How To Create Revolutionary Teams

What businesses, governments, and leaders should learn from Bell Labs, the company that built the modern world.

What is common between the C programming language, Solar Cells, the Laser, and the legendary operating system UNIX?

All of these were invented by people in one group, Bell Labs. And within the span of roughly 10 years. Talk about a 10-year challenge.

And if you think I’m cherry-picking a few examples, feel free to look into the company yourself. You’ll find out that this company has laid the foundations of basically every big accomplishment that created the modern world. 9 Different Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work done at Bell Labs. Let that number sink in. This was a group of people that made the PayPal Mafia look like a group of Children.

So what was so special about the environment at Bell Labs? What was it that allowed the members to accomplish so many great things? In this email/article, we will be covering that.

Whether you’re a leader trying to build a more innovative company/group that will create the next big product/idea, a policy maker/government employee trying to understand how you can set up an environment of growth, or an employee trying to understand what makes certain companies/groups successful, this is not an article you want to miss.

What we will cover

1. Understanding the Bell Labs set up- Bell Labs had a few quirks that make it different to normal groups. They hired a lot of people. They had a culture of collaboration. They were a private company, so they didn’t have to worry about short-term targets. This allowed them to put money into long-term projects. And they had a lot of money, so they could invest in projects.
2. How you can replicate this- You can’t always copy-paste their entire setup. However, there are a few different things you can use to create a similar environment. This is a combination of financial planning (have money in reserves, build good products) and great culture (encourage initiative, don’t punish mistakes, open communication).

Make sure you’re wearing a tight helmet because I’m about to cover one of the most mind-blowing groups ever.

Photo by Uriel SC on Unsplash

Understanding Bell Labs

Most articles would focus on the story of Bell Labs, how they came up through the ages etc etc. Sure it’s interesting, but none of that is relevant to what I will cover here.

Instead, let’s cover the key elements of what allowed Bell Labs different from traditional organizations and allowed them to carry humanity into the future-

1. Reliable Money- Bell Labs had a lot of money. They had a monopoly over American Telecom, which gave them access to a lot of money. Money that would come in at regular intervals. This allowed them to do the following.
2. Aggressive Hiring- Bell Labs hired a lot of people. These were very smart people with advanced qualifications/degrees in all kinds of engineering/scientific disciplines. Getting all these smart people together was crucial to their success.
3. Collaboration- In an interview, Jon Gertner, the author of The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation stated that a lot of the work at Bell Labs was by its nature collaborative. The company had an ‘open door policy’ that allowed the interactions between these smart people to blossom. This communication and collaboration between employees to really prosper.
4. Long-Term Thinking- Research at Bell Labs could take many years to complete. The leadership was willing to commit to such projects. Thus researchers could take their time building amazing projects.
5. Funding- Innovation is a messy process. One that requires a lot of iterations, luck and money to succeed. Bell Labs was willing to fund a lot of experiments. Some had to succeed.

Combined, this set up an environment for great things to happen. The Bell Labs experiment was akin to placing a lot of reactive elements inside a container. Things were bound to happen. As these experts interacted with each other, they were able to combine their skills to solve all kinds of problems. Researchers weren’t under the pressure of meeting short-term targets, which allowed them to focus on their craft and create excellent products.

Some companies have clearly been inspired by this. Google, for example, has X, the Moonshot Factory. So how can you learn from this? What do you need to do to ensure that you can foster an environment of excellence? How can you spawn high-performing teams throughout? Let’s cover that next.

X is a diverse group of inventors and entrepreneurs who build and launch technologies that aim to improve the lives of millions, even billions, of people. Our goal: 10x impact on the world’s most intractable problems, not just 10% improvement. We approach projects that have the aspiration and riskiness of research with the speed and ambition of a startup.

-Their Website

Replicating the Bell Labs experiment

How can you create the next great group of inventors and innovators? Here are a few things that can help-

1. Have a war chest- Not everyone has the money of a government or a monopoly backing them. But this doesn’t mean you can’t replicate this effect on a smaller scale. Make sure your group of has a constant stream of revenue coming in. Allocate a certain percentage of these funds (10–20 is a good number) as the ‘moonshot budget’. If your group doesn’t have direct say over funds, allocating engineering/working time to tinkering around with moonshots is a good alternative.
2. Cram Experts Together- If you can bring a lot of experts together, great things are bound to happen. Create group chats, meetups, and events where experts from various domains can meet and interact. Give them problems you’re interested in solving, and you will reap the rewards. I’ve covered this principle in my article on what it took to set up India’s 200 Billion Dollar Software Industry (get drunk with people of common interests).
3. Force Communication- I’m a huge fan of remote and async work. However, it makes the unplanned ‘watercooler talks’, which lead to many great discoveries, harder. As a leader/policy-maker, you should enforce this somehow. Make your reports go out and interact with people and see what they’re up to. A great way to do this is to make them read/talk to different people about how they solved various problems. Regular Readers know how I’m a huge fan of engineering blogs/research papers in developing your expertise in a field.
4. Develop your knowledge- To be able to guide these teams, you will need to develop your own domain expertise. You don’t have to go super deep (you shouldn’t), but rather master the fundamental ideas enough to be able to interact with various experts and connect them with other resources.
5. Play the Long Game- You will have to eat a lot of losses and run into a lot of losses along the way. This is expected. In such cases, you must be willing to be like a Goldfish and forget about them (metaphorically). Take the L and Move on. Pro Tip- Document everything about your losses. This way others can learn from them and possibly improve on your processes. Use this article as a guide in creating great documentation.
6. Promote Initiative and autonomy- If you want an innovative group, you need a group of people willing to step up and take charge of different projects. You need to promote a lot of initiative in your teams. You will want to foster leaders amongst your group of experts, who can guide the rest in your absence.

How to be an effective leader [StoryTime Saturdays]

Bell Labs revolutionized the world as we know it. And their model is now more relevant than ever. Following these tips will allow you to create the next big thing. Thanks to the internet and globalization, the impacts of the product you build will hit unprecedented scales. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

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