The Medici Effect - Case Study Example

The Medici Effect There is nothing that can define Frans Johansson better, than an innovator, as presented in his book, The Medici Effect. Citing from the acknowledgement section of the book, “I admit that I get ideas that way, all the time” (Johansson, xi). Innovation is a process of generating novel ideas, which are capable of being executed to give rise to new products, services and processes, which helps to solve the existing problems. For an individual who generates ideas all the time, there is nothing that can be applied to describe his character, other than creativity and innovation.

Despite the fact that all the ideas he develops do not materialize all the times, the truth is that the ideas exist. After analyzing this person, I have concluded that the main opportunity for the person or group in the case, is the nurturing of the Medici effect, which in real sense is taking the opportunity of intersecting disciplines and cultures, and combine the existing concepts as presented by those cultures and disciples, to come up with a wide range of extraordinary ideas (Johansson, 7).

The example that Johansson has given is that of the Medici family that created an intersection of cultures and disciplines through funding various kinds of experts such as poets, philosophers, painters, artists, sculptors, scientists, and architects, who in turn came together to learn and discuss from one another (Johansson, 3). Through learning, they intermarried the ideologies, perspectives and concepts to come up with a range of newly creative ideas that broke the barriers between the disciplines, and thus charted the way for revolution, growth and immense developmental advancement.

To take advantage of these opportunities, I suggest that a person or group of individuals should focus on multidisciplinary integration, which entails integrating ideas from various disciplines and cultures, as opposed to isolating the disciplines and learning them independently. This is because, teaching the various disciplines differently gives rise to directional ideas, which follows a similar and common path (Johansson, 163). However, while allowing various cultures and disciplines to intersect while being studied, an opportunity arises where an individual or a group of people can generate an idea that is a hybrid of the various cultures and disciplines, which charts a new direction of development, allowing the individual or a group of individual to generate an idea that is of their own.

The creation of a novel idea then generates followers, and makes the individual who combined different ideologies and concepts from various disciplines or cultures to become the leader (Johansson, 17).This recommendation is based on specific concepts that we have discussed in class or obtained from our book. First, in discussion on innovation, I saw that cultural integration, which supports my recommendation of multidisciplinary integration applies because, the idea of building the non-air conditioning Old Mutual office in Harare Zimbabwe became possible since the architect, “Mick Pearce, was Born in Zimbabwe, schooled in South Africa and trained as an architect in London” (Johansson, 3).

It is through the integration of the traditional natural observation, regarding how the termites cool their mounds back in his home, with the training he obtained both in South Africa and London, that he came up with the novel idea of combining the natural termite concept with the modern architectural training concept, to a build a house that does not use air conditioners, in a region which is very hot most of the times. Works CitedJohansson, Frans. The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation.

Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press, 2006. Print.