Darden's Best-Kept Secret: Innovative Fixes for Society's Ills

Last week, Darden's Michael Lenox discussed how firms can take advantage of knowledge outside of their corporate boundaries to spur innovation. Lenox also heads the school's Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which focuses on how innovation can be harnessed to address key economic and societal challenges.

BNET: Where in the innovation landscape does the Batten Institute work to contribute?

Lenox: The Batten Institute was founded in 2001 following a grant from Frank Batten, who was the CEO of Landmark Communications and most famous for creating The Weather Channel. It's a research think tank dedicated to advancing our knowledge on innovation. We have a series of initiatives that we focus our efforts on, particularly the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in addressing broader societal issues. We have an initiative on environmental sustainability and innovation, as well as work on how get more innovation into the health care system. We have work on innovation in emerging markets, including what my colleagues call "domestic emerging markets," which can include urban renewal, urban development, and the like.

BNET: What have been the outputs of the Institute so far?

Lenox: We've been around for a while, but we're kind of the best-kept secret of Darden. We've done a really good job of generating stuff, but just not a really good job of promoting it, so that's one of my main challenges. Last year, we had four books come out from faculty who were sponsored by the institute, including the core thinking on where successful entrepreneurs come from and what motivates them as well work that looks at organic growth within organizations and the kind of talent you need to create that.

BNET: Are there any underlying hypotheses that have emerged from the institute about the way the world works and the way these societal challenges you mentioned can be overcome?

Lenox: We're academics, so we try to let the world speak and then understand it, following whatever direction the research might take. We have faculty who have taken thought leadership roles, speaking on areas like how entrepreneurs come to be successful. The interesting part of that story is that entrepreneurs aren't linear at the end of the day. They don't just say, "Here's the vision. Here's the business plan," and then just go out and achieve it. It seems like successful entrepreneurs have much more of an organic approach to things. They think about the resources they have, the capabilities and the opportunities, but they're willing to change and shift those opportunities, and shift their businesses as things evolve. You might want to start off creating large-scale solar panels for industrial use, but then discover a niche opportunity on the side for solar panels on boats that leads you in directions that open up all kinds of opportunities that the entrepreneur didn't really see at first.

Our work on organic growth asked a lot of questions about what types of individuals are going to be able to create new businesses and product lines within organizations. They interviewed successful growth leaders in a variety of different firms. A similar story emerged; it wasn't necessarily the people who could zero in on the ultimate plan early who were successful. It was what my colleague calls an "effectual approach" where they are constantly re-questioning assumptions and redirecting resources and the vision constantly as they learn more. It's much more of a learning model than a planning model.

BNET: What have been some of the findings concerning how healthcare can be improved via innovation?

Lenox: One of our faculty, Elizabeth Teisberg, has a book with Michael Porter of HBS that has garnered a lot of attention, especially with all of the recent discussion of how the U.S. health care system needs to shift its focus. What they are advocating is people talking across disciplinary boundaries. One of their big complaints that they push on is that doctors are trained in their specialty and tend to see that patient only within that specialty. It might be far more impactful having a team of doctors from different specialties trying to diagnose their patients at the same time, working together -- which is currently a very rare occurrence. So, porter and Teisberg have a lot of ideas about ways to structure the relationship between the patient and the doctor or doctors to basically get innovation, cross learning and collaboration.

Next week, we'll discuss Professor Lenox's views on corporate responsibility and self-regulation.