Dr. Sunnie Giles

Take the mystery out of radical innovation! Facing today's volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world, we need a new type of leader—Quantum Leaders.

Quantum Leaders are fundamentally different from the rest of the pack and exhibit 6 key competencies. Gone are the days of command and control and individual charisma. Quantum Leaders not only consistently deliver on radical innovation, they are good bosses to work for!

My global leadership research, published in Harvard Business Review, has revealed that the turnover intent of these leaders is 37% lower than those of other leaders for their respective organizations, which translates into a $448 million hit to operating expenses for each Fortune 500 company, meaning each Fortune 500 company would have to generate an additional $8.7 billion in topline sales to make up for this additional hit to operating expenses. What is more: People are willing to forego up to 39% of their compensation to work for a Quantum Leader.

Take the mystery out of radical innovation! Taking apart the common DNA of the successful Silicon Valley tech giants, you can learn what you need to do to consistently produce radical innovation, the kind that produces a minimum of 10x improvements and radically redefines the industry dynamics.

Based on solid research, and her book The New Science of Radical Innovation: The Six Competencies Leaders Need to Win in a Complex World, Dr. Sunnie shares the "theoretical framework to understand the seemingly idiosyncratic business practices of successful Silicon Valley high tech companies and actual practices companies must master to win in this new world" (Marshall Goldsmith). She "sets a new standard for understanding innovation and provides profound insights on how innovation happens and what you can do to harness that potential” (Jonathan Rosenberg).

All too often organizations approach diversity as a compliance issue but this approach actually misses the boat. The big picture perspective is that we need diversity of thought to produce radical innovation, the kind that generates 10x improvements and radically reshapes industry dynamics. Diverse gender, race and religion are only a proxy to diversity of thought. Let people bring different heuristics and perspectives shaped by their unique life experiences to your team.

Research consistently shows harnessing the collective intelligence of people from diverse backgrounds can solve seemingly insurmountable feats, impossible to solve by one super expert. Mathematically, collective error is equal to the average of individual errors minus diversity (variance) of the group. From this equation, we can surmise that there are two ways to decrease collective error: reduce the average individual error by hiring smart people, or increase diversity of thought via many people working together.