Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.

This week, I'm really excited to have Dr. Linda Hill back on the show. She's a top-ranked thinker on Thinker's 50 List and the Wallace Brett Donnan Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Linda doesn't just study leadership; she studies the chemistry of how humans actually get big things done together. She's the co-author of the management Bible, as I like to say, Collective Genius, and the viral HBR hit, Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale. She has a new book coming out called Genius at Scale.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…leaders who want to build organizations where innovation isn't left to chance but is built into how people work together every day.

TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE…innovation doesn't happen because you hire a few creative people or run a brainstorming session. According to Linda, real innovation results from disciplined leadership and intentional culture-building. In this conversation, Linda shares what leaders often get wrong about creativity, how to foster productive disagreement without chaos, and why collaboration, experimentation, and learning must be embedded into the system.

Key Takeaways:

Innovation requires disciplined leadership, not just creative talent or good ideas.
Collective genius emerges when leaders cultivate both safety and accountability.
Productive conflict strengthens ideas when it is structured and purposeful.
Experimentation must be normalized to enable continuous learning.
Culture determines whether innovation thrives or stalls.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…I love Linda's perspective that innovation is not about having all the answers as a leader, it's about building the conditions where great answers can emerge from the group. This shifts the role of leadership from being the smartest person in the room to being the architect of the environment where smart thinking can happen.

Running Time: 31:02

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Linda's Book: Genius at Scale: How Great Leaders Drive Innovation