How to Build an Innovation Lighthouse Team

Pay close attention to the frequency of healthy debate, constructive challenge and openness to new and divergent ideas that takes place in your teams. If the frequency is low… …there is the risk of creating the illusion of performance because people readily ‘understand’ each other, agree on everything, collaboration seems to flow smoothly and there is a collective sensation of progress. However, the opportunity cost is teams gets trapped in their own paradigms, opportunities get overlooked, risks ignored - and ultimately their output becomes derivative not innovative, performance diminishes as opposed to improving and compounding. If the frequency is high… …there is a level of psychological safety that allows for team members to be more objective, to speak up with relevant ideas, to constructively challenge each other, and bring their diverse perspectives and experiences to the table - in the knowledge it won’t be held against them. This opens up the opportunity of reframing the paradigm, and connecting different perspectives and ideas. Ingredients for creativity, innovation, resilience and performance. You see homogeneous teams might feel easier, but easy doesn’t translate into Performance. Here are a few ideas to experiment with your teams… 1. Intentionally foster a team environment that replaces scepticism with intellectual curiosity, an open and learning mindset.   2. Consider how you can create a ways of working that allows all ideas and perspectives from everyone in the room to be heard. 3. Encourage dissenting perspectives. Surrounding yourself with people who are willing to disagree with you and challenge your perspectives and each other. 4. Consider whether you may need to invite others to that creative or idea generation meeting to ensure you get a broader perspective. 5. De-stigmatise failure through sharing past mistakes and celebrating lessons learnt. 6. Institutionalise a team culture of healthy candour. Candour is one of the key attributes to improving the quality of output, levelling up creativity and enabling effective collaboration. What would you add? 👇🏽 #culture

Yesterday I talked about the innovation standoff in multifamily. Today, this one's for the operators. You're not anti-innovation. You're anti-disaster. After watching pilots fail and "game-changing solutions" create more work than they solved - your caution isn't resistance. It's wisdom. But the operators who crack the code on piloting effectively won't just adopt innovation. They'll shape it. Here's the playbook: 1. Create a dedicated innovation budget that survives budget season. Not "we'll find money if something comes up." A protected line item. When you have to beg for pilot funding, you've already lost momentum. 2. Rethink the roles you need. The operators winning in 2026 are investing in: → AI/Automation leadership → Innovation program management → Change management specialists → Data & intelligence resources You can't bolt innovation onto people already drowning in their day jobs. 3. Fix your site selection strategy. Stop giving pilots your most broken properties. That property has staffing problems, deferred maintenance, and a team barely keeping their heads above water. The PropTech company walks into a hurricane and is expected to prove sunshine. Give pilots a property with a stable team, an on-site champion who wants to participate, and leadership that's bought in - not burned out. 4. Build your data lake. This doesn't eliminate integrations - you'll still need them. But when you control your data centrally: → You're not waiting on a PMS to prioritize your needs → Clean data makes new integrations faster → You validate solutions with YOUR data before committing → You negotiate from strength, not dependency That's sovereignty. Sovereignty accelerates innovation. 5. Align success metrics BEFORE the pilot starts. What does "success" look like? What KPIs? Who's measuring? Get this in writing. Both sides. Skip this step, and you'll end the pilot with PropTech claiming victory while your team says "it didn't work" - and you'll both be right. 6. Build in executive sponsorship. Pilots without C-suite air cover die. Not because leadership kills them - but because no one protects them from budget cuts and competing priorities. 7. Incentivize innovation at every level. Build it into performance reviews. Build it into promotion criteria. Celebrate pilots - even failed ones - because you learned something. 8. Design the exit strategy upfront. When there's no graceful off-ramp, people avoid getting on the road entirely. Make "this didn't work and here's what we learned" an acceptable outcome. The infrastructure for innovation is just as important as the innovation itself. Build the playbook. Then run the plays. Tomorrow: What PropTech companies need to do differently to earn the pilot. What would you add to this playbook? What's worked at your organization?

You can lead innovation from wherever you are. But you need to know how to setup an innovation capability. This is the innovation model I coached that produced 957% return on the initial investment of $2.47M. I envisioned and coached the process, model, and approach for a global and scalable innovation capability from what I learned leading innovation at Microsoft. Part of what makes innovation so tough is the lack of shared mental models. Here are some of the key components of leading innovation: INNOVATION BOARD An Innovation Board is people working together to manage innovation as a capability. An internal Innovation Board can help you prioritize, get funding, channel resources, and escalate as necessary. It's also a way to integrate innovation back to the core. INNOVATION HUBs An Innovation Hub is a center of gravity for innovation efforts. I like the "Hub" model because it's the idea of Hubs and Spokes. You can have a Hub of Hubs, and it's a way to embed and spread innovation around the world. It's a federated model for innovation. INNOVATION PORTFOLIO Creating a shared view of your innovation projects helps leaders see the dashboard. It gets people thinking in "portfolios" vs. "one offs". An Innovation Portfolio gives you the balcony view to invest better. BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION This is where you create new value. I learned a lot as head coach for Microsoft Satya Nadella's innovation team, but one of the most important things is to focus on business model innovation. As Satya put it to me: "Bring me new business models!" Just this one shift in focus can completely transform the success of innovation efforts. CULTURE OF INNOVATION You can inspire innovation at multiple levels. Satya asked me to share with him directly stories of innovation and trends & insights. When you share stories of success, smart people want to play, too. And, they have a fear of missing out. Every leader wants growth.  And innovation is the lever. EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES Innovation happens at the edge. It's the intersection of customer pains, needs, and desired outcomes and your solution. Innovation takes empathy. Swarming on customer challenges is where breakthroughs happen. Everyone can innovate, but they need the mindsets, skill sets, and toolsets. DREAM BIG, START SMALL Too many people play small, out of fear and risk. But that sets the stage for failure. Small things don't accrue to any big things unless there's a guiding vision. The vision is the scaffolding for success. And the vision is what will inspire the team and get support. When you dream big, you figure out better solutions. And these constrain your strategies, and that's a good thing. The right answer is Dream Big, Start Small. This way you can work forwards and work backwards. Dream big, start small.

Building extremely innovative teams is a topic of great interest to me. I’ve had the privilege of working with three exceptional teams at three different companies, two of which were nonprofits and one is a tech company. Here are a few of my approaches to building such teams, presented in no particular order: 1. Observe people in action: Pay attention to how individuals perform at work, at conferences, and in their free time. Look for exceptional work and behaviors that can serve as a basis for targeting potential hires. 2. Embrace a Bayesian approach : ask the candidates about their relevant past results, such as products, papers, years of management experience, collaborations, and so on. They should be prepared to answer questions about their reasoning and motivations. 3. Recognize that no one is perfect: Exceptional individuals may have flaws or shortcomings. Assess which of these traits you can tolerate. For instance, dishonesty is prevalent among individuals with high egos and can be detrimental to a team. However, direct speech is not a drawback for me; in fact, it’s an asset. 4. Foster disagreement: Encourage open dialogue and critical thinking. The best ideas should emerge from constructive disagreements. Maintain a professional and respectful environment to ensure that productive discussions continue. When individuals become complacent and accept things without questioning, you’ve lost the opportunity for growth and innovation. 5. Encourage curiosity and continuous learning: Emphasize the importance of asking “why” and exploring new ideas. Cultivate a beginner mindset and encourage individuals to embrace uncertainty and seek knowledge. Share and encourage others to share their readings, ideas, and thoughts, even if they don’t directly align with the current quarter’s OKRs. 6. Make decisions swiftly: Utilize the one-way or two-way doors framework to facilitate decision-making. Evaluate the potential second-order consequences and consider the risk-reward ratio. While it’s important to assess the likelihood of significant consequences, it’s equally crucial to take calculated risks. 7. In high-stakes situations, people tend to become overly cautious over time. They’ve witnessed past failures and are afraid to take risks. Apply probability and decision theories to make informed choices. Remember, not making a decision has its own costs. Collaborate with the legal department to support taking calculated risks and mitigate potential legal risks. 8. Be inquisitive and relentless. Ask questions and encourage the team to provide their answers. Don’t be afraid to admit when you don’t understand something; in fact, only insecure individuals are afraid of looking foolish. Pretending to comprehend something when you don’t can lead to significant problems for the team. Additionally, if you’re unsure about a topic, there’s a good chance that others may not understand it either but are not seeking clarification. #innovation #leadership #AI

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹—𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱? In research conducted with Johnathan Cromwell, Kevin J. Johnson, and Amy Edmondson, we studied more than 160 innovation teams—including those in a Fortune Global 500 company—and found that it's not just how much teams learn that matters, but when and how they learn. We identified four core modes of team learning: 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘃𝗲 — assessing goals, roles, and strategies 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 — brainstorming, prototyping, testing new ideas 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 — scanning the environment for trends, signals, and shifts 𝗩𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 — drawing lessons from others who’ve done similar work The most effective teams didn’t try to do everything at once. They began and ended with reflexive learning, anchoring their work in shared understanding. They placed exploratory learning (experimental and contextual) in the middle. This rhythm—reflection → exploration → reflection—helped them reduce friction, integrate insights, and build real momentum. We also found that vicarious learning can be combined with reflexive learning in the same project phase with positive results. But when teams mixed reflexive with experimental or contextual learning in the same phase, performance suffered. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆: Innovation doesn’t thrive on more learning. It thrives on structured learning. Teams that sequence and separate their learning activities make faster, clearer progress. We’ve summarized the findings from our research, published in Administrative Science Quarterly—a leading journal in organizational research—in this new Harvard Business Review article. Link in comments.