MIT Sloan Management Review Article on What a Crisis Teaches Us About Innovation

Understanding why it’s easier to develop new ideas and drive change during an emergency can help leaders innovate even in the absence of a crisis.

Necessity, as the saying goes, is the mother of invention. As the COVID-19 crisis spread during the first half of 2020, organizations innovated at a much faster pace than they normally could have. Emergency room teams in Michigan rigged ventilators by adding a second tube to double capacity and ventilate two patients at a time. Chinese scientists sequenced the new COVID-19 virus in a record three weeks. Multiple teams from Oxford, London, and Boston developed a potential vaccine and began testing it in less than two months. And the U.K.’s National Health Service built a 4,000-bed hospital in just four days.

About the Author

Elsbeth Johnson (@elsbeth_johnson) is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. Fiona Murray (@fiona_mit) is a professor of entrepreneurship and the associate dean of innovation and inclusion at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she codirects the MIT Innovation Initiative.

Learn more about MIT SMR.