“Most organizations exploit only a fraction of the knowledge, experience, and intellectual capital that is available to them. But the healthy ones tap into almost all of it.”  – Patrick Lencioni

This quote is very true and can not be emphasized enough.  I work with some of the most intellectually talented people.  I am an engineer from an above average engineering program in glass and ceramics, my grades were above average.  But compared to some of the people I have worked with I feel quite simple.  Our company is quite fortunate to have some of these people as employees, but one thing I’ve noticed is that no matter how intelligent some of employees are it really does not matter if there is not a healthy culture as their foundation.  If there is a secretive, credit-stealing work ethic with unhealthy competition then the intelligence of these scientists, engineers and managers is almost completely neutralized. It is mostly culture that determines the effectiveness of an innovative team of researchers, the intelligence of the team is a factor but much less so than culture and health. When ‘crazy’ dominates an organization (no matter how smart they are!), and worse yet when managment routinely promotes ‘crazy’ it is under-cutting competance and pursuit of knowledge, it is throwing fairness and good ethics ‘under the bus’. I’ve seen it, I’ve experienced it, I’ve seen the impact it has on the quality employees.  I look forward to the day that all R&D teams that I work on or lead are healthy and mature so that the intelligence and creativity of ALL team members is harnassed like it can be for maximum growth and so the fastest time to market can be realized. .

What qualities do you think should be in an healthy R&D organization?