In a conversation with Lou Zacharilla, Newtec CEO Serge van Herck, Gilat Executive Vice-President Joshua Levinberg and EADS Astrium's Malcolm Peto discuss the importance of creativity in their organizations.
Dizzy Gillespie is credited with revolutionizing the jazz industry with his invention of “bebop.” To the uninitiated, bebop is a musical genre best identified by jolting rhythmic shifts created through improvisation. Think of Michael Jordan on a fast break. Improvization, like most great art or ideas, relies on a structure. Yet like a satellite, it ultimately produces something innovative and wonderful when it breaks free from gravity and ascends into its own orbit.
Innovation leads us to a new frontier each time it ascends. Engineers beware: there was nothing deliberate in Gillespie’s creation of bebop, although it made many record producers wealthy and many other jazz club owners famous. It has assumed its place in musical history alongside rock ‘n’ roll, the blues, gospel music and, my favorite, singing in the shower. Innovation is a product of working with what you are given, but doing it with your imagination on fire.
When once asked to define bebop, the zany, but truly gifted Dizzy characteristically replied, “Man, if you don’t know what it is, you shouldn’t mess with it!”
I am not quite sure what he meant by that, but I do know that in the satellite industry many have said the same thing when asked about creativity and innovation. Creativity, it is often thought, is the domain of the jazz musician or the painter.
But things are changing at the speed of bebop. Thanks in part to Apple, or perhaps because the nature of the economy is today so defined by the introduction of shorter product development cycles and services, innovation is taking its rightful place in the C-suite. In a new poll taken by IBM, 1500 CEOs surveyed were asked what the number one leadership competency for the future will be. The majority replied that it is “Creativity.”
Surprisingly, creativity scores in the United States have been declining since 1990. Europe, collectively a culture that prides itself on great acts of the imagination (and I do not mean the final bill after a stay in a Parisian hotel!), is increasingly aware of the economic mandate to generate ROI in a knowledge economy. Sweden ranked #1 on the planet in “e-readiness” in the 2010 Economist Digital Economy rankings. According to Professor Mel Horwitch, who heads the school of Innovation, Technology and Enterprise (ITE) at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, notes that Asia cannot get enough scholarship on creativity. “It simply takes your breath away,” said Horwitch, who spends a time teaching technology management in China.
Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Sciencemagazine said that Asian schools and businesses are moving away from rote learning and linear educational processes in order to stimulate innovative thinking, while in America there has been a trend in the opposite direction. Innovation and creativity are like oxygen to the modern economy. As writer Thomas Friedman said, “The iPad is manufactured in China, but it was dreamed in America.”
Who’s right? And what are satellite industry CEOs encouraging employees and product teams to dream about? With the World Summit for Satellite Financing in Paris a few days away, I decided to go back and forth with three who will be on the panel I was invited to moderate on the 9thof September at the Westin in Paris.
I posed this question to Gilat’s Executive Vice-President for Business Development and Strategy Joshua Levinberg, Newtec’s CEO Serge van Herck and EADS Astrium CEO for Telecommunication Services Malcolm Peto:
“In a recent IBM poll and subsequent article in Newsweek Magazine, 1500 CEOs identified creativityas the number one leadership competency for the future. Do you agree that creativity is a key leadership competency in your organization?”
Levinberg: I agree. Creativity is more critical to the success of the satellite industry than most industries. Creativity is certainly a key factor at Gilat, and it has been for a long time.
Van Herck: Oh yes. Creativity is a top priority at Newtec. It is part of our DNA.
Peto: Creativity is a principal competency in Astrium’s business and, as the poll suggests, it is evident that all successful businesses feel this way.
Lou Zacharilla (LZ): So we all agree. The question now is how to use the foundational strengths of your businesses, and the strengths of the satellite industry, creatively. How can our industry consistently produce something new, profitable and useful for customers?
Peto: I think here you need to say that there is a difference between creativity and leadership. Leadership is clearly knowing where a company is headed, and making sure it goes there.
LZ: So can we say that good leadership allows a company to feel comfortable enough to create?
Peto: Right. Without excellent leadership it is impossible to harness creativity and transform new ideas into business opportunities.
Levinberg: Leadership must also use innovation for market advantage. Gilat is leading the industry in satcoms on the move as a result of very deliberate creative process we have.
LZ: So creativity must be sustained and be part of an operational process? Isn’t this kind of like keeping lighting going on command?
Van Herck: Leadership ensures that creativity is not something that happens by coincidence. Creativity is a process embedded in our organization through what we call the 'Newtec Innovation Framework'.
LZ: That is interesting. We should talk more about Newtec’s innovation framework in detail. But what is the essence of it?
Van Herck: Essentially we believe that creativity is not confined only to the product development group. We knock down walls and let ideas flow. The framework enabled us to grow revenues by 20%
LZ: That is what the audience in Paris will want to hear. Satellite has unique strengths and advantages, but it is not always apparent how to deploy them within industries that initially have no compelling need for them. Are there examples where, through creative thinking, you produced something new and ultimately profitable?
Levinberg: The most striking example is the way we Gilat fundamentally invented the second largest communications application on earth for VSATs. I am talking about the satellite networks we built for Lottery applications. There are more than 100,000 terminals deployed today, including many national lotteries. We determined that satellite’s unique benefits, dynamic bandwidth, multicasting and wide coverage, when d combined with a set of applications, would produce something brand new.
LZ: It has obviously paid off. You invented an application that led to a new market for satellite providers.
Peto: In our case my business unit, Paradigm, looked at the market and determined that a type of financing that was required to create customers did not exist. LZ: So you invented it? Peto: We looked at our customers requirements with an innovative financing and service proposition and created a billion dollar business opportunity from scratch.
LZ: And as we’ll find out during your presentation on September 9th, the bottom line looks great as a result.
Van Herck: Our DualFlow solution enabled “a big advance in productivity and versatility in DSNG,” as evidenced by its performance during our client’s Tour de France coverage. By the way, those are not my words. They belong to our client. So it is clear that a technology company that does not focus on product design and customer service creatively has no chance to survive.
LZ: I recall being taught that Darwin’s theory maintained not that the strong survive, but that those who adapt do. That is how to win the battle of evolution. See you at the Summit in Paris.
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Lou Zacharilla is Director for Development of the Society of Satellite Professional International (SSPI). He can be reached at lzacharilla@sspi.org
