2010 – 2020 27
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ALBERT MEIGE, PhD Albert Meige has been an entrepreneur since his teenage years, when he began by selling magic! He currently is the founder and CEO of Presans and an Academic Director at HEC Paris. Trained as a Telecom Engineer, he holds an MBA from HEC Paris Business School and a PhD in Physics from the Australian National University. In 2008, the École Polytechnique awarded him its Innovation Prize. He has authored multiple works on innovation and digitization, over a dozen peer-reviewed academic publications, two patents, as well as the “Formation de l’Esprit Entrepreneur“ report for the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (2018). Albert is an ultra-trail runner and a seasoned photographer. He can solve the Rubik's Cube in less than fifty seconds and loves underground urban exploration… © Presans 2010 – 2020 PRODUCTION authors: Albert Meige – photographers: Albert Meige and CC0 – bullet proof readers: Jacques Knight, Kristine Martirosyan, Pascaline Le Berre, Hervé Arribart and Bernard Favre – acknowledgements: our beloved clients and Fellows we interviewed to prepare the present whitepaper 28
TOWARDS Founded in 2010, Presans is the number one on-demand OPEN consulting platform in France for industrial open innovation. We inject scientific and technological expertise into innovation projects for global industrial clients, via six main service use cases: Open Problem Solving ORGANIZATIONS Strategic Innovation Guidance Open State of the Art Presans' vision is to Talent & Partner Sourcing accelerate the Synergy Factory For more information, be sure to transformation of Lateral Expertise Approach visit our website at companies worldwide into presans.com Open Organizations that To do so, Presans uses both its proprietary big data and to visit our blog leverage on-demand technology to map expertise worldwide, a network of open-organization.com teams of talents. over 6 millions experts and its team of Fellows (industrial innovation veterans). © Presans 2010 – 2020 PRESANS © ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRESANS 2020 contact@presans.com • www.presans.com • www.open-organization.com 29
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