Bill Buxton, author and Principal Scientist at Microsoft Research, provided us with Innovation Calls For I-Shaped People - the Insight opinion column in BusinessWeek online on July 13, 2009. Taking yet another stab at identifying the elusive idealized leadership or design team member, this concept is a counterpoint to the "T Shaped" collaborator prototype attributed by Buxton to Bill Moggridge of the design consultancy, IDEO. Since health care leaders are in the business of empanelling high functioning teams and hiring talent to work innovatively and collaboratively, we must pause to think about each prototype that comes along - especially when its from such a worthy source.
Crossing T's, Dotting I's, or Splitting Hairs?
This blog considered the benefits and pitfalls of collaboration and the seemingly ideal collaborative prototype of "T-Shaped" leaders in April (In Pursuit of T-Shaped Health Care Leaders). Buxton suggests that to optimize innovation, T Shaped leaders - in the words of Insead's Morten T. Hansen "executives who are equally adept at working across an organisation and up and down a vertical niche" - should now give way to "I Shaped" ones:
"These [people] have their feet firmly planted in the mud of the practical world, and yet stretch far enough to stick their head in the clouds when they need to. Furthermore, they simultaneously span all of the space in between."
He goes on to describe I-ers as the kids who were always deeply involved in some messy project that proved they were grounded in reality while also showing the ability to transcend the mundane to achieve abstract brilliance.
But are I's who can dig in the dirt and stretch to the sky really more innovative and collaborative than T's who work up, down, and across organizations? Aren't both potentially viable platforms for organizational leadership? Can't I's and T's exist simultaneously in the same person? Maybe the ideals are actually I-Ts?
Three Pillars in Design
Buxton's rationale for I's instead of T's comes from what he sees as a more complex view of team composition:
"At Microsoft (MSFT), we try to make sure that in looking at new product or services ideas, we have at least three Ts, which we call BXT, reflecting equal levels of competence and creativity in three domains: business, experience (in design), and technology. These are three interdependent and interwoven pillars we see as the foundation for what we do."
But Buxton asserts that the qualities needed are actually different and that the most successful innovators must:
"...have their feet firmly planted in the mud of the practical world, and yet stretch far enough to stick their head in the clouds when they need to. Furthermore, they simultaneously span all of the space in between."
So instead of finding maximal innovation potential in the horizontal continuum across disciplines, Buxton seems to value more greatly the continuum spanning in the trenches practical experience to higher level design, strategy, or dissemination.
His article goes on to describe six qualities of the best cross disciplinary teams - well worth reading.
Four in Health Care?
The I-shaped prototype is actually recognizable in the many successful health care leaders who had early and deep clinical careers before becoming successful executives. But don't I-shaped leaders need to rapidly and effectively learn T-ness in our complex health care environment? It seems that spanning Buxton's three pillars (business, design experience, and technology) pales in comparison to what it takes, , for instance, to successfully manage and/or innovate in an academic medical center (AMC).
In his forthcoming, provocative book on the history and survival of AMCs, Dr. Arthur Feldman, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College, soberly notes that the classic tripartite AMC delivering clinical care, professional education, and research can only thrive in the current environment if it transforms itself. He sees today's viable AMC as clinical-care centric organization supported by four pillars - or in his words, "spheres of influence" - which are disease focused research, professional education, enabling structures, and business success. Now that's a handful, isn't it?
Are there enough letters in the alphabet to describe the leaders we need to manage that beast?
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