<p>Why do good teams kill great ideas? Safi Bahcall reveals a surprising new way of thinking about group behavior that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs and innovative organizations. </p><p>Safi Bahcall is a former public-company CEO, a physicist and an award-winning biotech entrepreneur. He is also the author of the international bestseller <em>Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries</em>—a book that combines physics, business and history—has been translated into 21 languages and was the #1 most recommended book of the year in Bloomberg’s annual survey of CEOs. An immediate <em>WSJ </em>bestseller, <em>Loonshots</em> was selected as a best business book of the year by Amazon, Bloomberg, <em>Financial Times</em>, <em>Forbes</em>,<em> Inc.</em>, <em>Newsweek,</em> <em>Strategy + Business</em>,<em> Tech Crunch</em>, the <em>Washington Post</em> and many others.</p><p>Combining lessons from the science of phase transitions together with stories from the annals of business and history, Safi shows audiences why teams, companies or any group with a mission will suddenly shift from embracing bold new ideas to rejecting them. A master storyteller, Safi shares real-world examples from science, history and business to help audiences understand why groups behave as they do and why small changes to an organization’s structure, as opposed to its culture, will support innovation instead of stifle it.</p><p>Safi received his BA from Harvard summa cum laude, completed his PhD in physics at Stanford, and served for three years as a consultant at McKinsey and Company. In 2001, he founded a biotechnology company developing new drugs for cancer. He led the company’s IPO and served as its CEO for 13 years. In 2008, he was named E&Y New England Biotechnology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s council of science advisors (PCAST) on the future of national research.</p>
Award-Winning Physicist, Biotech Entrepreneur and Bestselling Author of <em>Loonshots</em>
<ul><li><strong>Loonshots: Innovation is a Group Effort</strong></li><li>What is the one trait shared by the most innovative organizations? Drawing on the science of phase transitions and using stories that range from the hunt for U-boats in WWII to the search for new cancer drugs, to illustrative examples featuring Harley-Davidson, James Bond, and Steve Jobs, Safi shows how the most innovative organizations survive and thrive in disruptive times. Hear fresh insights from this new kind of science and learn why structure, rather than culture, is key to liberating the ideas trapped inside small and large companies everywhere.</li><li><strong>Strategy in Times of Rapid Change</strong></li><li>Learn how Amazon beat Google, how one mall succeeded while all others went bankrupt, and how the music industry escaped death. See how these examples illustrate three principles for choosing new markets in times of rapid change: how to spot new opportunities, exploit hidden advantages and prevent the most common mistake in launching new businesses. Learn about the need for two-track management; pretotyping (ultra-fast, inexpensive experiments); system vs. outcome mindset; the importance of celebrating good fails; and the metrics that help separate governance from management.</li><li><strong>Making Sure Good Teams <em>Don’t</em> Kill Great Ideas</strong> </li><li>Innovation efforts at successful companies often flounder as the core suffocates or rejects the new, a problem made more severe by rapidly changing markets. In this talk, Safi describes a new type of operating system organizations can use to meet this challenge: five principles behind the system, metrics, and mindset that will help your team run business experiments at pace and scale—without dropping the ball on the core of your business. </li></ul>