ZS Podcast · Management Consulting

Unlock Generative Insights for Business Growth

·35 min·2 clips

Tushman says scientists and engineers want metrics, systems, and procedures, not culture.

Maria Whitman opens by arguing that culture matters as much as structure. She frames the discussion as part of ZS's series on the future of pharma's commercial and operating model. Mike Tushman joins as the guest. He is introduced as a Harvard Business School professor who studies technological change, executive leadership, and organizational change. His work with ChangeLogic and his books on corporate exploration set up the conversation. The central question is how organizations can move toward innovative models without losing sight of the business they already run. Tushman says many scientists and engineers lean toward structure, metrics, systems, and procedures. He does not dismiss that instinct. He says it is useful, but not enough. The discussion turns to the idea of structural ambidexterity. Tushman argues that exploration often needs its own structure, culture, and metrics. That separation gives new work a real chance to develop without being swallowed by the core business. He is blunt about the odds. Many attempts at ideation, incubation, and scale fail. He says the failure usually happens because exploit kills explore. They spend time on the difference between starting something new and getting it to scale. Tushman argues that ideation and incubation are relatively easy in 2024. Scale is the hard part. At that stage, the larger organization tends to pull resources back toward the core. He uses Harvard Business School Online, which began as HBX, as a concrete example of a structurally separate experiment that expanded the school's market and later influenced the parent organization. The episode keeps returning to the same point: transformation requires more than a good idea, because it requires an operating model that can protect the new while still running the old. It closes on access and care, with Tushman saying the thing he would change about healthcare is easier access to the right care at the right time.

As heard by us

A sober look at why innovation gets absorbed when the core business takes over.

Transforming Biopharma returns to a familiar problem: innovation is simple to celebrate, but much harder to sustain when culture, structure, metrics, and operating models all have to line up.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you need a sober take on how innovation survives the jump from explore to scale.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from ZS Podcast