Innovation is ultimately not about inventing or creating new ideas or solutions—it’s about executing them.  Today, more than ever before, exceptional execution requires exceptional leadership—not in the traditional sense, but in building collaborative teams and fostering the culture, passion and energy that allows these teams to be creative and move beyond invention to real innovation.

• Andrew M. Heller Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
• Professor in Wharton's Operations and Information Management
• Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics
• Co-Author of INNOVATION TOURNAMENTS
  Learn more about innovation tournaments »

We will pursue the elusive question: "Why do people quit?" More specifically, why do we start to pursue long-term goals only to later abandon them in favor of immediate rewards that had always been available? Commonplace examples involve new year's resolutions or quitting addictions.

The repercussions for corporate environments can be costly and destructive. I will discuss our data showing that people's expectations and sense of uncertainty is key in these situations. Knowing this we can "reverse engineer" environments that promote persistence or quitting, and show that the brain response preceding someone's decision to quit is then understandable as arising from cues in the environment.

• Wharton Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Director of Wharton Entrepreneurial Research Center
• Published author in Harvard Business Review, Long Range Planning, and Research-Technology Management

• Global education expert, author, and inventor
• Visiting practitioner exploring curriculum redesign concepts, and accelerated learning via neuroscience at Harvard
• Visiting lecturer teaching Technologies for Learning at University of Pennsylvania

This talk will look at innovation from an individual and organizational perspective. Jessica will talk about how the Science of Happiness at Work helps drive innovation, enabling organizations to assess, analyze and then act effectively. After briefly explaining the Science, she’ll talk through a mini-case study which shows the impact that a top team can have. An interview with entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk (PayPal and SpaceX) will illustrate this new leadership approach in action. Taking a quick look at social networks, she’ll end with some practical top tips for leaders.

Networks of relationships among people contribute to the genesis, implementation and adoption of new ideas. This presentation briefly reviews key themes in then network theories of creativity.

I highlight two key social mechanisms that underpin innovation: (1) prospecting for novel ideas; and (2) mobilizing the tangible and intangible resources necessary to develop them. Discovery -- the "aha" moment of insight -- and development -- the often arduous process of transforming an insight into a process or product -- are both enabled by strong social networks, but the types of network structures that facilitate radically creative discoveries are different from and oppositional to the structures that enable effective development. Effectively managing this tension is essential to maintaining successful innovation programs.

I conclude by briefly exploring three responses to the discovery-development dilemma. Those techniques involve rules for collaboration formation, fostering shared experiences, and strategic use of physical space.

Corporations need a steady stream of talent that can successfully lead new ventures. Learn how to capitalize on this source of competitive advantage by methodically developing, managing and investing in your firm’s innovators and entrepreneurs.

Integrity and innovation are two crucial ingredients found woven into the culture of all great entrepreneurial organizations. However, getting all constituents on board can be a daunting challenge.

"Leading with Integrity and Innovation" is a candid discussion between John Resnick, Host of the syndicated radio program, "Legends of Success" and life insurance advisor to high net worth families, and Ross Born, Co-CEO of Just Born, Inc. the privately-owned candy manufacturer of iconic brands such as Peeps,Mike and Ike, and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews.

Learn some of the most valuable lessons that have sustained the long term success of Just Born andother admired companies.

Leadership Keynote

Guided by the principle that a person must build trust in order to accomplish great things, Admiral Mike Mullen—recognized as one of the most unorthodox yet admired Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—talks about the key attributes necessary to build a culture of accountability in our leaders. Mullen discusses the importance of staying apolitical and the need to hear a range of perspectives before decisions are made.

Drawing on experience — including the events that led to the death of Osama bin Laden — Mullen discusses critical strategies that made for his success, including surrounding himself with people who would challenge his thinking, seeking out a diversity of opinions and remaining accountable to those whom he served.

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Signaling an Innovative Workplace

Companies known for being innovative tend to attract the best and the brightest people. If talent is a competitive advantage, companies known for innovation have much to gain.

Delivery of the promise over time, however, as seen from two complimentary employer brand studies, is the key to keeping talent engaged. Join Ann Schulte, CLO of MasterCard Worldwide, to discuss how employers signal and deliver the promise of an innovative workplace and how employers can ensure they stay at the top of employees' minds.

How to Link University Relations with your Organization’s Business Challenges for a Better Competitive Advantage

Turkcell Group, the leading telecommunication company in Turkey and the only Turkish company listed in NYSE has the mission "to recruit and to retain the best talent". Although Turkcell is perceived as the most admired company to work for among professionals for years, it was ranked as the 13th company to work for amongst university students in 2009. This award application describes the strategic role and impact of Turkcell Academy, the Corporate University of Turkcell Group, to increase Turkcell's overall brand value and awareness among university students by its "University Collaborations" and how to add value to corporate performance.

Building the Talent Pipeline at the Aditya Birla Group

Building the talent pipeline of leaders for the Senior, Middle and Junior levels to support the 2015 vision of 65 billion is among the key strategic goals for Gyanodaya - The Aditya Birla Institute of Management Learning. The global conglomerate nature of the group with multiple businesses spread across the world required capability building across diverse businesses.

Transitioning to this rapid growth phase, marked by a challenging economic environment, demanded a sizeable shift in leadership development strategies and accelerating learning across the organization. A vital aspect of this was to establish consistent leadership practices and processes that would support the organizations’ vision, values and strategic goals.

We will describe how we actively engaged senior managers as subject matter experts at all stages of the learning event, and employed a mix of instructor-led, blended, synchronous and asynchronous learning formats to deliver learning content to varied segments of learners.

Building Execution Excellence at Retail (BEER): Bringing our sales strategy to life through learning.

We go to market with our brands through independently owned distributors and retailers and so we have to bring our customers solutions that help build their businesses as well as our own. That means helping our distributors to execute and bringing retailers our Category Management expertise.

Our capability assessment identified two significant barriers to executing our customer strategy:

• Our ability to sell based on an understanding of the customer’s strategy and needs
• Our ability to prioritize initiatives to help our Distributors execute

Our solution was to partner with sales leadership to establish "one way" of working against our most important business processes and build muscle in the skills required to do so. We have memorialized the processes and tools in the Sales Playbook and build the skills through our experience based, leader led Sales Academies. We embed the new learning and measure progress and effectiveness through a certification process and monthly quizzes.

Changing the Way NASA Safety Learns: Launching a Corporate University

This presentation describes the process involved in taking the NASA Safety Center’s Safety and Mission Assurance Technical Excellence Program from conception to reality, from curriculum design to launch. Mr. Marinaro and Dr. May explain how incorporating vision, leadership, educational fundamentals, and instructional design practices resulted in a program that demonstrates outstanding participation metrics and modest organizational results.

• Penn Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Graduate School of Education
• Philosopher, anthropologist, education expert
• Co-Author of BULLISH ON UNCERTAINTY

• Penn Professor of Education and Sociology
• Author of WHO CONTROLS TEACHER'S WORK? POWER AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN AMERICA'S SCHOOLS

Learning Excellence – It’s All About Results

The University of Farmers has established a reputation for learning excellence by driving solid business results. Measurement of learning efforts is fundamental to our mission of providing world-class value-based learning.

Art Dobrucki will lead an overview of measurement practices for learning at Farmers Insurance, share experiences, and field your questions to enhance your ability to demonstrate learning’s value to organizations.

Driving Focused Leadership Development for Top Talent to Strengthen Organizational Capabilities

Raytheon is highly committed to the development of talent and in 2011 was once again named by Fortune as a top company for leaders. The company identifies and invests heavily in leaders who can make a significant and lasting impact on the business.

Raytheon’s robust leadership architecture and leadership development programs create a climate where leaders learn by tackling real organizational challenges, shaping strategy, and sharing knowledge and perspectives.

Nicole Jones and Katerina Karmokolias, Raytheon Talent Managers, will describe the company's leadership development strategy; emphasizing the leadership architecture and its laser-focused approach to developing top talent.

TechJam

PayPal’s incredible growth makes it challenging for technologists to experiment, observe, and conceptualize: essential elements of a an innovative culture that maintains market leadership. In this complex software environment, technologists typically specialize within their domains. There are few opportunities to cross domains and experiment with new technology. As a result, technologists often play it safe.

Yet, the software tools that PayPal technologists should master often come from brilliant, yet unproven, technologies. To change this culture, an opportunity for experimentation would be extended to the technologists. Its message would be that it’s OK to change, to adapt to emerging technologies, take chances, and be inspired.

TechJam, the program conceived to convey this message, focuses upon an experiential model of social learning, Web 2.0 technologies, and serious gaming, which exemplifies the synergistic and forward-looking workforce that PayPal is building today.

Developing Future Global Leaders

In the poster presentation we will look at key elements of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leadership Fellows Program. This High Potentials' development programme is constructed with the eye on the Robert Kegan’s ‘Adult Development /Stages of Maturity theory where an increasing level of self-awareness and systemic awareness is achieved at each additional stage. The higher stages are associated with an individual's increased ability to observe, encourage and enable themselves and their teams to reach successful outcomes for themselves, their organizations, and for the broader systems in which they are embedded.

The Forum's program brings together cutting edge approaches from executive education and high potential development. Some of the most notable areas include measurements of Emotional Intelligence and Mind complexity; four types of coaching; external mentoring, competency based performance assessment on-the-job and of-the-job, career transitions and an alumni network.