A young PhD in electronics, Ted Hoff, joined a start-up company in California in 1968. He was the 12th employee in a new venture called Intel. One of Intel’s customers was a Japanese calculator manufacturer, Busicomp, who gave Intel the job of designing the electronic circuits for a new calculator. The job was given to Ted Hoff who had never worked on calculator designs before. Busicomp had specified 12 hard-wired circuits to perform the 12 functions in the calculator. This looked very complicated to Hoff so he asked his boss if he could try a different approach. He wanted to experiment and see if he could develop one circuit that could do all 12 functions if it was programmed. His boss agreed – it was not what the customer had asked for but it was an interesting idea and Hoff’s manager would cover for him if it did not work out. It did work out. Hoff invented the microprocessor. As a result of Hoff’s imagination and his boss’s trust, Intel had gained an innovation that would turbo-charge their growth into one of the most successful companies on the planet.
What kind of a leader are you? Are you like Ted Hoff’s boss who was supportive of Ted’s radical idea and allowed him to pursue it? Or are you the kind of boss who is focused on delivering this quarter’s goals and does not want anything distracting the team from achieving them?
Sir Richard Branson has a strong reputation as an innovative leader who empowers his people. At one famous staff meeting he asked if anyone had an idea for a business that Virgin should launch. An airline stewardess, Ailsa Petchey, ventured a suggestion. She was getting married soon and with her busy schedule had found difficulty in putting together all the things needed for her wedding. She recommended that Virgin put together a high quality service to supply all the wedding items needed for the bride to be. Branson investigated the idea. He liked it and founded Virgin Bride. Then he asked Ailsa Petchey, who had proposed the idea, to head it up. She became the managing director of Virgin Bride. What sort of a message does that send to every other person who works at Virgin? Sir Richard Branson will back you and your idea. That is true empowerment.
Based on a chapter in The Innovative Leader by Paul Sloane published by Kogan Page
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