AUSTIN, TEX. — Formula One is an incredibly high-tech sport. The heart of its racecars may be the power units and the drivers, but in many ways the cars are computers rolling on four tires. Teams work constantly to improve them, pushing to out-innovate the competition.
And to foster that innovation, team officials must manage hundreds of staff members and create the environment where new ideas thrive.
Formula One’s success with innovation has not only attracted fans, but has also gotten the attention of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of all places. Could the sport’s approach be taught to business executives? The university and Formula One are giving that a shot.
Together, they have introduced a management program called the F1 Extreme Innovation Series.
“Formula One sits at the intersection of technology and management, and M.I.T. Sloan sits at the intersection of technology and management,” said Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and faculty director for the innovation series. He once worked at ESPN with Sean Bratches, the commercial chief of Formula One, who contacted Shields about creating an education series.
“Our respective organizations are very much aligned in the type of work that we do,” Shields said. “Formula One comes at it from a different perspective, and we at M.I.T. come at it from an educational and research perspective.
“We’re both very much interested in the same types of questions, which makes this particular event all the more interesting and a great fit for both organizations.”
The one-day innovation series attracts executives from across the world, including managers from Boeing, Bank of America and PwC, who participate in talks and seminars with M.I.T. professors and Formula One personnel.
The opening session in Austin, Tex., before the United States Grand Prix in October, explored using workplace conflict to create innovation and was held in the Paddock Club overlooking the track.
“Formula One as an organization and as a sport is one that has had innovation at its core for 68 years,” said Yath Gangakumaran, director of corporate strategy and business development at Formula One. “Every week, thousands of workers at our teams are constantly seeking to innovate, often just to stand still.”
“This is a very high-pressure and high-performance area, so we make sure that a lot of what we do in Formula One has lessons for the wider business community. We have a working hypothesis, which is that we can add value in the business conference and executive education market.”
Shields said that by holding the session at a track, they were able to immerse the executives in Formula One, making the lessons more memorable.
“Participants will take a track tour and walk around the paddock,” he said. “That from an educational standpoint is exciting because we may talk about something during the session, and then the participants will just walk downstairs and go see it.
“Making that connection on-site is very unique and exciting to us as educators.”
In the sessions, Nelson Repenning of M.I.T. was joined by Rob Smedley, head of vehicle performance for the Williams Formula One team.
While Repenning presented management studies from M.I.T., Smedley drew on his 17 years of experience in Formula One to offer examples of how he had created conflict between departments within teams to aid innovation.
“We’ve got a very disparate bunch of people in Formula One: the mechanical design team, aerodynamicists, tire engineers, software people, simulation people, drivers, scientists,” Smedley said.
“We’ve got every kind of geek that you can possibly imagine. You’ve got to bring all of them together and create this positive conflict, so we’re getting the best out of those people.”
Smedley explained how he found a need for conflict upon joining Williams in 2014, arriving after spending more than a decade with the larger Ferrari team.
“When I first joined, there were lots of technical silos,” Smedley said. “Everybody sat in their technical silo, and everybody was happy not to really interact with people outside of those silos.
“It was really interesting to see that evolve from a group of people who all sat in their silos, that wouldn’t talk and interact, to actually getting them to interact and seeing different points of view.
“You bring in all of those ideas, all that diversity, and it adds to the inefficiency. But what you end up with is a much more defined and perfected product.”
The executives also took part in exercises where they applied the lessons to their business experiences, establishing a connection between Formula One and their companies.
For example, the executives presented summaries of problems in their companies and then were shown how to better present the summaries and clarify inefficiencies.
Darren Learmonth, head of innovation and technology at HID Global of Austin, an identity solutions company, attended the class in Texas and said he was using what he learned.
“I have already started calling innovation meetings that include members from other departments,” he said. “I also start these sessions saying that all teams have equal input, it just comes from a different perspective but is 100 percent valid.
“In F1, looking for a few thousands of a second in a lap is everything. While real-world business is different, it’s the same in the sense of pursuing additional bottom-line performance. It’s totally translatable to my world.”
Steve Wozniak, an Apple founder and the event’s keynote speaker, said that he had never attended a Formula One race, but felt there was an “ideal connection” between the sport and M.I.T. given their mutual pursuit of innovation.
“Technology is really key to having higher-performance vehicles, one that works better,” he said.
“My whole life was about being an engineer who can design things better than any other engineer. Even when I was in high school, I was that way, trying to come up with tricks that nobody’s ever done before that worked out into getting you more for less.” Noting how Formula One’s environment encouraged innovation, Wozniak added: “I’d fit in here.”
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