A year ago when Casey Lawlor and Dave Sutter won the Olin Award for a startup company that used new technology called “Blockchain” and the virtual currency “Bitcoin,” the two WashU class of 2014 alumni had a lot of explaining to do. Not many people had heard of blockchain, let alone understood it. (more…)
Washington University alumni with Dr. Samuel Chun, Assistant Dean of Executive Programs, at the Raytheon Thought Leadership event on innovation.
As part of Raytheon’s 2013 National Engineers Week activities, Olin Executive Programs was invited to share its perspectives on innovation with an audience of Raytheon employees, as well as Washington University alumni around the Dallas, TX region.
Dr. Samuel Chun, Assistant Dean of Executive Programs, delivered a thought-provoking presentation about turning an abundance of great ideas into action while underscoring the “change leadership” required to ensure the organization’s survival. To successfully and sustainably innovate as an organization we must first rethink the process of invention:
Despite the abundance of great ideas, an organization’s behavioral inertia often inhibits new ideas and business models from taking root because of perceived or real threats to existing business models. The leadership challenge is not only about managing our past successes, but also about being the engine for change necessary to deal with the disruptive threats to the organization’s very existence.
