Alice-Kate Lamb is the US Commercial GM and Sr. VP for Americas Innovation at WD-40 Company. While looking for an opportunity to explore how organizations have been successful with innovation, she came across the Managing Innovation program at Harvard Business School. After attending Managing Innovation, she came back to HBS for the Authentic Leader Development program upon recommendation from a peer. In this interview, Lamb shares how the program faculty and her learning group colleagues opened her up to new perspectives and helped her fall in love with her job again.
Why did you choose to attend Managing Innovation?
When the Managing Innovation program brochure came across my desk, I was looking for an opportunity to explore the fundamental ways in which organizations have been successful with innovation, as well as any new relevancy in terms of how people are approaching it. A lot of those fundamentals are still in place, but the program brought fresh thinking and perspective.
And having the actual authors of these case studies as professors was phenomenal. They provided a deeper context and richness around things that I've read about for many years, but never experienced until I attended the program.
How would you describe the program's value to someone considering it?
Managing Innovation exceeded all my expectations. I would highly recommend this program, especially for people who have a role in innovation. The material is also applicable for people in management and for those who are working in supply chain, operations, R&D, insights, and development. They will learn how to influence internal change by absorbing some of this external knowledge.
The two weeks that I spent in Boston were so instrumental in how I’m now rethinking my journey, my life, and my insurance for how I balance home and work. I have said to so many people: It’s not just the statement on your LinkedIn. It truly is the impact on me as a person—how I’ve tried to level up to a higher threshold of who I can be.
What impact has this program had on you since you attended?
When I said goodbye, I told Professor Thomke how reenergized I felt—how the program had helped me fall in love with my job again by recognizing all that's possible. He advised us to begin implementing our new knowledge immediately by having the right conversations and sharing what we learned. Instead of going back to your old ways, you need to leverage what inspired you—to learn you need to teach.
So I tried to teach my internal colleagues by bringing in some of the frameworks and case studies. For example, in one case we explored how to create the right guardrails of experimentation and build that into our culture? The faculty created this case so tightly that it doesn’t require you to bring decision making into it, and you get a lot of empowerment and autonomy because of that. By using, sharing, and teaching the material, my company and I have been very happy with the results we've achieved.
I see that you also attended Authentic Leader Development. How did this program complement your previous experience?
Authentic Leader Development completely changed my life. The chemistry we had in our learning group enabled us to create a safe space where we could be honest and vulnerable. It was like a realignment within my soul—here's where your values and purpose are, and where your North Star is starting to take shape. And by the end of the program, you see that it's so simple, yet so meaningful and impactful.
In the Managing Innovation program, one of the people in the greater cohort suggested that I apply to Authentic Leader Development. When I first started the program, the question was: what is a leader? And the answer was: leadership is how you make someone feel. In Managing Innovation, it's also that simple: How do I become more present? How do I bring my whole self to each person I'm working with? How do I recognize that the impact zone is coming from my truest purpose to do so?
How can someone in your industry or role benefit from attending an Executive Education program?
It just opens you back up again. You can have diversity of thought in your groups, but you're continuously talking to the same groups. So being part of a program where everyone is being inspired and coming at it from different perspectives has been amazing. I loved talking to people who were lawyers, worked in government, and in different industries, and seeing how they’re dealing with a similar culture or process.
And then there are these beautiful nuances that you learn from someone in a different field like medicine, and how you can apply that to your own work. HBS Executive Education brings these communities together that really need each other, challenges their thinking, and inspires new ways of thinking.