Dr. Karim Lakhani on Thinking Together and Open Innovation | Ignition Interview

nothing much ⋅ June 3, 2018

In this exclusive Ignition Interview with Dr. Karim Lakhani (Associate Professor at Harvard and Founder and Co-Director of their Laboratory for Innovation Science), he shares his insights on Open Innovation. When discussing Open Innovation's alignment with Hazar Imam's recent guidance on "thinking together" and "community wisdom", Dr. Lakhani remarks: Hazar Imam "is actually saying what we often say: you want to actually have this iterative dialogue ... But then also, as Hazar Imam has himself mentioned, the solutions may also in fact arrive from the Jamat. It’s an interesting model of -- if the Jamat has the questions and Jamat has the answers, then what is the role of the institutions?"

Introduction

A few months ago, on December 19, 2017, in Karachi, Pakistan, Mawlana Hazar Imam made an important remark. He said:

There should be a dialogue between the Jamat and our institutions, and this dialogue should be an ongoing process of thinking together, of what will best serve the Jamat ... So we are seeking community wisdom, the wisdom of the Jamat, as to what are its needs, and how best we can serve those needs.

His remarks echo similar remarks he has made over the years, in many parts of the world. For example:

The process of searching for new ideas and solutions can be facilitated in a number of ways. The most important for any society or nation is the effective mobilisation of the talents, existing and potential, of all its citizenry. This required the creation of structures and values that stimulate the fullest possible participation of all groups and individuals ... (1998, Tajikistan)

Let me emphasise that healthy institutions will tap the widest possible range of energies and insights. (2010, Canada)

[Publics] are very, very wise. Public wisdom is not dependent on education. (2016, Canada)

I have been amazed and thrilled, frankly, at the capacities of even the completely illiterate populations, to express themselves about the correct priority that should be addressed. And if you follow their agenda, nine times out of ten, you'll get it right! (2002, Pakistan)

For those familiar with Open Innovation as a best practice for progress, Hazar Imam's remarks are striking, for they are little different, if not identical in spirit, to the heart of Open Innovation's root principle: harness the wisdom of the public to first generate ideas and then, secondly, select the best ideas from those proposed.

In this Ignition Interview, we speak with Open Innovation expert, Dr. Karim Lakhani, Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, Founder and Co-Director of their Laboratory for Innovation Science and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Tournament Lab at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He is the co-editor of Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software (MIT Press), a book on community-based innovation.

Interview

Summary

What is Open Innovation, why is it important, its benefits?
Real worldwide successful examples of Open Innovation
Hazar Imam's remarks on creativity and innovation and its connection to Open Innovation
Hazar Imam's most recent guidance on the jamat and institutions "thinking together" and "seeking community wisdom"
Create an Enabling Environment for culture change, Open Innovation, and "thinking together"
Dr. Lakhani's vision for the future and top challenges the community faces today
Harvard Professor's personal story and advice for the youth

Interview Questions (listen to audio, above, for full interview)

Time index: 00:48
As the Founder and Co-Director of Harvard's Laboratory for Innovation Science and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Tournament Lab at Harvard, you live and breathe Open Innovation. Can you explain exactly what is Open Innovation? why is it important, its benefits? And why forward-looking organizations and institutions are increasingly adopting it?
Time index: 06:14
If you were to explain it to a layman or to explain in a nutshell, how would you describe Open Innovation? What would you tell them it is?
Time index: 06:42
What are some real worldwide examples that have really been successful in using Open Innovation?
Time index: 08:50
Hazar Imam's remarks on creativity and innovation sound very much to us like Open Innovation, just without the buzzword. To cite a few examples and quotes, he says:
"Let me emphasize that healthy institutions will tap the widest possible range of energies and insights." (2010, Canada)
"Harnessing human genius to the fullest should be one of the goals of all modern societies and nations in addition to mobilizing creative capacity from all segments of society." (1998, Tajikistan)
We must "harness the very best contributions from whomever and wherever they may come." (2009, Kenya)
If this is correct, that Hazar Imam's view on creativity is, in principle, if just not by name, essentially Open Innovation, would it be accurate to say that Open Innovation paradigm has, at its heart, a respect for intellectual diversity?
Time index: 10:20
There was an interesting remark Hazar Imam made during the recent Diamond Jubilee visit in Pakistan, in his Farman. He said:

"You should express your needs to [our] institutions. There should be a dialogue between the Jamat and the institutions and this dialogue should be an ongoing process of thinking together of what will best serve the Jamat ... So we are seeking community wisdom. The wisdom of the Jamat as to what are its needs and how best to serve those needs."

We found this very fascinating. What do Hazar Imam's words mean to you, in the context of our discussion about Open Innovation?

Time index: 12:28
If we measure human progress in this case by our ability to improve our quality of life. It would seem, again, that the essential objectives of Open Innovation, as you mentioned -- first to generate a wealth of ideas and then identify the best ideas, would also be really beneficial to developing good solutions to address social and administrative issues.

In 2007, Hazar Imam said,

civil and private institutions have unique capacities for spurring social progress. They provide good laboratories for experimentation and because these institutions do not need to make short-term accommodations to conventional wisdom or current fashions, they have greater freedom to be controversial and creative.

Again, what would you say to the use of Open Innovation, referring to Hazar Imam's guidance here, in social development or institutional governance?

Time index: 16:44
How can we create that Enabling Environment and convince the leaders to see the benefits ...
Time index: 17:28
When we have the Imam, who is our authority, giving the institutions and community direction to change, saying "seek community wisdom, think together" ...
Time index: 18:30
For the larger vision we have for these interviews in tapping some of our Jamat, and this is more personal, can you tell us what, for you, are some of the top challenges -- whether administrative, social, societal, intellectual, religious any other areas the community faces today? And for the most important challenge, what insights and suggestions you might offer for the community?
Time index: 20:52
As a professor at Harvard, you teach, mentor, and shape some of the brightest youths in the world. What advice would you give to our youths in our community?

About Dr. Karim Lakhani

Karim R. Lakhani is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, Founder and Co-Director of their Laboratory for Innovation Science and the Principal Investigator of the NASA Tournament Lab at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He specializes in the management of technological innovation in firms and communities. His research is on distributed innovation systems and the movement of innovative activity to the edges of organizations and into communities.

Professor Lakhani's research on distributed innovation has been published in Harvard Business Review, Innovations, Management Science, Nature Biotechnology, Organization Science, RAND Journal of Economics, Research Policy and the Sloan Management Review. He is the co-editor of Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software (MIT Press), a book on community-based innovation. His research has been featured in publications like BusinessWeek, The Boston Globe, The Economist, Fast Company, Inc., The New York Times, The New York Academy of Sciences Magazine, Science, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Wired. An article (Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner) in Harvard Business Review was a runner up for the McKinsey Award in 2013. A case on the use of crowds by a large industrial firm (Open Innovation at Siemens) was the winner of the Production and Operations Management Award by The Case Centre in 2015.

Professor Lakhani was awarded his Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an MS degree in Technology and Policy from MIT, and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Management from McMaster University in Canada. He was a recipient of the Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship and a four-year doctoral fellowship from Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

In 2010, he was lead for a TKN Knowledge Society Project and has been part of many special projects through the Aga Khan Education Board. Prior to coming to HBS, he served as a Lecturer in the Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship group at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Professor Lakhani has also worked in sales, marketing and new product development roles at GE Healthcare and was a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group.

About The Interviewer

As host of the series Candid Insights, Sahil Badruddin conducts interviews of influencers, leaders, and intellectuals for their deeper insights and wisdom with thought provoking questions that hit at the heart of a matter. Some of his interview guests, among others, include Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Karen Armstrong, Hasan Minhaj, and Eboo Patel.

He is also the co-founder of Ismaili Ignition and host of its Ignition Interviews series and the Managing Editor at Ismaili Digest. Sahil's RoundUp Video Series assembles the most interesting and credible spirituality and religion-related content for general audiences. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin with degrees in Chemical Engineering, Religious Studies, and History.

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