Download PDF Fall Bridge on Engineering a Diverse Future September 25, 2024 Volume 54 Issue 3 Guest edited by Wanda Sigur and Percy Pierre, this issue of The Bridge addresses the issues around sustaining a U.S. engineering workforce that builds on and integrates the talents and ideas of our diverse nation. Unlocking Hidden Value for Inclusive Innovation: The Real Power of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Thursday, September 26, 2024 Author: Nicholas M. Donofrio Leaders must overcome the obstacles to innovation by seeking inspiration from new perspectives and engaging those that might open them to new ideas. How many times have you chosen an approach to solving a real-world problem that needed mid-course correction? After all, most real-world problems vary in degree from those “textbook-closed” solutions you may recall. This is the real world, and it conforms only to itself. You make some assumptions and approximations, and you pick a path forward. You start to feel good about it only to realize you are going in the wrong direction. You stop and look around. You second-guess your assumptions, approximations, and approach. You ask trusted colleagues and known experts for help. They show you the errors in your ways, and with their advice and counsel, you move forward. Bingo—it becomes obvious where you went wrong and even more obvious why their suggestions were so right. Success is yours. Over and over again we find that real and lasting value is created faster and more completely when we start with the problem and enable the most inclusive, open, collaborative, multidisciplined environment possible to innovate as intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs. The theory of how to effectively create real and lasting value has been documented by many in many different ways. From 2003 to 2007, I was fortunate to be part of the team that created the National Innovation Initiative (NII) for the USA Council on Competitiveness (CoC). The CoC released the report, Innovate America: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change, in 2005. In 2007 that report served as the basis for the America Competes Act. The document remains on the CoC’s website as a testament to its lessons learned and taught.[1] Open, collaborative, multidisciplined, inclusive. As defined by this highly mixed and integrated team of business, technical, academic, and government colleagues I worked with on the NII, here is what we meant by each term: “Open” meant open-minded and without bias. “Collaborative” meant having a willingness to engage and to learn while teaching and communicating by listening as well as speaking. “Multidisciplined” meant bringing together all sources and aspects of knowledge required. “Inclusive” meant just that! Bring everyone and anyone who could contribute to the solution into the group, no matter who they were or where they were. Enabling innovation this way and expanding on it has also been documented by Frans Johansson in his thoughtful and entertaining book, The Medici Effect (2004). Time and again the value you seek is there for everyone to see, but only true innovators unlock that hidden value sooner and more completely than others, as Johansson repeatedly points out. Yet we constantly debate, discuss, and defer when we know better. How do you know who does and who does not hold the last piece to a puzzle you are focused on solving? How do you know a priori whom to leave out and whom to include? Perhaps it is our fear of change that keeps us focused on only like-minded colleagues. Perhaps it is our fear of differing opinions that may come with differing cultures if we stray too far from our comfortable norm. Perhaps it is our fear of resolving conflicts of opinion and thought that slows us down to only drive under the orange caution flag. Somehow and in some way real leaders find a way to reach through these issues to grasp the real value waiting on the other side. IBM is a case in point. IBM was my employer for 44 years. I learned a great deal from IBM during this time, but I feel like I learned even more by studying what they did before I arrived in 1964 and why they did it. I often wondered: Just how new was this idea of inclusive innovation? Somehow Tom Watson Sr. figured out back in 1935 that including women in the IBM sales force was going to be a real value creator. How did he figure this out on his own? Was it his wife and daughter who provided the light that he followed, or was it simply his own intuition based on observation and experience? In any case, he got it right and history was made. Including women in the highly, if not exclusively, male-dominated sales workforce and culture was as bold a move as it gets. Being a visionary leader with the courage and conviction to act always matters. I will never forget that graduation picture of an all-women sales class proudly standing in front of the IBM Endicott Education Building (see figure 1). Value creation was enabled as it never had been before. Perhaps the images painted by stories like the all-women IBM sales class and my own personalization of them drove my thinking to be more inclusive in problem solving as I progressed through IBM. But the facts in front of me were also informing my judgement and actions. The lack of women in technical circles was painfully obvious to me. But even more obvious to me was the lack of people of color. How do you know you have the best possible answers to the problems you are facing when everyone in the room looks like you? Clearly the talent base was biased, and, unless we intervened, nothing was going to change. IBM enabled me to engage where, when, and as I felt necessary. The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME), the National Society for Black Engineers, the Black Engineer of the Year, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the Society of Women Engineers, and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, among other organizations, became my focus and, in some sense, my passion. Pathways to innovation could only be enabled by pathways to success for an increasingly diverse technical community. I engaged then and remain engaged now in enabling these pathways to become broader and faster. All of this thinking was clearly front and center when I led the IBM engagement with the CoC to help write the NII report (circa 2003–07). Its principles of innovation are simple, logical, and perhaps mundanely obvious. First, always start with the problem and not the answer. Second, the hidden innovative value that all are in search of is hiding in plain sight for all to see. Third, unlocking that hidden value is best done by enabling an environment that is open, collaborative, multi-disciplined, broad-based, and broad-minded—in short, inclusive—for the simple reason that, a priori, you just do not know who has the missing piece to the puzzle you are trying to solve. As a lifelong learner, I have also come to appreciate change and the need to embrace it. As an engineer, I understand that becoming comfortable with a steady state limits your ability to seek, find, and create real and lasting value. I remember it as if it were yesterday. When I first looked around the conference room to see who was working with me on one of the early IBM semiconductor chip designs, I noticed that it was only people who looked like me. At every problem, and there were many, I wondered if the people who were missing already had the answer. These thoughts stayed with me as I grew. As a leader I knew what I needed to do: focus on change and making a difference. Engage with all the communities who were not in the room, find out why they were not present, and then do something about it. Ted Childs was my partner and guiding light from the start. IBM actually understood this as well. They joined NACME soon after it was created. Following two IBM CEOs on the NACME Board as a young engineer was not easy. Ted coached me and mentored me. I served on NACME’s board for 20 years and chaired it for my last five. I felt and knew I was making a difference by helping fill those design conference rooms around the country with people who did not look like me. I recruited our beloved colleague John Brooks Slaughter to become the CEO of NACME. John and I worked together to continue to change the rate and pace of progress, realizing full well that we were not making the difference that mattered fast enough. John mentored me, and I coached John while Ted instructed us both as we engaged together to bring about change quicker. Being a visionary leader with the courage and conviction to act always matters. Adalio Sanchez (another one of our NAE colleagues) and Ted helped me focus on the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. We engaged and committed ourselves to supporting their wide-ranging chapter network. With Linda Sanford’s assistance (yes, she too is one of our NAE colleagues) and Ted’s guidance, we also engaged with the Society of Women Engineers and their equally wide-ranging network. Rod Adkins (another one of our NAE colleagues), Ted, and I also committed ourselves to the National Society of Black Engineers for even more access to students through their vast chapter network. The formula for success here was always the same: Engage early, thoughtfully commit your time and resources, and deliver against your commitments. And stay engaged! Together we made an incredible difference that mattered for IBM and for the country. As much as Linda, Rod, and Adalio were my proteges, we were also colleagues. They taught me likely more than I taught them. We used the collaborative and inclusive innovation model to create real and lasting value for IBM while we were all together resurrecting IBM’s system business from its own ashes or working together after IBM on many businesses, new and old, large and small, public and private, NGO and for profit. The model of inclusive innovation is tried and true and battle hardened. The logic is simple; the commitment is not. It is a matter of leadership and willingness to change. And, as we have learned, technology becomes an ally in support of the model, especially in times of intense change. The COVID pandemic taught us all that work and work environments are not simply physical or digital, but actually a spectrum of possibilities everywhere in between. Innovation and creativity did not stop because of COVID. Networks of talented problem solvers were enabled to become more diverse, open, and inclusive. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) started to take on new meaning. Global reach became commonplace, only separated by time. Distance no longer mattered. Multi-disciplined took on new meaning since no skill was beyond reach. And the base of openness and collaboration took on ever-growing meaning as it became increasingly self-evident that what we meant was less discrete and more of a continuum. While gender is the most obvious example, the same is true of ethnicity, religion, race, nationality, intelligence, age, ability, and everything to come. DEI means “every one” and not just “some ones.” Since we truly do not know who has that missing piece to solve incredibly critical puzzles, the odds of success rise rapidly when all who are able are welcomed and enabled. References CoC [Council on Competitiveness]. 2005. Innovate America: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change. Washington, DC. Johansson F. 2004. The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures. Brighton, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. [1] The National Innovation Initiative began in 2003 as a multi-year effort engaging hundreds of leaders across the country and from all walks of life to optimize our entire society. About the Author:Nicholas M. Donofrio (NAE) is CEO, NMD Consulting, LLC.