4 Key Lessons From The Geek Way
In his new book, MIT’s Andrew McAfee says that organizational culture holds the key to business success; here’s why
According to Andrew Mcafee, MIT principal research scientist, author, and co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), business leaders need to think more like geeks–but not the stereotype you may think.
In his new book, The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results due out November 14, McAfee reframes the idea of “geeks” in the best possible light — and sees their way of thinking as exemplary for others. Business geeks are “obsessive mavericks” who are fixated on finding unconventional solutions to hard business problems. Their thinking needs to permeate the organization to make meaningful change and show extraordinary results. McAfee offers a framework for geek thinking to become the business norm based on four key concepts: speed, ownership, science, and openness.
In this conversation with IDE Content and Editorial Director, Paula Klein, McAfee spoke about the concepts in the book and the implications for businesses.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK ON MIT SLOAN’S WEB SITE HERE.
Q: Fundamentally, what is the compelling message of this book at this time? Can the economy be reenergized with Geek Way thinking?
A: I would say that the economy is already being reenergized by what I call geek-style thinking.
Geeks are showing up and beating the incumbents on their own turf and in diverse industries.
Look at the space industry, for instance, a highly knowledge- and capital- intensive, old-style, well-financed sector full of entrenched incumbents. It may be the last place we’d expect to see disruption from Silicon Valley-style companies. And then we find SpaceX, at 21 years old, a baby compared to the incumbents. Its founder, Elon Musk, didn’t have experience in rockets or satellites or space communication and yet, it is the only organization on the planet with commercially viable reusable rockets, and a shuttle bus that takes gear into space.
Last year, about 80% of all satellites that went into space and 63% of all of the weight that left the earth for space was via SpaceX. During the Ukraine invasion, it alone deployed rugged, high bandwidth satellite intranets, and now it’s certified to send crews to the international space station and has had more missions than Boeing. So, geek energy is out there and is changing industry after industry. I cite examples in cars, film and entertainment, and others.
Q: How is this different from other transformations and business trends?
A: This basic phenomenon is much more than digital transformation. Business geeks know how to shift and build organizations that can do very complicated things very efficiently, quickly, and successfully. Digital transformation is just one aspect. There’s no killer app here, but rather, a set of solutions for thriving in a faster-moving world rooted in the field of cultural evolution.
Q: The failed efforts of Quibi –a video streaming company that tried to offer short-form content — seems like a particularly good cautionary tale about the need for interaction among the four norms you describe. It shows that the lack of geek culture, and openness, in particular, actually prevented better products and employee support. Can you elaborate?
A: It is a good example, especially juxtaposed with the rise of Netflix. In the entertainment/content business, old-school giants like Time Warner and Disney weren’t worried about Netflix — which now out-values Disney. Both Time-Warner and Disney [among others] invested in Quibi as a rival streaming service to Netflix.
Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg had amazing instincts and an impressive Hollywood background. He hired Meg Whitman as CEO and raised an epic $1.75 billion. But Quibi wasn’t a geek organization and it shut down after a year. In the book I quote an insider who said it was a classic industrial-era organization led from the top in hierarchical fashion. It had poor vision and no collaboration and yet employees were expected to execute that vision that they didn’t believe in.
At geek organizations open assessments and honest pushback can keep a firm from going off the rails.
Q: Are platforms examples of geek organizations?
A: Platforms are strategic. But remember platform companies aren’t usually the incumbents of their industries. Recall the adage that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It doesn’t matter what the strategy is, culture has to evolve in the right way. SpaceX is not a platform business, but it has the right culture for fast product development.
It’s the business geeks who have figured out how to build companies that evolve their cultures better than those they’re displacing.
Q: There has been a tech backlash against some Silicon Valley companies in the last few years with claims of toxic culture, bias, and labor issues. Can The Geek Way counter some of these issues?
A: Certainly, not all companies in Silicon Valley are fantastic. Theranos was incredibly toxic. We’ve also seen toxic cultures elsewhere;
location alone doesn’t guarantee a healthy culture.
At the same time, some of the most attractive companies in the economy are on the West Coast. They are far from perfect, but you can find key examples of how to build extraordinary companies. Of course, successful cultures can be found outside of Silicon Valley, too. In the book I examine Hubspot and Microsoft, where culture is core to their success.
Q: As the traditional definitions of jobs and workers are changing, will The Geek Way need continual resets, too?
A: Cultures always keep evolving. This is not the final form of the corporation. Cultural evolution is a young discipline and we’re going to keep learning, and watching it. I do expect geeks to lead the charge. Hubspot is on its 30th iteration of its corporate code. That’s the point: This is not a set-it-and-forget- it type of thing; it’s a continuum. As I see it, companies have received an upgrade. When the geeks come to your industry you can’t double down on the old playbooks of the industrial era and rely on the status quo; that will hold you back.
If you don’t adapt, you won’t go far and the geeks will continue to be the disrupters.
