Good morning.
Has work from home helped or hindered corporate innovation?
That’s the question I posed yesterday to Gianni Giacomelli, who is chief innovation officer at Genpact and also heads design innovation at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. Genpact partners with Fortune on a number of projects, and Giacomelli sits on the advisory board of Fortune Connect. I’ve come to respect his insights into the future of work.
The innovation question has remained a conundrum for me, because I’ve heard so many stories of accelerated corporate innovation over the last 18 months—COVID-19 vaccines are the outstanding example—yet also hear rising concern from CEOs about innovation starting to stall.
“Innovation is a human process,” Giacomelli said. “Right now, it doesn’t happen through machines. The human connection and the networks around humans are the key predictor of what’s happening.” The pandemic and the abrupt shift to work from home underscored the fact that “the way we used to work was really inefficient. The two hours of commuting many people spent every day is an example.” In a remote environment, productivity increased.
But “the remote environment works well through strong ties,” he said. “Weak ties are the people you bump into. If we are not able to create that same serendipity and culture and engagement that we had, you will see this thing plateau. Organizations could become very efficient but ossified. You have to solve the problem of how you rekindle weak ties, number one, and number two, how you make people’s interaction effective, not just efficient.”
Some organizations hope they can do that remotely, through better use of collaboration technology. Many are moving toward a “hybrid” model, hoping “weak ties” will be reenergized through a few days at the office. Giacomelli is in favor of both. He believes tools that allow “asynchronous” collaborative work will become an important part of the future of work. But he also believes that in-person human interaction will remain key.
“Our sense of smell, our sense of three-dimensional space, it all fires the brain, oxytocin, in a different way. If you take a walk with someone, you create bonds that make energy happen. That won’t ever go away…We ignore it at our peril.”
The key for hybrid work is this: “You have to be intentional about the serendipity of connection. That sounds like a contradiction in terms. You need to have people meeting by mistake in an intelligent way.”
That’s no small design challenge. I’d welcome examples from CEO Daily readers on best ways to do it. It will be critical to making the future of business better.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Chip merger
The data storage giant Western Digital is reportedly considering a $20 billion-plus merger with the Japanese memory-chip-maker Kioxia. If it happens, the deal would need a green light from the Japanese government…and Beijing. News of the talks gave a 7.8% boost to Western Digital's share price. Wall Street Journal
Cybersecurity promises
Big Tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Apple have promised to help shore up the U.S.'s cybersecurity defenses, which are, well… over to you, President Biden: "The reality is, most of our critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and the federal government can’t meet this challenge alone." Financial Times
Japan and Moderna
Japan has suspended the use of over 1.6 million Moderna vaccine doses due to contamination found in one batch. Three batches have been put on hold as a precautionary measure, although no safety issues have been identified as yet. BBC
Workleisure
Apparel companies are turning to a new category of office-appropriate clothes that are made nice and comfy, like the clothes people have become used to when working from home. Sales are up as people prepare for the office again—with many now a different size than before the pandemic—while also being aware that they may need to WFH for a while yet. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
CEOs vs actors
Hollywood-star pay and CEO pay are both being radically transformed. So who's coming out ahead? Probably CEOs, writes Fortune's Geoff Colvin, because it's easier to measure their performance, so their pay is increasingly being based on that factor. Fortune
Sexual harassment
Anti-harassment training "needs to be repeated, rather than a one-time webinar during onboarding. And it requires feminist trainers committed to actually stopping sexual harassment, not just protecting corporations from lawsuits," writes civil rights attorney Alexandra Brodsky in a piece for Fortune. "This moment presents a unique opportunity, as so many employers spend time and resources designing plans to return to the office. They need to make sure their workers are returning to an environment that is not only free of COVID-19, but harassment as well." Fortune
ESG + health
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles really ought to include a fourth letter, writes Legal & General group CEO Nigel Wilson for Fortune: " The coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated beyond doubt that economic performance depends on overall population health. The challenge now is to narrow health inequalities. For most companies, public health lags behind the climate component of ESG initiatives. But it’s beginning to change. As they grapple to improve the 'S' of ESG, I posit that 'H,' for health, should be added to the acronym." Fortune
Infrastructure boost
"Our responsibility when it comes to infrastructure is twofold," write Siemens USA CEO Barbara Humpton and former EY chief Mark A. Weinberger in this Fortune piece. "Yes, we need to boldly invest in our future. But, more than previous generations, we also need to develop the fortitude not to be overwhelmed by the job of just maintaining what we’ve been given. Our charge is to build what is necessary to meet future challenges while also reinventing our inherited physical infrastructure so that future generations benefit from it as much as we have." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
