11.7. BOUNDARY SPANNING
One main and perhaps crucial ingredient in technology transfer is boundary spanning. This requires some elaboration.
Engineers should be able to communicate effectively with other engineers, economists with other economists, and so on. Furthermore, an engineer with a specialization in air pollution control presumably can communicate better with another engineer in air pollution control than with an engineer specializing in groundwater hydrology. One could continue this argument further. The point is that with the increase in the complexity of science and technology, specialization has become necessary, and this increased specialization can inhibit communication. As discussed previously, an increase in communication among scientists and engineers is essential for the innovation process. The added problem in tech transfer is that the communication network needs to go beyond the research community to include the user community, the marketing people, and the manufacturing groups. This would require boundary spanning—going beyond the immediate boundary of one's discipline.
To be sure, it is not enough just to increase communication beyond the immediate boundary or group of R&D personnel. For the communication to be effective, it must result in the understanding of "user needs" and creative collaboration among the various groups (researchers, marketing, manufacturing, and ultimate users) to facilitate significant tech transfer.
Sole responsibility for boundary spanning or gatekeeping cannot be formally assigned to an individual. In an R&D organization, this will have to be one of the responsibilities that R&D personnel undertake as an integral part of the innovation process, although some will do it more effectively than others. When utilizing any of the approaches for technology transfer (e.g., personnel, organization link-pins, procedural), participation of personnel who are able to span the boundary is likely to produce the best results.
Management takes on the formidable challenge of implementing processes that harness and channel creativity, and orchestrating the interactions of people with varying types of skills and approaches over time. Managing interdisciplinary teamwork among the people with the varied skills needed throughout the innovation process is critical to success. In Chapter 3, the differences in goals and means of scientists and engineers were contrasted. Managing the broader process of innovation draws in even more functional areas—marketers, designers, finance, accounting, and legal experts. The management challenge is to bring all of the talents to bear on innovation, and to make sure diversity leads to creative problem solving and not divisiveness. "Innovation takes place when different ideas, perceptions, and ways of processing and judging information collide," write Leonard and Strauss (1997), "that, in turn, requires collaboration among various players who see the world in inherently different ways. Constructive conflict can turn unproductive, due to lack of innate understanding. Disputes become personal and the creative process breaks down."
The interface between the broad group "R&D" and "marketing" has been afforded a good deal of study. As these two groups broadly represent the major dimensions of innovation—technology and the market—they offer insight into the challenges of managing interdisciplinary innovation teams and ways to bridge gaps. Table 11.1 contrasts major differences between R&D and marketers along the lines of goals and aspirations, needs and motivations (Griffin and Hauser, 1992.)
How can the communication, mutual understanding, and cooperation between teams of technical and business personnel be enhanced? Griffin and Hauser (1992) recommend:
Designing physical facilities that reduce the physical distance between the groups and provides non territorial spaces in which people can informally interact
Moving personnel between functional groups, even in a temporary advisory capacity, hiring people with dual skill sets in R&D and marketing who can straddle both areas, and encouraging training of existing personnel in dual skills (for example in management of technology programs in universities)
Providing opportunities to interact socially via cross functional dinners and picnics, recreational activities, and the like
The goal of mechanisms to encourage communication and cooperation is not necessarily harmony, but to manage conflict, and to channel it toward creative problem solving. In "Putting Your Whole Company's Brain to Work," Leonard and Strauss (1997) focus on what managers can do to channel different viewpoints into constructive creative abrasion. They recommend using a diagnostic tool—for example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). Any tool has limitations, and care must be taken to avoid using MBTI or similar tests for type-casting people as innovators and not-innovators. However, their use provides a basis for joint exploration of approaches to thinking style and communication that can facilitate self awareness as well enhanced understanding of others. These profiles allow managers to guide the formation of teams with intellectual diversity, help members acknowledge differences up front, and "actively manage the creative process by making abrasion creative."
Beyond understanding and harnessing different cognitive styles, managers are also key in communicating to the interdisciplinary team what each functional area brings to the process over the life of a project, from the advent of a new idea through market launch. While the presence of multiple functions is wise throughout the life of a project, the cadence and emphasis of different functions will differ given the type and stage of projects. For example, as was mentioned in Chapter 12, the type and emphasis of technical and marketing inputs needed will vary as a project progresses and will also depending on the type of innovation. Incremental innovation implies a strong and vocal role for marketers, identification of consumer preferences, target markets, diffusion potential, environmental trends, and development of marketing and sales strategy. Similarly designers up front focus on aesthetics and the user interface, integrating of technical and market issues. However, early-stage disruptive technology will tend to emphasize R&D activities at the advent. Marketers should gain their clues from technology and imagination, and resist the temptation to channel efforts toward existing customers and needs. Most likely they will be good listeners and apply their imaginations to possibilities for application and market creation, which become more defined over time.
"Within trusting relationships," writes Miles (2007), "individuals freely collaborate in the process of innovation, sharing tacit knowledge and creating new knowledge out of combinations and new interpretations of the pieces of knowledge each possesses." Engendering trust among people from diverse disciplines requires dedicating time to understanding one another's goals and cognitive styles. This softer side of innovation is likely to elicit resistance, especially from those trained in more technical fields—the hard sciences and engineering, and even business disciplines such as finance and accounting, which are more quantitative. Ultimately, however, the manager's most important role is in bringing legitimacy to the conversation (Maccoby, 2005). Showing a willingness to do introspection themselves is a major step toward gaining credibility for the process. Gaining credibility also assumes the manager has the respect of the entire team. Is the best manager of an interdisciplinary technology-based innovation team necessarily the best scientist or engineer? On the one hand, Roberts (1978) argues that most productive R&D teams are invariably led by people who are technically competent. However, while technical background and competence makes gaining the respect of technically trained team members easier, the best technical people, argues Kanter (2006), are not necessarily the best managers. Managers can facilitate the conversation among knowledge workers, all of whom have something to contribute that is necessary, but not sufficient until effectively integrated with information from others.