Hot Spots

I’ve just got back from a course at the London Business School run by the British management guru Professor Lynda Gratton. One of the highlights for me was a session on what she calls Hot Spots. She describes them in a book of the same name:

"Hot Spots are a hallmark of the most successful, most entrepreneurially minded companies. Companies with Hot Spots are leading edge, they are buzzing with ideas, innovation and sheer trendiness. Hot Spots are places and times where exceptional cooperation flourishes, creating great energy, innovation, productivity, and excitement. They can be found anywhere that ideas converge — workplaces, companies, industries, coffee shops, hallways, conferences. And distance is no barrier either: Hot Spots can thrive across different geographical locations and different time zones.”

As an interculturalist, I was pleased to hear that culturally diverse teams and organizations are well placed to create Hot Spots if other key factors are in place. Three main things are necessary to create Hot Spots: “a cooperative mindset”, “boundary spanning” and “igniting purpose”. Gratton explains what this means in a two-minute video on the website of the movement she founded.

Through exercises to be found in Hot Spots and her latest book, Glow, those of us on the course were able to compare our own profiles for innovation together with that of our teams and organizations. The mismatches gave us some food for thought.

The ideas in the course were highly stimulating and I would certainly recommend the books. One word of warning occurred to me when I read the words of praise at the beginning of the book that was published in 2007. One of these was by Jeremy Isaacs, former CEO, Europe & Asia for Lehmann Brothers. He talks about the capacity of his company “to add real value” … Hot Spots are clearly on the move.