Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation

Linda A. Hill · Greg Brandeau · Emily Truelove · Kent Lineback

Apr 2023 · Gildan Media · Narrated by Tom Pile

About this audiobook

You might think the key to innovation is attracting exceptional creative talent. Or making the right investments. Or breaking down organizational silos. All of these things may help-but there's only one way to ensure sustained innovation: you need to lead it-and with a special kind of leadership. Collective Genius shows you how. Preeminent leadership scholar Linda Hill, along with former Pixar tech wizard Greg Brandeau, MIT researcher Emily Truelove, and Being the Boss coauthor Kent Lineback, found among leaders a widely shared, and mistaken, assumption: that a "good" leader in all other respects would also be an effective leader of innovation. The truth is, leading innovation takes a distinctive kind of leadership, one that unleashes and harnesses the "collective genius" of the people in the organization. Using vivid stories of individual leaders at companies like Volkswagen, Google, eBay, and Pfizer, as well as nonprofits and international government agencies, the authors show how successful leaders of innovation don't create a vision and try to make innovation happen themselves. Rather, they create and sustain a culture where innovation is allowed to happen again and again-an environment where people are both willing and able to do the hard work that innovative problem solving requires.

About the author

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, the faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative, and author of Becoming a Manager. She is also coauthor of Being the Boss and Collective Genius.

Greg Brandeau, longtime head of technology at Pixar Animation Studios, is a former EVP and CTO for The Walt Disney Studios.

Emily Truelove is a researcher and PhD candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Kent Lineback, now a coach, writer, and collaborator, spent nearly thirty years as a manager and executive in business and government. He is coauthor (with Randy Komisar) of the bestseller The Monk and the Riddle.