Leadership Blog Posts

Conflict isn't a bug in the innovation process; it's a feature. 💡

That's my key takeaway from Module 1 of the MIT Professional Education Blended Professional Certificate Program for Chief Technology Officer. The module proposed a powerful idea: formalize constructive conflict by having teams critique one another's projects with a clear mission:

• Point out flaws in logic
• Suggest tangible improvements
• Challenge underlying assumptions

This resonated with my experience with our IT Summits and hackathons at Trader. Teams presented their work and self-evaluated before a panel of judges, but the evolution suggested by the course is to make fully cross-team evaluation a standard part of the process. The goal is to build comfort in having our work reviewed and to harness that interchange of ideas.

Why is this so critical?

Your competition won't take it easy on your new product. Neither will your customers. Ideas should be challenged, evaluated, and measured internally first. Knowing an idea will face rigorous scrutiny forces a team to perform its due diligence.

It's a practical way to enforce the old saying, "Don't fall in love with your own ideas." Champion an idea, but don't do so at the cost of objective vision.

I'm curious: How do you encourage healthy, constructive conflict in your team's innovation process?

#Innovation #Leadership #CTO #MIT #ProductManagement #ConstructiveConflict