Anita began by asking Myles about his new article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review called  “Cross Sector Initiatives Should Start Small.”    The idea of starting small stands in contrast to much of Myles’s research, which is about why and how companies can get large.    Why is it important for cross-sector initiatives to start small?

Myles responded by describing the complexity of cross-sector collaboration.   In the Center he leads, representatives of five different areas of the University are involved:  the Business, School, the Policy School, the School of Public Health, the Law School, and the Education School.   With so much expertise in the mix, it’s easy to get “stuck in the overwhelm.”  This happens precisely because everyone agrees that the problems are important and the need for action is great.   But getting started is hard because “the overwhelm” creates a gigantic thicket of potential concerns.   By starting small, interdisciplinary teams can scope out actions that are vaiable.

Anita then asked Myles about the idea of a “minimum viable benefit” that is described as part of the process of innovation in the article.  

Myles explained that this idea of a minimum viable benefit is a riff off the idea of a minimum viable product, which is a touchstone of the way we think about early-stage entrepreneurship.  The idea is to get something to happen that is simple and straightforward as a prototype.   Anita pushed a bit on the differences, though, by asking about the importance of scaling up from something that is known to be needed (in contrast to a product idea that may be unprecedented).   Myles again patiently explained that the minimum viable benefit sets a benchmark that interdisciplinary teams can use to support action.   He gave an example of a team that sought to help with preparing young children for School.    After identifying this area of opportunity, the team realized that a dozen organizations were already working on this problem.  Rather than introducing a thirteenth intervention, the team realized that bringing together all twelve of the established organizations to share ideas, collaborate, and cooperate would create more value than anything else.   And so that’s what they did.   As each organization sought to make the others more effective, their joint impact was amplified considerable.   The process behind thinking about the minimum viable product is what led them through a stage gate.

Earlier in this series, we talked with Thomaz Teodorovicz and with Dan Cowen, both of whom emphasized the importance of innovation locally.    Dan in particular talked about how cities are built one entrepreneur at a time.  Anita asked Myles:  Why is it so important to drive for effective outcomes at a local scale when the problems in the world are so large?   How do we get to scaled outcomes?

Myles described how the teams that seek to work locally in the Minneapolis-St Paul area often study the accomplishments of innovators in other geographies and in similar settings.  They often find that organizations are happy to share.   Much of the process may be to learn from others rather than to reinvent, even when others have failed.    We know that cross-sector, cross-cultural collaboration is difficult and often fails.  Even with failures, there’s a lot to learn. 

Anita asked about the special challenges of social change in Minneapolis-St Paul, where George Floyd was murdered and where structural racism has manifested in incredibly entrenched challenges across neighborhoods.   How does the process account for problems that are rooted deeply in the city’s history and culture? 

Myles pointed to three things that are deeply helpful as groups of students seek to confront the issues.  First, bringing people together to understand each other has a ton of impact.   Lots of interaction builds trust.  Pretty soon, the teams see themselves as committed groups rather than as people that have different ideas and backgrounds.   Second, by going to the data to define a problem, teams often can come to agreement.   The goal is to move away from a polarizing expression of beliefs and to see what we can agree on based on what we see in the data together.   Third, the question, what can we do together?, unifies the team in a powerful way.  This is not about changing others.  It’s about finding ways that we can change our own actions to make a difference.   Myles gave an example of a team that worked on food security issues in neighborhoods that the team members new as a route into insights that could be propagated across the city.

What makes you optimistic?

Myles reflected on his optimism by describing how, after a session with the students, he walked out of the room with the Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Health.  The two remarked on how hopeful they felt after listening to the ideas of students who are powerfully talented and thoughtful.   Their unified commitment to take action in the interests of making the lives of those around them better gives Myles optimism.