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SBP 233: The PostPod - Lessons From Fiona Stevenson. Why Innovation Fails. · Sleeping Barber - A Marketing Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Baba podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: Incremental innovation is from what I can recall, like it is the vast majority of the kinds of innovation that happen.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning people are iterating and slightly improving something that already exists.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times it's kind of like sequels and movies.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: People do them because they're low risk.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they already made a whole money.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's why there's 14,000 adventures now.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sleeping Barber Podcast, a place for business leaders to get the best and most credible information on marketing, strategy, and innovation.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your hosts, Mark Finkley and Vasilis Duros, share their experiences as they gather insights from the world's leading experts.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on with the show.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the postpod.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Time for the postpod.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: The postpod.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: The postpod.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: For Fiona Stevenson.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love the radio voice.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: Innovation V, it was kind of a throwback in a lot of ways.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was I I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: I love that chat for sure.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was, yes, it was a throwback, I think, to our uh R MBA, uh, which was also a great one of the great classes I think that we're able to take.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I struggle with innovation and not in the context of how or how we're doing it or how we're building it.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the definition of always changes depending on who you who you're talking to in organizations.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants it, but you know, it means different things for different people.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: I had a boss before that kept talking about breakthrough innovation.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Or no, disruptive.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: That was the word.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was like the word disruptive innovator.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what the fuck?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: What are you talking about?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and it meant something genuine to that person.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And but I like I didn't understand it the same way, um, which was radically different.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think innovation is also very personal.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's innovative for one company is not at all innovative for another.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: Which is why is it's so tricky, it's so hard, which is partly why I love the like looking at the four types of innovation with Fiona.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think that's a great step is to understand what kind of innovation are we talking about.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I couldn't agree more.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I remember we were talking about it at the preamble uh with Fiona and saying, like, I literally was using it in a meeting earlier this week because it is it is a reality.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because leader will say, you know, I V, I need you to push further.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure that we're really being innovative.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And respectfully always be like, can you help me help me define what do you mean by innovation?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are you talking about a breakthrough innovation?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are you talking about a game changer innovation?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Are you talking about being disruptive?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Are you talking about something like drives incrementality?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And once I started framing it that way, then he came back with like, oh, you know what?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think what I'm looking for is something that helps drive incremental.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now all of a sudden, we have a shared understanding of what it is that he's looking for instead of it just being quote unquote innovation.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Then it, you know, as a marketing team, we would just go back and try to find something innovative.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a new tactic, it could be working with a new partner.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: All of that could be innovation.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what I love about Fiona and what she talked about is innovation does not is not the same as just ideas.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: An idea only became innovation when it creates value and it's implemented.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's like the ding ding ding for me.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the definition for it is it creates value and is implemented.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Is because yeah, I'm trying to remember the exact example that she gave.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um rainbow ice cream or something.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like rainbow ice cream is just an idea, but yes, it's not innovative as it's as an idea on its own.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's only innovative if it gets built, implemented, and creates value for the people that are buying it and the value for the people that are using it.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, companies often mistake brainstorming and ideation for innovation.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's always out there.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone has an idea.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's and I'm not saying don't have ideas.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, have ideas, but be careful what you're claiming they are.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Do you I I know I brought this up when we were in the call, but do you have any examples or have you seen this where because I'm mostly looking for confirmation that I'm not just crazy?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's that that comment about um, I think it was Einstein said, if there, if I had an hour to spend on solving a problem, I'd I'd spend 95 or so 95% of the time, or 50 minutes trying to understand the problem and then five minutes trying to solve it.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: Something like that.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Do you see that in your office?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a is there an uh a leaning toward solving before understanding the problem?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't know if I have like a hard set example, at least not on off the cuff like this.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: What we do often see is that we're trying to solution in the moment.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Think about all the different meetings that you're gonna have.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have category-based meetings from a performance perspective.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have meetings that you have all the different channels owned and paid, coming together and trying to make decisions on how to drive more growth.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem in those scenarios are usually we're chasing one end of the of the outcome.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it could be like, say, just digital loads versus looking at what does a company need?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like how are we factoring in the foot traffic into the stores?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: How are we factoring in the sales calls that are happening?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: But we're solving for say one thing in the moment.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're solving for that one thing, it's like we're turning a blind eye to everything else that's happening to try to fixate on something that has that is today's problem.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you you do see that uh time and time again.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, the finger pointing is constant.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, bounce rates are high.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not my traffic, it's your web page.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you give people a reason to stick around as an example, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So start playing with all the modules inside the page.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the kind of thing that are we even solving for the right thing at the end of the day in those moments.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of organizations get stuck in those in those optimization cycles that are quite myopic.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you're solving like the innovation could be actually solving for the business problem in that case.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it should be doing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of the media metric that's like blinking flashing red at you.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: What were some of the other things that you really like takeaways that you got from that V from the conversation?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call it fear.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Four letters.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fear.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Innovation enters the unknown, you know, and while organizations are designed toward certainty, think about this.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we talked about it with Fiona, but you also cited some great examples from Roger Martin, um, Eddie Obang, etc.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Innovation, genuine innovation is uncharted territory.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And usually that creates the sense of fear for companies really to create the conditions for you to really kind of you know build, build that, uh, build that muscle, which again, it's hard for me to look at it and say, you know, you can have these innovation teams, they're usually not really part of a core team, so they work outside.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy for the business to look at them as they're supposed to build these uh these ideas and these uh infrastructures for genuine growth, but you're not funding them because they're not convincing you.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're innately there's fear involved because it's something that we've never done before.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you ever talked about like finding evidence and uh along the way to help with that, but at the end of the day, I just think like many organizations don't go down this path of genuine innovation because there's fear.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think the the incremental innovation.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: I remember from our course that we did, like the NBA course a long time ago.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um that seems like forever go, man.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't feel like forever.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: Holy shit.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Remember when we had to like wait for two weeks before anybody could come into our house?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a flashback.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh anyway, so yeah, the course that's a lot of things.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm so smart now, though.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about it, but I'm so smart.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So smart.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Smart.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: SMRT smart.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um the yeah, incremental innovation is is from what I can recall, like it is the vast majority of the kinds of innovation that happen.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Meaning people are iterating and slightly improving something that already exists.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times it's kind of like sequels and movies.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like people do them because they're low risk.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, they already made a whole lot of money.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's why there's 14,000 Avengers now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I think so.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: That formula you take something that is what working now and make it better is is fearless.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: But going for something like a breakthrough or disruption is chock full of fear.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's there's no guarantee, there's no certainty, there's there's none of that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like the process is relatively new for a lot of people.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like birthing something into the world um that didn't exist before, like, that's a hard thing to do because you don't it like she said, you don't have proof that it's gonna work, but you need to find evidence for it.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and let's not forget, like, fear creates that overanalysis, that premature rejection, and and and essentially that crimin incrementalized incrementalism, whereas uh it's very easy to poke holes into a a new um a new idea.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's that idea around like so the part of the six eyes was she mentioned it's like a form of design thinking, which is probably pretty common, commonly understood by a lot of people.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: So um I think one of the things that's great about it is that idea of rather than saying should this we should do this, we should do that, it should be like this, it should be like that.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if we think about like the well, what would have to be true kind of comments or or questions or like how might we, like it opens up this idea of of uncertainty, but also like uh it's okay to explore the the options that are out here.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I agree with that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I did want to spend just a quick minute.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you talked about the six eyes, so just just quickly for everyone listening, they were, you know, identify insights, inspiration, ideation, iteration, and implementation.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the way that Fiona spoke about it, is you almost have to think about innovation as a system and it's not a brainstorm.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: But she also added something that's really interesting.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is she said that they're all multipliers, it's not adding that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that framing because it's like you can I you can't really skip one of these steps because if you're to skip a step, then you get a zero.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then if you multiply anything by zero, it's a zero.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like you have to think about you have to identify and then you multiply the insights against it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then you um, you know, um you multiply the inspiration against that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that creates the system for genuine innovation, which I thought was a really great way of framing that.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you shouldn't skip any of these steps.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't do five of the six, or you don't do two of the six.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you do them all because they actually help multiply your effectiveness over time.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's really good.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's it's so easy for us to skip over stuff because partially because of the time constraints.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: We want things done quicker, faster, bigger, stronger, all that kind of stuff.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And like the shortcut is is obvious to just go, well, I already know this.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's just skip this.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: But it's the I think the process of going through it, you maybe you speed up some things, but the process of of following the path um brings you to somewhere specific.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she did mention that there's a seventh eye that they're playing with uh intuition, uh, which I don't see it as a separate part of the system.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think like intuition can fall into the six eyes, really, like intuition and identifying, uh intuition and using and understanding the insights, using your intuition for the inspiration.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think it it permeates everything there instead of it being a separate uh separate um I don't know.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, box.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Intuition, and I want to kind of get your take on this too.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what I I do think there's a lot of similarities between innovation and marketing.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like our um opening for the sleeping barber is um the best insights on innovation strategy and marketing.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: So we've we've kind of always had innovation in in our like ethos, so to speak.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: But the when I started thinking about it, I feel like there's a fair bit of like even the in marketing, there's so much overlap between marketing and innovation.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: In that marketing is bringing an idea to market, it's part of the implementation phase.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and things like um an insight, you know, or human truth, like the big idea, those kinds of things are kind of rooted in the same process of uh as you would would have for building an innovation.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I don't I want to just get your take on that.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think about the similarities or overlap between marketing and innovation?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Technically, I would argue that marketing is or should be innovation in the context of, and let me try to explain this.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: If we if we agree that marketing is a is a discipline that helps uh create value to an organization, I would argue that's similar to the way that we define innovation, which we said early on in this in this postpod, where innovation only becomes innovation when it creates value for an organization or once you implement it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they're both creating value.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing also has this other lens where it's like trying to find and uncover something new constantly.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now it could be a new medium, it could be a new creative journey.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Think about now the evolution of creators and how they've become part of our of our like media buys right now.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: That is innovating because it is at the end of the day creating value.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think innovation and marketing actually go hand in hand.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if there is a group that should be closest to a lot of these conversations on innovation, it should be marketing because I think we've naturally built muscles to constantly look at other options and other ideas as we continue to uh fine-tune you know, whatever we're we're working on in that moment.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's a direct correlation between the two.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like we're always in marketing, always looking at whether we know it or not, future customers who are not current customers, which is part of like the thing with innovation of like how do we get more of them?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the certainty part is weirdly enough, the performance marketing part where you go, oh, we you know, we just sell to our existing customers and things are gonna be fine.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: As life feels really good, expand the customer base.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, there's so much there around the future side of the of the business.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where do new customers come from that I think is so related to and intertwined with all the same steps of the marketing or of the innovation process.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and like even the technology.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like, think about Martech in isolation.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, like I'm I'm the first one that's gonna poo-poo on Martech and it's overstating what it does, et cetera.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But there is just some genuine technology out there that can really help organizations.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing is the one that's closest to some of those things, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again, uh there's so much in our jobs today that do require um a different level of of thinking, if you will.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I do believe that we're we're one in the same.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: I I I don't disagree with you at all, V.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's I think you're probably right there.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'll take it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'll take that one.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Any other um elements from from the conversation that you think are exploring?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the last one is uh I guess if I were had to put a header around it, it'd be protected time for innovation.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, innovation doesn't happen between back-to-back meetings.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: You need to make sure that you're creating a system or uh the space for these meetings with about to say an innovation track that actually give you the space to think.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because focused teams outperform merely quote unquote busy teams that are just like in back-to-back meetings.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I think just making sure that you find a way to protect the time in your calendars, um, it does become like a business object that, guys, we we need to really figure this out so people can protect their calendars in a way that allows them to be fully present in those uh in those meetings.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it sometimes that's understated.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the time part is interesting.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's a study as you're saying that I can't remember where I saw it now, but totally blanking on the source, but it was showing how people are using AI or where the expectations are from executives, I think more specifically.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so their expectations were that it would help improve efficiency.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um the options were improve efficiency, drive growth, or a combination of both.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Both was the most, but it between those two other options, improve efficiency was the expectation for most.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Had a bigger share of expectations than the drive and growth part.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when Fiona was talking and thinking about the time part, I'm like, yeah, you know, like we have this tool that is relatively new.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: It can do so much AI.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how are we and she was really excited about AI as a part of an innovation process and partner, which I think is great.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like we can do so much more, so much faster, but we're like often driven to just doing the same things quicker.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you brought this up, yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where's the time to explore not just incremental innovation, but like blockbuster?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Where's the time to explore the disruptive stuff?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: The stuff that could be a game changer.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um as opposed to just like do what you're doing, but more of it and faster.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and she also framed that AI is a great input, but it's not the ultimate output.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, and while like AI dramatically, you know, reduces that friction between you know something in someone's head, being able to show it to somebody, et cetera, think about websites, apps, services, anything like that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's but generating more possibilities increases the importance of discernment, knowing which possibilities are commercially viable.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I think where the intuition comes in.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So AI can serve as that accelerator, but you have to be careful on and really apply that critical lens or that intuition lens against it because it could convince you to go in a direction that maybe doesn't make sense.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great call.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um Fiona, thank you so much for joining us.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: This was a great conversation.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: We uh yeah, both of us both of us really appreciate so good so much thought you put into this, and the book is awesome.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's really great.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really well written.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And to all our listeners, thanks for keeping us in your ears.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Stay sharp, everyone.