Leading Projects: the role of personal style in NPD project
success
Zvi Aronson, Ph.D.Affiliate Assistant Professor
HOWE School of TM
1© Zvi Aronson
Agenda
• Perspectives on leadership• Leader personal style captured by the FFM• Project-based work – and uncertainty
– Effect of leader personal style on NPD success
• Implications for selection and development
Perspectives on Leadership
3
Behavioral and trait perspectives
• Who are leaders?
• What do leaders do?(task and relationship management)
Contingency perspectives
• When should they do it? (LPC and Path Goal Theories)
Follower perspectives
• How do leaders affect others?(Charismatic and Transformational Leadership)
• Emotional and symbolic
© Zvi Aronson
Is there optimum leader personal style for NPD ?
Market & technology uncertainty
Leader Personal Style
Five Factor Model
SelectionDevelopmentImplications
Success
Project Leader – A Pivotal Figure • Link between the project team and senior
management• Effective in obtaining resources – personnel; larger
budgets for the team• Often central in creating the project vision
and communicating it to project the team• Facilitates teamwork• Keep teams motivated and focused• Are small group managers of their teams
What are the characteristics of leaders who are more effective on these tasks?
Implications cor selection and development?
• Extroversion-introversion– sociable, talkative, assertive, active– retiring, sober, reserved, cautious
• Agreeableness– good-natured, gentle, cooperative, forgiving,
hopeful– irritable, ruthless, suspicious, uncooperative,
inflexible• Conscientiousness
– careful, thorough, responsible, organized, self-disciplined, scrupulous
– irresponsible, disorganized, undisciplined, unscrupulous
– A conscientious person plans rather than acts on spontaneous behavior.
• Emotional Stability– calm, enthusiastic, poised, secure– depressed, angry, emotional, insecure
• Openness to Experience– imaginative, sensitive, intellectual, polished– down to earth, insensitive, narrow, crude,
simple– An open person tends to appreciates
adventure, unusual ideas, non traditional thinking, imagination and curiosity.
Five-Factor Model Capturing Personal style
A comprehensive way to understand personal style differences
Uncertain Environment - Radical Innovation • radical innovation exists when both market and
technology uncertainties are high• innovations of this type pose severe challenges for
new product teams, because– the market is not well understood and the product
is still evolving and changing with the market. – these types of innovations require a focus on a
learning-based strategy -experimenting is an essential component of the process.
– Product teams may try a product in the market to learn, improve it and try it again
NPD success- Leader Personal Style Link- example
Leaders personal style
Success
Uncertainty
Certainty
Un-open Open
High
Low
NPD
Leader Openness – fostering constructive conflict among team members
• When greater uncertainty exists, as in radical innovation, the propensity for conflict may increase
– Open individuals are better able to understand and adapt to others’ perspectives
– Open NPD project leaders should also be willing to listen to criticism and encourage different points of view
– Reduce the likelihood of group-think
• Use conflict as a spring board for idea generation, problem solving
• Collaborative conflict management
Leader Openness: learning-based strategy; Openness to the customer • under conditions of high uncertainty, characteristic of radical innovations, development teams face severe challenges because the market is not well understood and the product is still evolving and changing with the market.
• these innovations require a focus on a learning-based strategy - experimenting is an essential component of the process.
• Product teams may try a product in the market to learn, improve it, and try it again
• Project leaders high in openness should be more successful on trial and error research tasks that require maintaining flexibility, learning through experience, and openness to customer information
• Implications for coaching these individuals to use this asset to learn more about the customer and technology, to successfully bring the product to market.
Leader Openness - vision - unified goal • shaping a vision involves the cognitive ability to mesh
various factors together to create an effective product concept
• Represents a positive outcome for the project • identifies what is possible if the team pulls together • when the level of uncertainty is high, as in radical
innovation, this creative task may be more complex• leaders high on openness, are more creative, and
successful on this task• implications for Vision training
- techniques for generating new possibilities beyond current trends
Leader extraversion – communicating the vision
• It is critical for the leader to communicate the project vision
– verbally, in memos – referring to the vision in celebrations, speeches,– daily interactions– speaking enthusiastically about the project
assignments – Clarifying goals that are tied to the vision
• Extraverted leaders passionately articulate the vision regarding project goals, to project members, engenderinghigh levels of performance
• Implications for building communication skills
Leader Stability – A Stress Buffer
• Having a radical NPD team led by a leader who is Stable should be particularly functional because of the uncertainty, rapid change and the surprises involved with radical innovation.
• Air crew captains• A Stable leader can help buffer the radical NPD team
from the stress associated with this uncertainty, thus enabling the team to continue functioning together over long periods of time necessary for radical NPD
• Develop stress management skills
Leader Conscientiousness – task orientation • Planning is crucial for both radical and incremental
NPD leaders, although radical NPD team leaders must plan for a far more uncertain environment (Barczak).
• Conscientious individuals have a preference for planning
– task orientated; set goals
• Conscientiousness is related to performance across jobs and criteria and this suggests
• Leader Personal style, characterized by by conscientiousness should be important for success in both types of NPD.
• Develop: invest time in goal setting/planning
Respondents
• Sample – 178 NPD project teams • Respondent breakdown
– NPD professionals (primarily product – 41%, technical 38%; and marketing 31% managers) from technology-based companies in NY and NJ
• Industries – telecommunications; computers; electronics; pharmaceutical; information services
• Mostly firms: annual incomes >500 million • Response rate - 93%• Team size: average 23
Uncertainty – how would you describe your NPD project in relation to these statements • The technology required to develop this
product (R&D) was totally new to our company
• This product had to be sold to people or organizations outside our company's traditional customer base
• 178 NPD teams were split • 89 Incremental • 89 Radical – greater uncertainty
Criterion - NPD project performance - speed and successThis product was (speed)
• developed and launched faster than the major competitor for a similar product
• completed in less time than customary in our industry • launched on or ahead of the original schedule
developed at initial project go-ahead
This product met/exceeded expectations (success)• senior management• sales• Profit• market share expectations• customer expectations
alpha .96
Conscientiousness
Openness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Stability
For all products –Relationships Between Leader Personal style & NPD Success
NS
.22*
.32**
.29**
.15*
* p<.05; **p<.01
Correlations Regression; Betas
.23*
.18*
Conscientiousness
Openness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Stability
Results –Relationship between Leader Personal Style and NPD Success
.21*
.27**
.45**
Incremental Radical
.20 *
* p<.05 ; **p<.01 ; F–Test – for slopes significant
.14
.45**
NS
Implications for Selection
• Conscientiousness and Stability – Minimum levels established as selection
criteria, for employees being considered to lead NPD teams
• Openness– Selecting team leaders who are open is
crucial for success in radical NPD teams
Implications for Development
• A leader with a personal style characterized by openness can be coached to– use this asset to encourage and handle new
ideas– and learn more about the customer to
successfully bring the product to market.
Implications for Development
• A leader with a personal style characterized by openness can be coached to– use this asset to encourage and handle new
ideas– and learn more about the customer to
successfully bring the product to market.