About John

“John Abele is a pioneer and leader in the field of less-invasive medicine, For more than four decades, John has devoted himself to innovation in health care, business and solving social problems.” He is retired Founding Chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation. John holds numerous patents and has published and lectured extensively on the technology of various medical devices and on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare. His major interests are science literacy for children, education, and the process by which new technology is invented, developed, and introduced to society. Current activities include Chair of the FIRST Foundation which works with high school kids to make being science-literate cool and fun, and development of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conferencing institution whose mission is to research, develop, and teach improved methods for interactive conferencing: problem solving, conflict resolution, strategic planning, new methods for learning and generally help groups to become “Collectively intelligent.” He lives with his wife and two dogs in Shelburne, Vermont.”

Are you leveraging the Informal Networks in your organization?

Posted on July 25, 2014 by John

As a leader have you ever wondered why change initiatives so often don’t generate expected results? How you can completely re-design a reporting structure and have so little change in the day to day operations and interactions? The answer according to a recent Partnering Resources article is in the hidden network in your organization that you overlooked and didn’t include in your change strategy – the informal human network.

In any organization we all know who to go to when we need help with research or to trouble shoot a certain computer program or other specific information – and it isn’t always the person appointed by the organization as the expert. These informal information networks keep organizations running smoothly and can seriously boost productivity and innovation. So how as leaders can we leverage these networks to affect organizational change?

The first step is identification, particularly the key players in any network. Maya Townsend, author of Leveraging Human Networks to Accelerate Learning identifies the key influencers of any informal network:

• Hubs are directly connected to many people and, as a result, have the ability to disseminate information quickly. Hubs sometimes become bottlenecks: people so overwhelmed with information requests and communications that their productivity wanes. When this happens, the ripple effects have a disproportionate affect on the network and many people feel the results. They help CLOs spread information and accelerate change by getting messages out quickly and effectively across a wide network of individuals.

• Gatekeepers stand at the intersection between parts of the organization or areas of expertise. They can be the managers who, for sake of control, prohibit anyone from working with their direct reports without them present. They can be the executives who shield their organizations from abusive colleagues. Or they can simply be subject matter experts who can easily and quickly access people in a certain field of knowledge.

• Pulse-takers are the covert influencers within networks. They’re often more knowing than known, and they connect with others strategically. They can be the Machiavellian, behind-the-scenes players or quietly influential informal leaders who people turn to during times of uncertainty. These are the people CLOs want to have on their side during major change initiatives because, with just a few actions, they have the power to accelerate or impede progress.

Once the key players have been identified the task of leveraging the network becomes simplified. Approach these people, discuss change initiatives with them, gather their perspectives and ultimately get them on your side! Once you have done that the important information and support for the initiative will spread naturally throughout the organization.

The Kingbridge Insight for this week is to “consider incorporating informal networks into your change strategy”. It may seem unnatural and even daunting at first but the potential benefits far outweigh the effort.

Get off the Digital Soapbox

Posted on June 27, 2014 by John

With the internet came the promise of global networks, information sharing and mass collaboration. There has certainly been some of that but many have taken the reach the internet provides as an invitation to hop on their digital soapbox and bombard users with an excess of ‘push’ messaging.

Jeff Pundyk, vice president, content marketing and strategy, at The Economist Group recently wrote an impressively succinct post on this subject and since I couldn’t possibly say it any better than he I have re – posted below:

Source: Social Media Today
http://socialmediatoday.com/jeff-pundyk/2401931/be-heard-turn-down-volume

To Be Heard, Turn Down the Volume

What is it about the Internet that has made everybody so sure of themselves?

You’d think the level of disruption during the past 20 years would have had the opposite effect. Instead, the number of people stepping onto their virtual soapboxes and telling the rest of us what to do and think has exploded. They opine with such surety, such clarity, such force.

I love that everybody has access to the tools of publishing and can act like a media company. I’ve spent years encouraging it. But where does all of this certainty come from? How do all of these people have all the answers? Today I come in praise of a little less conviction and a little more listening. The promise of digital is not the soapbox–that’s the very reason old-school media has been so ripe for disruption. It’s the community. It’s the marketplace of ideas. Without more listening, there’s little learning; without meaningful participation, there’s little chance for engagement. Instead, we have self-proclaimed experts self-promoting. We have commenters turning up the volume.

We have noise.

At the risk of sounding somewhat sure of myself, let me softly suggest that for brands, there is a real opportunity to be heard despite the rising noise. Try thinking about digital as a niche medium. Try creating a specialized community where employees, experts, advocates, and those with a shared affinity can mix. Try seeding the community with content, both your own and content from outside sources, to help organize the community into even smaller groups. Try turning down the volume, saying less and listening more.

Ironically, as more so-called experts raise their voices, the value of sharing real expertise has only grown–but now the challenge becomes creating the right context for that sharing. To be a credible thought partner, brands need to know who their real tribes are and learn what they care about. Create a clean, well-lighted place–or, better yet, join one that already exists. Give up a little control. Worry a little less about yourself. Stop being so damn smart and start being a little more human. In an era when everybody seems to be yelling, a little quiet confidence can go a long way.

And with that, I’ll take my own advice and shut up.

On that note, the Kingbridge Insight for this week is to ask you to consider how you/your organization are engaging online. Are you part of the conversation or part of the noise?

Big Data, Social Physics and the Value of Face to Face Interactions

Posted on June 13, 2014 by John

What has always been the challenge of social scientists? The limited, unreliable and more often than not subjective data with which the must work.

Well, according to Alex “Sandy” Pentland, director of MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and author of Social Physics, computer networks will remedy these shortcomings. Tapping into the data that flows through mobile devices, search engines, social media, and credit card payment systems, scientists will be able to collect precise, real-time and reliable information on the behavior of millions.

Once we have this data Pentland asserts that science will be able to accurately predict how people will behave in a given situation and accurately assess how information flows through a network of individuals. And once we know how information flows it can be optimized.

In a recent TedX Talk Pentland gives us the mathematical run down on whether social networks and their ability to spread awareness really contribute as much as they say to improving peoples knowledge and decision making. The assessment is perhaps predictably both yes and no.

There is no doubt that social networks have contributed greatly to global awareness of a great many issues. However, as Pentland explains his talk social networks tend to create what are referred to as “echos” where the same information is presented over and over again leading to narrowly informed opinions and ultimately decisions.

In addition, a study performed by Pentland and his team within a local organization uncovered that ultimately virtual interactions contributed very little to the ideas generated and used during group decision making and problem solving when compared to the face to face networking within the organization.

The take home message and Kingbridge insight this week; until social scientists can tap that well of raw data waiting for us in server farms around the world, the most effective and productive interactions- particularly within organizations- still occur face to face. When we are face to face we can read reactions, question and challenge far more effectively than via social platforms. In person interactions still come out on top when looking for quality group decisions.

Getting Disruptive Ideas to Market

Posted on April 25, 2014 by John

This blog on bringing disruptive ideas to market was originally posted on Xconomy in July of 2007 however, I continue to get comments on the content and requests to speak regarding this topic so here it is back by popular demand!

I’m interested in how one takes inventions to scale. Obviously, that is what Boston Scientific was all about. How do you get a disruptive idea, in particular, into the marketplace? In my opinion, people frequently take the wrong approach.

Disruptive ideas are very threatening to the establishment, or whoever owned that marketspace before. They may be products or technology like the iPOD (catheter surgery in the case of BSC), or they can be processes or services like Amazon or eBay. Or they can be social ideas like a bike path into the city. They can lead to dramatic changes in the field to which the idea applies. That can mean different people will use and control it. And it will be used differently with a different infrastructure and in different locations. There will be economic implications with winners and losers. And the idea will influence many others indirectly.

So how do you overcome the resistance of the establishment (surgeons in the case of BSC, but it could be academia, professional societies, big companies, the government, etc.)? Hire PR? Most of the PR and advertising guys are great if the idea is accepted, lousy if the idea is not accepted. Your goal is to get it accepted. And that to me is the fun part of business. New ideas grow best with viral approaches and that’s all about relationships and reputation.

Don’t go after the biggest idea first.
A disruptive technology can have many applications. If you get funding for it, the funders will want to go after the biggest application first in order to justify the investment. That’s a dumb thing to do, because new ideas and technologies evolve. They grow like a plant as more and more is learned. And there will be lots of problems early on. If you go for the biggest application first, you will create unmeetable expectations which will arm the establishment with more arguments to destroy you. And even mini-failures will be hard to recover from. Pick an application that is smaller and you can more easily find, or create, champions who will become disciples. Their expectations will be more modest. They will be more forgiving when things don’t go right. Over time they will become your unpaid sales force and your R&D department. You won’t just be creating a product and customers, you will be creating a movement.

And you’ve got to be patient. It took us (BSC) over 20 years to help get the Less Invasive Surgery business going. The ATM for banks took well over a decade to catch on. You can not only be too early for the market because your technology isn’t finished, but too early for the market because customers aren’t ready for it—which means the establishment is going to pull every trick in the book to dismiss you.

At BSC, we took our disruptive catheter technologies and went for smaller niche markets. These smaller markets (for example pediatric cardiology) allowed us to experiment. Our customers developed new applications. They suggested modifications. They came up with great accessories to extend the use and improve the results of the procedures for which the products were designed. I used to even make “care packages” for some inventor docs that would contain special wires, tubing, molds, heat guns, shrink tubing, etc, so they could make prototypes themselves. They loved it. We had friends for life, and gained a few good product ideas as well.

There are lots of other examples of technologies that have enormous applications, where it was, or is, important to debug them first. By doing so, you will not only be learning more about the technology, but also the marketing and communication strategies that you may want to follow if in fact it does become super big. By going after smaller markets first, you can evolve, define, and develop more IP. You can do an awful lot of things that will increase the likelihood of a successful attack on the big market when you get there.

Build in-depth knowledge and trust it in hard times.
If it really is a new idea, you will not only be developing the product(s), you will be developing the language and the science behind it—the ontology and taxonomy for talking about it. It’s hard, but when you get there you will have created that market—and you will own it.

The marketing and funding folk will be pushing hard for you to get some big name scientific and other advisors on the masthead for credibility purposes. Yes, a few may be valuable, but remember, these are people who are already famous. They have nothing to gain (except money, of course, and that can sometimes be a bad motivator) and everything to lose. Finding the unknown younger scientist, engineer, or physician who has the capabilities and desire is much more important. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose. I’ll put my bet on the motivated entrepreneurial type every time. I have a checklist of attributes that we used to pick physicians. Ask me if you’re interested.

Focus.
Traditional business experts will always say you’ve got to focus in order to apply your limited resources effectively. But if you’re dealing with a truly new idea, that may be the wrong thing to do because you don’t yet know where the best spot to focus is. You’ve got to be able to say, ‘It doesn’t look like it from the outside, but in fact we arefocusing. We are taking little pieces of many markets and leveraging the daylights out of it, in order to create a new market.’ If your customers are your partners, and they should be, they can help you make the right decisions.

Always build your credibility and reputation.
Who do you trust more; someone who is selling you something which you’ve never heard of before, or someone who is selling something familiar from a well-known company? Everything else being equal, with most people, the affiliation with the well-known brand and organization is a reputational asset. So it’s critical to earn the respect and trust of both your customers and the community members, including competitors, of the field you will be working with.

General Georges Doriot, founder of American Research and Development and considered one of the fathers of venture capital, was a charmer and had an enormous Rolodex. He told me that it was his most valuable asset. He was a generous person, a mentor to many and always doing favors for people. But that generosity had an enlightened self-interest to it. The Rolodex represented his relationships and the personal credibility and reputation that went along with it. That was his most important investment.

I think people sometimes get so caught up in the competition of financial results that they forget that the thing that’s going to give them the best likelihood of success in the future is the relationship metrics.

This is all common sense, of course, and pretty obvious. But it’s amazing how often we forget the obvious.

Hacking Work

Posted on April 17, 2014 by John

Work is broken. As Bill Jensen and Josh Klein point out in their book “Hacking Work”, companies are moving faster, but not really getting anywhere. In fact organizational performance has been deteriorating for decades, regardless of economic conditions. Companies have tried to avert this through short term fixes like layoffs and spending cuts however, in the long run the result is the same. Work is broken and needs to be hacked.

Employee engagement continues to decline, while leadership frustration continues to rise. We could blame the people (employees) or the economy but the truth is that as the complexity in the workplace has increased over the years the way we work has changed very little. People are frustrated with constantly shifting priorities, limited resources and an accelerated market place. The feeling of accomplishment and pride in work that feeds the ‘soul’ of the employee is marginalized because current (and by current we mean old) organizational structures haven’t evolved to accommodate shifts in the market, communication or technology, thus don’t allow for significant achievement. In short, it is the way we work that is failing to keep up, not the people.

Jensen and Klein suggest that the solution to the problem of how we change the work landscape is not a top down approach but rather will come from individuals at all levels of an organization challenging the status quo, daring to bypass sacred structures, using forbidden tools, and ignoring silly corporate edicts. In other words, they are hacking work to increase their own efficiency and job satisfaction. When enough of today’s workforce joins the hack, there will be a definitive movement towards functional work in the 21st century.

The Kingbridge Insight this week, like many others comes as a question:
Are you going to remain part of the problem, protecting the status quo? Or, are you going to join the tribe of individuals implementing the solution and teaching others how to hack work and make it better for everyone?

Measuring Collaboration ROI

Posted on March 28, 2014 by John

In most cases an overall objection to collaboration within organizations is not an issue, however, the where, when and how of implementing collaborative systems is.

Collaboration is an increasingly vital capability for organizations. But when companies just promote collaboration indiscriminately, without the proper culture and resources to support it they create information bottlenecks and actually diminish their organizational effectiveness.

In a 2006 edition of McKinsey Quarterly the article “Mapping the Value of Employee Collaboration” presented an in depth network analysis approach to determining where and how to introduce collaboration initiatives within an organization in a way that is not only effective but measurable against the bottom line. Despite the article being nearly 8 years old, the issue of how to appropriately leverage collaboration mechanisms is as much a problem today – if not more.

The network approach presented in the article gives executives the information they need to foster collaboration at the points where it delivers an economic return – a key indicator required to allocate resources to collaborative efforts.

It would not do this article justice to attempt to summarize nor would it help you apply any of the methods within (for which you may want to hire a professional!). However, if as a leader you have been searching for a way to both justify and accurately allocate resources to collaboration systems in your organization it is highly recommended to read this article.

Do your Collaborative Leadership Skills measure up?

Posted on March 14, 2014 by John

Carrying on the same vein as the last post, we move forward to the increasingly essential skill of collaboration, specifically for leaders.

The Ivey Business Journal recently published an article “The Collaboration Imperative” exploring one of the greatest management challenges of the 21st century – cultivating collaborative leadership skills. Author Rick Lash of The Hay Group, discusses how in the current and accelerating complexity and unpredictability of markets that companies will “need leaders who are highly adaptive, continuous learners, able to lead diverse groups across functional disciplines, regions and cultures.” Essentially, whether across teams, borders or function leaders will need to collaborate.

The first key point in this article – that can not be stressed enough – is that the skills required for collaboration are NOT the same as those required to work effectively in a functional team. As a leader you may excel at ‘teamwork’ but this does not lend to your credibility as an effective collaborator. A Hay Group study found that most executives still require considerable development in influence, inspirational leadership, coaching, mentoring and emotional self-awareness – the competencies that are not necessarily needed for successful ‘teamwork’ but absolutely imperative for collaboration. In short, leadership skill sets have not kept up with the evolution of the marketplace and subsequent shift to flatter organizational structures.

One of the obvious barriers to collaborative leadership is the organizational culture. If the leader is rewarded based only on his departmental performance rather than that of the organization as a whole he/she is unlikely to put long term cross functional collaboration as a priority. regardless if the skill set to do so exists or not.
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Although it is acknowledged that organizational culture plays a considerable role in successful collaborative leadership, the list below succinctly summarizes the key collaborative competencies required in an individual to be successful as a collaborative leader:

Enterprise perspective – they have a comprehensive understanding of the company’s overall business strategy and how the joint work they are leading aligns with that strategy. They use this understanding to resolve any conflicts that may arise.
Cross-functional perspective – they understand the needs, metrics, incentives and deliverables of different functions and business units. They can align these competing priorities within the operating model.
Customer perspective – they not only understand the customers’ interests and needs, they also know how to keep the team focused on making the decisions that enhance the overall customer experience.
Self-management – they exhibit self-control when challenged. They have patience when dealing with colleagues who may have trouble understanding the shared purpose of the collaboration initiative. They do not take disagreements personally.
Listen with respect – they listen objectively and respectfully to multiple opinions. They empathize with colleagues whose position, situation or perspective may differ from their own. They start with the assumption that collaborators are capable and will do their best.
Matrix influencing – they excel at communicating with different stakeholders and influencing them to support collaborative projects.

The level of these competencies can be broadly assessed with the following questions:

1.    Can this leader achieve results by influencing rather than directing?
2.    Can this leader share ownership, even if it means sharing credit and rewards?
3.    Can this leader delegate and let others deliver results?
4.    Has this leader demonstrated the ability to motivate groups of diverse individuals who may not share her viewpoints or perspectives?
5.    Has this leader demonstrated the ability to make and implement decisions collaboratively?
6.    Can this leader get results even when he has no direct control over people or resources?

Now that you have self assessed your abilities against the competencies above and considered your own growth areas to achieve ‘master’ level collaborative skills and have devised a plan to become the best collaborator you can be……. I will temper this with the Kingbridge Insight for this week which is that collaborative skills and leadership abilities are not in themselves a solution. Perhaps the greatest strength of any collaborative leader is to know how to select collaboration opportunities wisely and to recognize when they are not working or not true collaborations.

How are your Strategic Leadership Skills?

Posted on February 28, 2014 by John

Today’s Fast Track article offered several guidelines/tips on how to be an effective strategic leader. Upon reading this simple yet insightful article it struck me that many of the guidelines could easily be transformed into questions leaders could use for self-assessment (or alternatively, by others in a 360 review).

The article focused on 3 Key areas of Leadership: Knowing your Business, Decision Making and Inspiring Others. Below are some questions based on each of these areas that every leader should ask themselves – many are obvious and simple to respond to while others may be cause for reflection:

Knowing your Business:
Effective leaders have in depth knowledge of their business and are continually learning.

1. How does your company make money?
2. What is your competitive advantage?
a. Have you spoken directly to your customers to understand their needs and
perceptions?
3. Where is your industry headed?

Decision Making:
Once you have the knowledge a strategic leader must know how to apply it appropriately.

1. Are you responsive or hasty?
2. Do you reflect or overanalyize?
3. Do you make decisions with any of these common biases?
a. Similar-to-me effect (favoring those who look, act, think like you)
b. Confirmation bias (remembering only the facts that support your viewpoint)
c. Halo effect (allowing one very positive or negative item to overshadow your opinion)
d. Hindsight bias (wrongly perceiving past events as predictable, “I knew it!”)

Inspiring Others:
Knowledge and decision making ability will only make you a good individual contributor, to be a true leader you must inspire and encourage the same in others.

1. Are you optimistic with a focus on possibilities or do you focus on limitations?
2. Have you created and shared a clear aspirational vision?
3. Are you passionate about reaching goals?
5. Are you able to present ideas simply and clearly so they can be understood and repeated by all?

So, how did you do?

The Kingbridge Insight this week is an observation that although the above is a very quick and simplistic high level assessment of leadership it is a good place to start none the less. So many leaders are intimidated by the plethora of ‘assessment tools’ out there that require hours or more to complete and then provide results that are not easily interpreted nor extrapolated into usable/actionable information. Rather than diving right into the deep end perhaps it is wiser – and ultimately more effective – to wade into the shallow end first!

Robot Collaboration

Posted on February 21, 2014 by John

You are probably wondering how we could possibly program robots to collaborate when most of us have such a difficult time doing it effectively ourselves! Well MIT researchers have recently discovered that it is quite a challenge indeed. (“Helping Robots Collaborate”, Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence News, February 14, 2014)

Currently researchers are working on applying a combination of robotic control programs to enable groups of robots to collaborate. The most recent tests of this complex system have included a simulation of a warehousing application where teams of robots are required to retrieve arbitrary objects from indeterminate locations, collaborating as needed to transport heavy loads. It sounds simple enough right? Well, as with any collaboration communication has proven to be one of the primary issues. There are far too many variables involved to program a detailed set of communication conditions – similar to communications in any work environment. And similar to human work environments and modes of communication the greatest success in this venture for robotic collaboration has come when the robots are given the tools and freedom to ‘decide’ how best to communicate and accomplish what they need – like a self organizing team. Each robot has a series of coloured lights to use for communication when their direct relay systems are slow or out of order. Originally, the programmers were attempting to create a specific light response for any situation/communication need that may arise, which of course proved impossible given the infinite number of variables and qualifiers involved in a group collaboration. What has provided some success is programming the robots to identify the coloured lights as a method of communication and allow the artificial intelligence algorithm determine whether use of the lights is necessary and what the colours mean.

The Kingbridge Insight this week is an extrapolation of the lessons this robotic experiment has to offer while attempting to program collaboration behaviour.

Traditionally, organizations work in a hierarchy, where actions and behaviours are determined by a superior officer. Even though many organizations have taken some steps towards creating ‘bottom up’ environments the underlying structure for the most part remains the same. In this experiment however, the most successful collaborations resulted from self organization and the absence of command and control.

What conclusion would you draw from this about the conditions required for successful collaborations?

Creating Engaging Environments

Posted on February 7, 2014 by John

This week blogs.cisco.com had a great article on Creating Environments for Better Employee Engagement including some startling statistics on current employee engagement norms.

“In its recent State of the Global Workplace, Gallup reports that only 13% of workers feel engaged by their jobs. On the other end, 63% are disengaged and 24% are actively disengaged. Numbers vary by research study and country, but overall most employees don’t feel passionate about their work, connected to their employers, or that they’re making a difference.”

This statistic is particularly troubling given that we are currently operating in a global environment of perpetual transformation where the rate of change in everything from technology to leadership is such that a dedication to continual growth and education are necessary at all levels to succeed.

So how do we as leaders prevent and in many cases remedy this current employee malady? We turn to those like Google and Southwest Airlines who are getting it right for guidance:

Understand what employees are thinking: Use surveys, online forums, and other feedback mechanisms to give employees a voice – and act on what you learn.
Create an intentional culture: Integrate and articulate values throughout the organization.
Demonstrate appreciation: Recognize employees in big and small ways to create consistent reinforcement and provide examples.
Commit to open, honest communication: Make sure employees know what you expect and encourage communication among and between teams, and with leadership.
Support career path development: Show employees you value their futures by providing mentoring and training opportunities.
Engage in social interactions outside work: Participate in supporting the communities in which you operate — as a community of coworkers.
Communicate the culture: Emphasize the “brand” of your culture both within the organization and externally to customers and partners.

It is up to organizational leaders to create, support and participate in an engaging environment in order to reap the benefits that employee engagement offers; productivity, dedication, passion, buy in etc. So, this week rather than offering a Kingbridge Insight we would like you to produce some insight of your own. As a leader, really and truly examine the environment your employees work in, the environment that you have created, and ask yourself if you believe it is engaging and supportive. If yes, congratulations you are among the select few! (According the studies quoted above). If no, ask yourself how you can change that.

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Open Minds and Expand Thinking "The paradox of real collaboration is that it is not about getting the best minds together – it's about creating a New Mind Set."

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