Masterclasses for leaders

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2010), "Masterclasses for leaders", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2010.26138faa.001

Masterclasses for leaders

Article Type: Editor’s letter From: Strategy & Leadership, Volume 38, Issue 6

This issue offers several articles about innovation that will richly reward the reader’s close attention. For example, I highly recommend “Masterclass: A system for innovating business models for breakaway growth” by Brian Leavy and “Masterclass: Managing the threats and opportunities of the open corporation” by Stephen Denning. Both these articles analyze and put into perspective concepts advanced by a number of researchers that, taken together, will likely revolutionize management’s role in many business sectors. These new ideas about customer value, value chain management and open innovation provide leaders alternatives to marginally effective competitive tactics and suggest ways to foster growth through continuous business model innovation. The articles continue the recent exploration by many Strategy & Leadership authors of the practice of value innovation, which I believe is currently the most promising area of strategic management.

And it’s with some pride that I call the reader’s attention to the experimental format of these two articles. This type of article is called a “Masterclass ” because it’s designed to be a teaching guide for experienced practitioners, one that offers a world-class education on important new ideas and practices. We have now published five “Masterclass” articles this year. The others are:

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  Masterclass: How innovation in “product language” can overturn markets – the power of emotion-focused design

  Brian Leavy

  Real world examples abound of firms that have introduced emotion-inspiring new product messages into the marketplace and created huge new market opportunities as a result. To institutionalize the process, leaders must encourage their management team to learn a new discipline – design-driven innovation (S&L, Vol. 38, No. 2).

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  Masterclass: Design thinking – a new mental model of value innovation

  Brian Leavy

  There is a growing recognition that “design thinking,” or the creative principles associated with the design function, may now have something very significant to offer when applied more broadly to business management and strategy development. This “masterclass” provides senior leaders with practical insights into design thinking and value innovation (S&L, Vol. 38, No. 30).

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  Masterclass: Rethinking the organization: leadership for game-changing innovation

  Stephen Denning

  For the past few years, leading CEOs have been trying to figure out how large established organizations can become as good at game-changing innovation as they have been at disciplined execution. In a radical new approach, a number of groundbreaking consultants argue that in a world of ever-accelerating change and global competition, in which the balance of power has shifted to the customer, redesigning company bureaucracy and transforming culture to generate continuous innovation is required for survival in the 21st Century (S&L, Vol. 38, No. 5).

By the way, Denning is also the author of the ambitious S&L article, “A leader’s guide to radical management of continuous innovation” in Vol. 38, No. 4.

Please let us know how you’ve used this “Masterclass” series. And send me any suggestions you have for other “Masterclass” articles. We welcome partnerships with veteran practitioners and senior academics who would like to prepare a “Masterclass” article for publication in S&L.

And there’s good news for readers who are fans – more “Masterclass” articles are in the works.

Good reading,

Robert M. RandallEditor