Latest / The Innovation Show / Bruce Vojak — Navigating the Politics of Breakthrough Innovation (Part 2 of 3)

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Bruce Vojak — Navigating the Politics of Breakthrough Innovation (Part 2 of 3) · The Innovation Show

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for most existing companies, over 90% of the organization's resources,
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people, energy, and management attention are focused on producing, delivering,
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and improving today's products.
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This chapter and today's episode reviews some of the political challenges
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associated with getting breakthrough innovations that move the firm into new
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white space accepted for development and describes how serial innovators influence
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their organization to move these types of innovations into the development pipeline.
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Breakthrough innovations compete with current product lines for
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resources and attention, making them politically difficult to undertake.
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Our guest today calls it the Galileo scenario.
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The serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else, but
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sees something totally different
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. It's a joy to go deep diving into this book.
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We were supposed to be actually on his new book, but we're still on this first
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book because there's so much into it.
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It's the book, Serial Innovators, and the author, once again,
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is with us, Bruce Vojak.
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Welcome back to the show.
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It's, all my pleasure, truly.
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It's great to have you back, man.
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I'm loving this book.
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As you know, I keep sending Bruce notes and little cartoons and loads of little
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ideas that I come across the whole time.
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This chapter is probably one of the biggest strains and difficulties in
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being an innovator in a big corporation because initially, if you're naive,
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you think it's about ideas, you think the idea is strong enough, you think
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there's an onus on the organization to accept your ideas, and you pretty soon
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learn that it's not the case at all.
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This is like entering into the maze full of minotaurs and medusas, snakes
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in the grass, snakes in the trees.
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It's a very difficult act, and we're gonna go deep dive into this.
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Maybe you'll give us a bit of context to this chapter because you've
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experienced it yourself, Bruce.
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We all have.
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Anybody who has a good idea, it's very difficult to get it through to production.
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it really is.
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And there's a story that I wanted to tell at some point today, but I
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think I'm gonna start with it, 'cause I think it'll illustrate of it.
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And this goes back to one of the innovators that we interviewed
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in the process of conducting the research, Nancy Dawes.
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She was at Procter & Gamble her entire career, chemical engineer by education.
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She had worked on things like chocolate chip cookies and Pringles potato chips, at
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one point was assigned to work on the Olay product and was really responsible for
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taking Olay from a really a dying brand to a billion-dollar brand for the company.
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But the story I want to tell about her, and I could come at this multiple
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ways, but, she had come to campus a number of years ago to give a talk.
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Ray Price had invited her and she was visiting us.
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And so she and I just had lunch and we were talking, and at that
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time was beginning to explore how innovators know what to do.
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And this is a whole separate discussion we may have someday.
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Because I've really been curious about how the best innovators
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know what direction to head in.
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And so I asked her over lunch, I said Nancy, tell me how did you know what to
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do?" she's looking down, she's eating, and she says, " I see dead people." Okay?
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Now, I had not seen the movie "The Sixth Sense," and I'm like who
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is this woman?" I knew her, but I thought where is this coming from?"
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And, she went on to explain and she said
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I see patterns that other people don't see." And it's not to make
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this mysterious or too far out there in any way but she saw patterns.
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It's like being able to forecast the weather or anything else.
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She sees trends and patterns other people j-just don't see or, she sees
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them sooner than other people do.
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she said at first, early in her career
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she didn't realize that.
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And then there was a point at which she began to realize, "No, wait, I'm seeing
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things. this is real. I'm, not just seeing things differently, I'm seeing
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things differently that are good things to see." And then she realized that the onus
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was on her help people understand that and to help people see those patterns.
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And so what started out as a simple question and a quick answer, I'm gonna
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tell you, we probably talked for 15 or 20 minutes about how she progressed
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in her career of not realizing that to realizing it, and then what the,
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in the best sense, what her burden was to carry in the organization.
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And we had different stories from different people throughout the research,
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but that one to me just encapsulates
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a reflection of what this looks like.
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And it's powerful because this is-- This, discussion of navigating the
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organization, navigating the politics of the organization is what truly sets
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apart an inventor from an innovator There are other things, but in particular,
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it's not just creating an idea, it's helping move the organization forward.
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Bruce, we're gonna go through a diagram that you thought was in the book.
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There's parts of it in the book, by the way, but we have a diagram.
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We're gonna go through that.
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But I'd love us to, to build up towards it, because there's a lot
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of context that jumping to the diagram too early, we'll lose.
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And I, am, I'll l- fill in some little pieces and dots that have connected
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across previous episodes as well.
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One of them was talking to Chuck House, who's featured in the book.
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Chuck House, we did a four-part series with Chuck about the the Permission
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Denied book, the odyssey of being an intrapreneur inside an organization.
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But one of the things that I was saying to Chuck, and I've come to realize
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myself, was exactly to your point and to Nancy's point, that thing about seeing
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things differently means that when you get frustrated in an organization and
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you're talking to them, you're kinda going, "W- like, why can't they see it?
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They're dinosaurs, they're idiots," this kind of thing that we, all
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go through as a... And you grow out of that pretty quickly.
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If you don't grow out of it you're, pretty much screwed.
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But you grow out of it, and you realize actually they just don't have the lenses.
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And oftentimes what I find with many innovators, and for people listening
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to this show, is you will take time to listen to an episode like this.
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You will take time to listen all the way through.
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So many people write into the show and go, "I listen over and over
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to the same episodes because I get something different every time." I know
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that now, and actually, the library behind me, in the early days, I don't
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think I would've been able to read your book as well as I can today.
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It's like I've graduated.
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I've earned the lenses.
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And when you talk to most people inside organizations, and why I opened up
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with that little quote is, they're so focused on exploiting the current
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advantage, or they're measured on it, or they're recognized on it, that why
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would they ever deviate from that path?
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And why would they go to conferences?
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Why would they read books?
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Why would they l- read periodicals about, or talk to customers except to
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see if they're happy with their current
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products?
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And actually, in there is the problem
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I'm just sitting here cheering you on as I'm hearing you talk about
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this and ... And it reminds me too of something we spoke about last week.
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And I don't mean to overly keep-- I don't mean to bring him up too often,
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but Iain McGilchrist the, two sides of the brain the, master and the emissary.
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And that's going on here a lot.
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I think the people who in particular are very process-oriented, and
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I don't wanna criticize that, it's a very important role.
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I'm not saying you should eliminate that, but the ones who are so process-oriented
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very often just can't, even begin to imagine what this other view is.
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and then how do you navigate that?
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And it's, it is just not easy sometimes.
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one of the first things, when I work with an organization, I do a workshop
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and they're quite surprised because the first thing is getting them on the
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same page and exposing the gaps in what they think they're talking about the
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same thing, and they're totally talking about something totally different.
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And it's a real realization where they're going, "Ah." And you talk about the
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concept of coherence, and essentially that's what you're trying to create,
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some type of alignment or coherence.
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This is a term that you adopt in the book and you bring to life a little bit.
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Maybe we'll explain that.
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There's, And I'll take a s- a little bit of a step back.
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There is a need to have what I'll say different types of
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coherence in an organization.
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And, these in hindsight may seem pretty obvious, but I,
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like being explicit about it.
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There's a need for strategic coherence and tactical coherence.
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And strategic coherence to me means, are we gonna even invest in innovation?
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And tactical coherence is, will we invest in this particular innovation concept?
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And really it's the first question to ask is, your company even strategically
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open to considering these things?
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Because if it's not, you're really pushing a boulder up a hill.
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If it is, at least if it says it is, then it's more, how do I get
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my idea through the organization and run the gauntlet, if you will?
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And what, again, what we'll talk about today is in this idea of navigating
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the politics of innovation, how do you run that tactical gauntlet?
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How do you help people understand, and how do you bring the organization along?
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gonna quickly add, too before we get too far into this, and this
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goes back to being on the same page.
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I don't wanna say we get pushback, but some people when they hear
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the word politics, they tense up and it sounds very self-serving.
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And our intent when we talked about the politics of the organization,
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really are talking about how do you get that coherence, how do you
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get that alignment, and how do you bring people along, if you will.
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It's not meant to be a self-serving form of politics, which can
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often be understood that way.
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It's really a a servant view of it, if you will
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that certainly comes across in the people you've interviewed as well.
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I thought I'd maybe explain this as well, because I think when you get this
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next, this is a paragraph from the book, when you get this concept, you realize
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that it's not stupidity, it's actually expertise that sometimes gets in the way.
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So you write in the book, "Breakthrough innovations may be politically difficult
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for the firm to accept because they raise questions about strategy in general.
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What is the product strategy in the short term, in the long term?
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How does the proposed breakthrough innovation fit into the current strategy?
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Does it change the strategy?
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And if so, is this new direction one in which the firm should move?
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And answering those questions often challenges senior executives and
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requires significant discussion, debate, and political maneuvering across the
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organizations." So that's an important thing, and I was telling you off
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air before we started, I've written an accompanying article for today's
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episode called The QWERTY Conundrum.
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And the whole idea is that th- the keyboard most people have in front of
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them was developed for a typewriter, and it was developed to slow people
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down so they wouldn't get carpal tunnel syndrome, and also the keys wouldn't jam.
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So it's actually inefficient.
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But then comes along the Dvorak keyboard, this new keyboard that was
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designed to actually be more efficient, 30% more typing speed, et cetera.
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And if you think about, we still have QWERTY keyboards.
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We've progressed to keyboards.
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We've progressed then to another paradigm, which is a phone, and we still have QWERTY
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keyboards, and it's everybody's designed around that system of that's how you
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write and how you go about your writing.
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And to actually have to retrain and untrain and unlearn is a huge expense,
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a switching cost for people, and I use that as this kind of way that's
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what happens in outside organizations.
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They're very good at what they do, and along comes the serial innovator,
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like Tom Osborne, and goes, "Yeah, I know we just launched that product a
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month ago, but we could do a b- much better job." And everybody's "Shut up,
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we're making progress." And I love it that, 'cause that, I think when you
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get that, you go, "Oh, now I get it.
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Now I know the task is at... What's ahead of me, and I know how difficult
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this political maze is gonna be.
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I often talk about it as being both an option for future growth, which
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I think a lot of us understand, but also an insurance policy.
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And You think of Tom's story where he had this Really a, reconsideration
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or rethinking of what a feminine hygiene product should be.
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If they didn't do that and one of their major competitors did
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that it's an insurance policy.
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to-- You know, so it's not only growth, it's keeping from
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getting knocked off the pedestal.
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and it's both.
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And that's also why, again, I think in any size company, a small investment
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is often sufficient to at least get these questions on the table, they
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really are strategic questions, and you need people who are able and willing
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to put these questions on the table.
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And it's not an easy thing to do.
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I think it's important, and you do call this out.
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You say, "Serial innovators start to distinguish themselves from typical
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inventors when they realize that in order to develop breakthrough innovations,
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they must learn how to manage the political processes of the firm.
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Politics,
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this is what you're talking about, "loses its negative connotation as they come
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to value it as a necessary mechanism for accomplishing what they want to get done."
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That, that's a very key point, and something that- many innovators or many
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people who take the head of innovation role don't know going into the role.
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But it's a huge choice because it means that it's not as easy.
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It's not beanbags and foosball tables and Post-it Notes.
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It is a much different role, and many serial innovators or many wanna be serial
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innovators don't know that, go into the role and feel like they've failed.
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But it's one of the reasons I, like I didn't know that before I went
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into a big organization very, toxic organization, and you can feel totally
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like you're drowning, and I think it's really important to call this aspect out
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I may have mentioned this last-- in the last session, but there's two
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quick concepts that I like to repeat when I think about things like this.
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One is, it was a question that we heard from one of the people we interviewed.
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When they hire people, they want people who wanna do the work that
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innovators do, not be an innovator.
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And to me, it applies in a lot of places but the politics in
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particular is just so critical that you have to be able to do that.
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And and I think it's a challenge.
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It's really, it's a filter for so many people.
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I, don't wanna say it's one in 10 or two in 10 that do this, it's not everybody.
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In a, large organization, it's still, I think, easy to hide at times.
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And people can have long careers You know, doing, I don't want to say inconsequential
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work, but doing consequential work but not have the same level of
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impact if they hadn't taken it on.
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The other thing I'll say, and again, I may have mentioned this last time,
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is that most of the people that we interviewed, and it was by default from
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the sample that we worked with, had at least an engineering undergraduate degree.
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In fact, a large number of them did.
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Most, most did not have graduate degrees, and just by chance,
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it wasn't planned that way.
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But they also mostly had engineering personalities, and as I think I may
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have mentioned, that you can tell an engineer's an extrovert because they're
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looking at your shoes, not their own.
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and so this is painful for a lot of the people that we interviewed
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because it's just not part of their personality to do this.
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And then this goes back to what you were talking about earlier.
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If the organization is is open to dealing with data and facts, it
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actually makes it a little bit easier for some engineers to navigate that
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because, okay, I'm used to getting data.
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I'm used to collecting facts.
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I'm used to saying, "Here's the data. The data speaks for itself." And that
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makes it-- I, don't want to say it's easy, but it makes it easier to raise
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these things if the organization has that virtue of really, dealing with
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reality rather than preferences,
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. And we'll come back to some of that because you do talk about that later
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in the book and tactics to share data as well and to get the, get the data
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into the company, not through you 'cause they might not listen to you.
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But one of the places I thought we'd start is this is, and this is so true.
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I've seen this time and time again when I work with heads of innovation.
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You say, and this is talking about early career actions that build trust
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and networks through competence.
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So you say in the book, "Innovators emerge sometime between 5 and 15 years into their
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career, depending on the organization's culture, structure, and size." And often
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they have an early win, and the early win gives them credibility or trust,
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and then they build on that later on.
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early wins.
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I actually had this email exchange with someone on a
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totally different area recently.
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Being reliable in the sense that they say what they're gonna do, and they do what
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they say, and I don't want to get on a soapbox, but that's not always common.
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And so people begin to just naturally trust them.
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They're open about things.
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They're honest about these things.
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they show some level of I used this word earlier, empathy.
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But they're people that,
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This is probably the negative, stating in the negative.
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They're people that not only you don't have to fear, but that you turn to
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because they are so reliable and they are dealing with facts and reality.
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And I, I-- again, I think sometimes it makes it easier if you are, again, an
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engineer in a company that is at least
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maybe not a, high tech company, but at least technically inclined companies
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that ba- are based on technologies to navigate those organizations.
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I think it can be more difficult if it's strictly marketing or
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strictly something where it's not as, as crisp of an understanding
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of what performance looks like.
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I was thinking about this, idea of trust is really important, and it made me think
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of Joe Bower's work, so the whole idea of the resource allocation process, and
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he talked about that it wasn't an idea m- meritocracy inside organizations.
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It was basically middle managers who decided on where
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the budget would be spent.
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So if they trusted you and you had a win for them before, you made them look good.
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So the idea comes along and goes, "Whose idea is it?" And they go,
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"It's Vojak in sector 7G." And you go, "Ah, Vojak, yeah, he's good.
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He's good for it.
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Give him the money." And I thought about that so much for this part of the
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project, and you can be very unlucky 'cause you could try the project,
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and the conditions were wrong that...
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and it failed 'cause of that, not 'cause of you.
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Yeah, and, oh and again, we didn't sample on this, but anecdotally,
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I've known people in organizations that become bitter because of
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these things and you know what?
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gotta tell ya
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I understand it.
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I understand how that can happen, and through no fault of them- themselves.
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It's just the way things play out.
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And then know, how how do they use what skills and, capabilities they have to
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still move the organization forward?
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It's it can be difficult for some people.
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Naive view of how things get done in the organization
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Where
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again, I'm-- I think I'm probably overstating the engineering side,
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but I think it, it's important here to use this as an illustration.
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Being an engineer by training and I say by personality you're taught...
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What are you taught in school?
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You're taught to solve pro- You're given a problem.
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That's the first challenge.
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You're given a problem, and you solve it.
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And over the course of roughly four years, you get really good at solving
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problems that are given to you.
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once you solve that problem, you're done.
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It gets graded, and that's the end of it.
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And so you go into the workforce, and what do you think?
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I'm given a problem.
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Let's go back to the hourglass even for a minute.
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I'm given a problem, I solve the problem, I get a grade, and
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let's go on to the next one.
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And so you have this view very often, it's almost ingrained or trained into
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you to say, "I've done my technical work.
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I've solved this problem that you've given me.
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I've given you an answer.
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Okay, management, ball's in your court.
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I'm done.
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I've fulfilled my obligation to the organization." It's it's not only
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your responsibility to recognize this is a good idea, it's your
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responsibility to carry it forward.
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And and I get that because again we're, taught, if you
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will, almost to be this way.
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At least conditioned to be this way.
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And
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so, even when people are developing this, trust in their network, they're
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often still not getting to the point where they're, assuming that level
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of-- that next level of responsibility.
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And taking that next step significant.
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I don't know, I don't know how else to say it.
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It's, significant, and it's really one of the, one of the big distinguishers.
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If you-- you can be the, you can be the person who's most curious, most insightful
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most visionary, but until you take that ownership and responsibility.
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And so we at the time used this phrase and it's, stuck, and I think
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it, it's a pretty good metaphor.
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They cross the bridge and they take responsibility.
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They take ownership.
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One guy that we interviewed, it was a marvelous story, and I
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think I'm gonna get this right.
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mother was a pIaino teacher and his father was a car salesman.
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And and this guy was just really good.
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And he just-- I think he must have picked this up just being in the
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household that he was in, learned how to advocate for things very comfortably.
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There's nothing false about it, nothing inappropriate.
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And what a marvelous set of backgrounds that, that led him to be able to say,
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"Yeah, okay, I gotta sell these ideas." not everybody was like that, that
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it w- that it came so comfortably.
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But when you see that and you see the people take that responsibility,
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it's a beautiful thing.
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And it's, a filter.
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I don't know how else to say it.
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It's a filter.
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And I'm gonna quickly add here two two, two stories.
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One two short stories.
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One is
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Ray and I were visiting a company and we were talking to, I think
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it was VP level, at least a VP level, if not a more senior VP.
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And he was expressing this frustration that he couldn't get people to,
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to be motivated to do things.
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And we're realizing, it this is go-- tying back to even this MP5 model, if
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people aren't motivated to do these things on their own, it's really
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hard to get them to cross the bridge.
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Yeah, the mo- the motivation actually is huge, and again I'm
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so interested about how people are formed inside an organization.
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I actually think one of the reasons I'm a little bit, a bit of a weirdo
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is because I had a career in sport first, and I actually came to the
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working world quite late, as in I was 31, 32, and I had the resilience that
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sports gives you, and also maturity.
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So if you come inside an organization, I was thinking about this, you come to
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an organization, my first experience, I'm sending ideas to the lead- to,
25:36
not leadership team, but to, to where I think the ideas should go.
25:40
Don't even get a response.
25:42
Don't even get an email back, right?
25:44
So I'm the type of character who are like, "How rude is that?"
25:48
And I'll push back, and I'll try and find a way, and I'll keep going.
25:52
But this is how most... If you think of somebody who's onboarded as a junior,
25:57
they're learned that's the way things are around here." And then you learn,
26:02
and these are the three things you call out, that invention is sufficient.
26:05
That's number one.
26:06
Yeah.
26:06
Number two, managers have the responsibility to recognize the value of
26:10
the invention and to see that it is used effectively inside the organization, two.
26:15
Three, if an invention is sufficient for acceptance and the next steps are
26:19
the responsibility of the manager, it's reasonable to in- to conclude
26:23
that nothing more is expected of the technologist or the ideat- or the person
26:27
who comes up with the ideas, and all responsibility for development and
26:31
commercialization passes to someone else.
26:33
And when you go through those steps as a junior person or a, you're hired
26:39
into an organization, you then get formed that way, and you go that's
26:43
the way we do things around here.
26:45
I don't do ideas, I do execution." And you can see how an organization creates
26:49
a culture by that. But the weirdos, the people who see the world differently,
26:55
people who see dead people, go, "Actually, it's all on me to do this.
27:02
If I actually want to go and push these things through, I'm gonna have to find
27:06
a way to-" Position the idea find a co- a coalition, find air cover, find
27:15
customers who actually want this, and it's that. So it's a very unique type
27:21
of person that survives that onboarding. And like you say, the pIaino the son
27:29
of the pIaino teacher and the used car salesman I, was picturing them there
27:34
"Okay, I've bought five cars off my dad.
27:36
I'm gonna advocate for myself." I've used up all my pocket money.
27:41
I gotta do something about this.
27:43
I, and y- it's, true.
27:46
S- something different in your upbringing or your education or your enfant terrible,
27:52
you're the unhappy child the, kid who just is asking questions in school and
27:58
being told to shut up by the teacher.
27:59
It, there's something in there that creates you to be this type of person.
28:03
I think there is.
28:04
And this-- we could spend an hour just talking about is it nature or
28:07
nurture, and I think some of these
28:11
Bruce,
28:15
as you spoke.
28:15
One is, if we go back to the chart, the stage gate chart that we talked about
28:19
last week, where there was inventor, champion, and implementer, and then
28:23
the serial innovators crossed those.
28:25
This is clearly illustrating the inventor versus champion roles and also
28:31
to a certain extent, the implementer.
28:32
And and we do operate in silos functionally, organizationally.
28:39
They're, designed that way.
28:42
you're right, I think it, it imposes on people something that is never
28:46
really discussed, but it's the reality of the organizational structure.
28:51
yet and, this is one of the recurring minor themes that I like to raise, is that
28:56
people who are serial innovators, they're doing innovation the way it would've been
29:01
done before any of our books were written.
29:06
They just say, "There's a problem.
29:08
Ah, I'm gonna really-- I'm gonna obsess about it.
29:12
I think I'm seeing something.
29:13
I'm gonna pursue it.
29:15
I'm gonna try to make it happen." And to me it's refreshing.
29:19
It's almost liberating to say all these books are right, 'cause
29:22
they are describing pieces of it.
29:25
at the end of the day, it's a very people view of how things work.
29:30
And you got people who are motivated to do this.
29:32
And I I don't wanna sound corny, but I think it's beautiful 'cause th-th--
29:38
'cause th-these people just emerge in places and times that can be so impactful
29:44
for an organization, for everybody.
29:48
I was thinking about what you were saying crossing the bridge, and I had
29:51
created a cartoon of a bridge, and it was full of, like, ogres and, like,
29:57
trolls and stuff that you had to get past
29:59
than I would've thought, but I like this.
30:01
But here's one of the ogres y- you quickly discover.
30:04
So I often think of this one, I call it the Disneyland queue problem.
30:09
So anyone who's been to Disneyland, you think you're at the top of the queue,
30:12
and then it turns around a corner.
30:14
You're like going, "Oh my God, we're only at the first corner here." And one
30:19
of the, one of the things that happens as a serial innovator is you talk about
30:24
this one serial innovator who described a conversation with his manager in which
30:28
the manager said, "You have me convinced.
30:31
Now you need to help me convince the larger set of other people."
30:35
And for virtually all breakthrough innovations, gaining acceptance
30:38
for the project is a matter of convincing many people, not just one.
30:43
And sometimes you think you're there and you think, "Yes, got it over the
30:46
line." And next thing you go, no, there's another 10 people you have to get in here.
30:51
And, it's those little...
30:53
Y- you have to go through to understand how, gut-wrenching
30:57
that is when that happens.
30:58
But calling it out makes you at least be able to plan for
31:02
it when it comes down the line.
31:03
by it.
31:04
And in fact, all those 10 other people, they probably have 20 different
31:07
triggers th-that you need to address.
31:10
Two for each.
31:12
And so it's customizing in many cases, especially for the more important
31:16
ones, the ones managing resources.
31:18
It's a wonder that these things even happen sometimes.
31:22
And it's not surprising when they don't.
31:24
As we said earlier on, sometimes these ideas, they just
31:27
escape from the organization.
31:29
Or el- or else, I'm sure you've seen it, I just go, "You know what?
31:33
I've had enough.
31:33
I'm gonna do it myself.
31:34
I'm gonna get funding.
31:35
I'm gonna build this idea, and I'm gonna be a competitor." We've
31:38
seen that time and time again.
31:40
But I ta- I, mentioned there the idea of snakes and ladders.
31:43
Some of the ladders I thought we'd talk about.
31:46
The, first one, so these are the ones that are accelerate you.
31:48
These are like when you're in Super Mario Kart and you get that
31:52
coin that makes you go extra fast.
31:55
So the first one is engaging people, so to get participation and buy-in.
32:01
And I'll tee you up here.
32:02
You say, "Serial innovators are asking colleagues for favors with only their
32:06
trust and goodwill as their currency, as well as their contagious excitement
32:11
about the idea, these are their bargaining tools. Allies are created
32:14
one at a time by making direct requests and selling the potential for the
32:19
project." That's, a difficult thing as well, and something this many serial
32:25
innovators do naturally very, very well.
32:27
But it's a slow process.
32:29
And again, you think you're g- you're been hired as a head of
32:32
innovation, you're gonna be out
32:34
heard of, out of the blocks and start creating ideas, but it's this slow
32:38
step-by-step process that you go through.
32:44
children's book called "Stone Soup"?
32:46
Yes.
32:46
Yeah, exactly
32:48
The-- What do they come to the, what do they come to the party with?
32:50
They got three stones and a big bucket and a pot of, or a pot of water and a fire.
32:56
They get people involved.
32:58
And the best ones engage that way.
33:01
The other thing that, that in my anticipating our conversation today,
33:07
I wanted to point out, because I think this is a good place to do it, is that
33:10
in engaging others, and I don't think we call it out explicitly in the book,
33:15
the innovator themselves may not be hired as the director of innovation.
33:20
We're really talking about people in that organization for the most part.
33:25
They, attract these other people to the project.
33:29
And this really calls into question, how do you structure a, an innovation project?
33:34
And there is this tendency on executive management's part at
33:38
times, not everybody, but a lot of them, form-- to pre-form teams.
33:43
gonna put again, I don't know enough about rugby, but I actually had a
33:46
boss who was a Welsh rugby player, a amateur player, so I heard a bit.
33:52
But you have certain positions and so you, if you will, recruit those positions.
33:57
But that always the best way to form a team when you don't even
34:03
know exactly what you're doing?
34:05
And so these-- the people that emerge as innovators, they would bring
34:09
people on to the project, if you will.
34:12
And I say bring them on, that sounds too formal.
34:15
it doesn't really accurately describe it.
34:17
They'd get people engaged as they needed to be engaged.
34:20
Tom Osborne's story, he wanted to make, I don't know if it was a sample of 50
34:24
or, 100 of these products to test them.
34:27
needed to get somebody in the lab to do him a favor.
34:31
And the two of them worked side by side building some of these, samples by hand.
34:37
it wasn't that anybody assigned that person.
34:39
In fact, he was doing it under the radar at the time.
34:44
It's a different view of organizational structure versus what I'll say almost
34:52
inside out or an emergent behavior.
34:56
And and the pattern man I gotta be careful saying this.
35:02
Someday, like a year from now after we've talked about this, I'll want to hear
35:06
from you to say, how many times have you heard stories where the pre-formed
35:10
innovation team created the breakthrough?
35:14
And it and I f- I almost feel bad saying this 'cause I don't
35:16
have, I don't have data for it.
35:19
But I'll tell you, every story we heard, it was not a pre-formed team.
35:26
And, I know of a lot of pre-formed teams, and I know a lot of people who
35:31
are, hired for innovation director and I don't wanna knock those.
35:37
But, you've gotta ask yourself, are you looking for the people who can
35:40
make this happen, or are you gonna take ownership of that yourself?
35:44
And if you're gonna take ownership, you have to get it right.
35:49
And I don't know if this is gonna sound heretical or if you're seeing
35:52
these patterns too, but again, a year from now, I'd like to hear from you
35:55
to see if this is what you see too.
35:58
now if you want.
35:58
There's a, a brillIaint quote by Clayton Christensen, it's like, "Almost always
36:03
disruptive innovations," I'm, I'm
36:05
paraphrasing now, "come- don't come from a single department or silo. They
36:11
come from a mix of those departments or silos, or people that have never met
36:15
before." And it's the neurodiversity.
36:19
B- and also, we talked about coherence as in energy coherence before.
36:23
I genuinely, think it's an energy connection.
36:26
It's people who want to do things who are at the same kind of level of, energy.
36:33
They emit the same energy.
36:35
They, see the same things.
36:37
They're on the same page.
36:38
And that's very difficult when you're in the same team to
36:42
to do those kind of things.
36:44
But one of the things I just wanted to call out on that is you say
36:49
sometimes you get assigned a team.
36:51
So I've seen this before.
36:54
You get given people.
36:55
Chuck talked about this.
36:56
He ended up getting And they weren't, great people.
37:01
D- they were dregs people, didn't want, people who had bad attitudes.
37:07
And you talked about Frank, the heavy commitment heavy
37:10
equipment serial innovator.
37:11
We didn't talk about him.
37:12
Maybe you'll give a better context on him.
37:15
But he, got his team to make a quilt.
37:19
And he was assigned a team by management rather than hand selecting
37:21
them and, you call out y- this.
37:23
You say this can be difficult because in his case, it was even worse 'cause
37:27
it was a government body, and they weren't accustomed to doing hard work.
37:32
Yeah.
37:32
Yeah.
37:32
Yeah, and and there, this goes back to motivation.
37:35
'cause usually when you're recruiting people a, lowering of that energy barrier
37:42
yeah, I, I kinda like what you're saying.
37:44
I'm bought into that, and yeah, I'll help you.
37:46
I'll make a few of these.
37:47
I'll test this for you.
37:49
but when you're assigned people-- And that was, again, and I hate to keep using this
37:53
phrase, that was a beautiful story too.
37:55
In fact, I gotta tell you, if we had only interviewed these people and we
37:58
never wrote a book, it would've been a very enjoyable process because you're
38:03
you're, you lift the screen on how these things happen behind the scenes.
38:07
But yeah, in that case, he he had them each create a little part of a quilt.
38:13
They put it together, and they showed how the group operated as
38:16
a whole, and he was looking to get people to be more part of the team.
38:21
I hear people, I trust and respect talk about innovation as a team sport.
38:27
I, often ask them, "What sport is it?"
38:32
Because think about it.
38:33
Different sports, different teams are formed in different ways.
38:36
And in American football, the quarterback or American baseball it's the pitcher
38:41
are, the focus of these teams.
38:43
Other teams, I think, are a bit more fluid and a bit more evenly spread.
38:47
What kind of team is this?
38:48
And is it pre-formed or is it formed if you will, on the fly?
38:53
And 'cause I do not disagree with it being a team sport, but I think
38:57
that metaphor carries with it a lot of, preconceived thinking
39:02
that we should at least understand
39:05
Yeah, and, and the skills needed for depend on the
39:08
project that's in front of you.
39:10
Speaking of which, you talk about positioning the project and that every
39:15
product commercialized needs to fit into the strategic context and goals
39:18
of the organization, and sometimes how the potential breakthrough product
39:23
fits with the rest , of the product lines or the company's existing
39:27
strategy is not always obvious.
39:29
So therefore, a political task for the innovator is to position the
39:33
new breakthrough so that others can understand how it fits in the first place.
39:38
Because if you don't do that, they're gonna get it all, like, "He's just coming
39:42
up with crazy ideas," or, "She's coming up with crazy ideas," and they'll dismiss it.
39:46
I thought this one was really important to call out that first you need to
39:51
know a strategy before you can actually try and fit the other idea to it.
39:55
And then the flip side, which I was telling about Gary Klein's book,
39:59
Gary we had on the show before, is seeing what others don't.
40:03
He talked about, well, sometimes you'll find a brillIaint idea
40:07
and there's no file for it.
40:09
There's no filing cabinet to put that idea because it doesn't fit,
40:12
but it's a brillIaint idea, but it's not what we do around here.
40:15
And that can be frustrating when you stumble upon those genius ideas.
40:20
And as you're describing this, it's re- or you're reminding me of a story Nancy
40:26
Dawes, who I mentioned earlier, shared.
40:29
was working on a project, and she had some just really good insight.
40:35
she brought it forward to her immediate manager, and it really
40:39
didn't fit in terms of timing.
40:43
and this is where I'm not gonna remember exactly if she fully set it aside, put
40:47
the technology on the shelf, or if she continued to work on it a bit quietly.
40:51
Because most of the serial innovators could get their job done in let's say
40:55
some fraction of the time required, and they would use the other time
40:59
learning and developing other things.
41:02
But I don't know if it was six or eight months later, they came back
41:06
to her and said Nancy, remember that and then the timing was right.
41:10
And that's part of positioning too.
41:12
It's again, and I think it also is part of seeing things that other people don't see.
41:18
She knew to anticipate this.
41:20
And I don't wanna say that all these people are superhuman
41:23
because that's not fair to them.
41:25
I don't wanna overly idealize the stories, but the patterns were pretty unescapable
41:30
that that they saw these things.
41:33
And that was part of the deftness of how they navigated it.
41:36
It was-- wasn't just, "I've got an idea, I gotta sell it," and
41:40
they're out hammering people.
41:41
"Okay, we'll work with you."
41:44
I wanna remind our audience here, a great episode we did was w- on the Nokia
41:48
series, which is still ongoing, that series, but it was with Timo Partanen.
41:52
He was the guy, Bruce, who presented to senior management, head of market
41:57
intelligence, the document about the iPhone a year before the iPhone
42:02
graced the stage in California.
42:04
And I, was asking him just the little nuggets of stuff, and he said
42:08
one of them for me, one thing that came to mind was they were giving
42:12
away a music subscription service for free as part of the Nokia deal.
42:17
So you could download... Back then, it was download a physic- like a, software
42:22
MP3, and you could add it to your phone."
42:25
He said, "We had Spotify, but we just didn't have any way to even
42:30
think about Spotify as a service. We could've sold that. We could've
42:33
created it, but..." And I, and this is where this all came together for me.
42:37
If you don't have a lens or a filing cabinet, a mental filing
42:43
cabinet to go, "Oh, that's a subscription service that works.
42:46
That could actually be a product in the future." If you don't have that
42:49
skill set or capability inside an organization, you're missing ideas
42:53
all the time, and I, actually, I call the article Filing the Future Under
42:59
the Past, 'cause you revert to your existing mental filing cabinet and go...
43:03
By default.
43:04
Yeah.
43:05
Almost always.
43:06
Yeah.
43:07
So I just thought that was an i- that, that came to mind as I was reading this
43:12
book, is that- You want a strategic fit, but then you have that Nancy problem
43:16
sometimes that you go, "Yeah, but this is a great idea. The technology mightn't
43:20
exist yet, or we have too much going on at the moment. I need somewhere to store it."
43:25
Yeah . I think,
43:26
As you mentioned, too much going on at the moment.
43:28
I'm gonna quickly add, one of the most challenging questions that I've been asked
43:32
when I-- whenever I've given talks is, "Can you have too many of these people?"
43:37
And and my default is always no you can't.
43:40
And partly it's because so rare that does too many mean you've got two
43:46
instead of three or two, two instead of one or five instead of three?
43:51
I don't know.
43:52
But there probably is a point where you can have too many.
43:57
And and again, it's part of this what's, the organizational appetite for this even?
44:03
I agree you can have too many, 'cause you don't want too many dreamers.
44:06
You get nothing done.
44:08
you can have too Many.
44:10
That's the point.
44:11
If
44:11
Yeah.
44:11
If they're just inv-inventors and they're-- they become the
44:14
curmudgeons in the corner, yeah, you can always have too many of them.
44:18
But the truly, the serial innovators, can you have too many?
44:21
And I, don't know.
44:23
I don't-- I, don't know yet.
44:25
I'm-- That-- I'm still--
44:27
I'm inclined to say no, but it's, I'm thinking of really
44:30
the exemplars at this point
44:31
... And you covered successful
44:33
ones.
44:33
There's so many who didn't make it, the survivorship bias challenge.
44:37
Yeah.
44:38
couple of little tips here that are really useful.
44:40
So you talked about assembling support or creating data to support your
44:46
idea, and one of the things, and then we talked to Chuck House about this.
44:51
One of the things he did was getting customers to accept the idea before the
44:57
idea was accepted by the organization.
44:59
And as you say in the book, one serial innovator said, "The best marketing
45:02
research is a signed purchase order." This is one of those underhanded
45:08
tactics that you have to use sometimes.
45:10
And I've u- I've done this kind of stuff, Bruce, and it, you feel a bit
45:15
duplicitous doing this kind of thing.
45:18
But it's like, collateral damage in the, for the greater good of the organization
45:24
something that doesn't exist, I might have a problem with it.
45:27
But if you're selling something that can exist that really is a
45:31
viable product concept, I think it's marvelous because it's a pull.
45:37
It's, a way to get management attention.
45:40
And I think that question in general about do you have a signed purchase order or
45:44
someone willing to pay for I regularly still use that as a filter when I talk to
45:50
people because there are a lot of ideas out there, but they're not a lot of ideas
45:55
that really stimulate someone to buy.
45:58
I know I fall into this when I evaluate ideas.
46:01
"Oh, it sounds like a great idea." And then I think, "Ah, am I gonna spend the
46:05
time to actually use this if I buy it?
46:08
I don't know." that purchase decision is huge.
46:13
Just to be clear, I don't mean being duplicitous to the customer.
46:16
I mean more
46:17
To the organization.
46:19
yeah, you kinda
46:20
And I didn't take it as you were being dupli-
46:22
duplicitous
46:23
to the customer, more to the organization.
46:25
To the organization you can feel and it's a little bit like, "Man, this
46:31
could get me in trouble." And there's a quote I love by Buckminster Fuller,
46:35
and I, lived by this quote, "All human advances occur in the outlaw area."
46:42
I love that quote, 'cause it speaks to this, 'cause sometimes
46:46
you have to break the rules.
46:47
You're not doing anything, you're not breaking the law, but you have
46:50
to break the rules, and there are times when the potential customer and
46:54
organizational benefits of pushing a project outweigh the personal risks.
47:00
And we saw this again with Chuck.
47:02
Chuck said this, that he never even thought of that.
47:05
He, was so focused on doing what was right for the organization, he never
47:09
thought that he could lose his job.
47:10
And was, as we saw in part one with Tom Osborne, he nearly
47:13
lost his job three times.
47:15
Yeah.
47:16
You mentioned Buckminster Fuller.
47:17
I'm gonna quickly if you will, riff on that for a moment.
47:21
You've heard the trim tab, story?
47:23
I love that,
47:27
And again, I think I'm gonna get this right, but basically my understanding
47:31
of a trim tab is that if you've got like an ocean-going ship, ship,
47:38
it's got a rudder, steer the rudder.
47:41
You steer a little tab at the end of the rudder, and then that moves the
47:46
rudder, and then that moves the ship.
47:48
And so the serial innovators are a bit like that trim tab.
47:52
And, I to me, I love that because it's one person has a small can do a small thing,
48:00
but that can turn a huge ocean liner.
48:03
And in a way it's the power of the people who know how to move
48:07
an organization or move people that can move the organization.
48:11
man.
48:12
That's, going in the blog someday.
48:15
that's another one I've searched, and I don't know if
48:17
I found it on the ocean liner.
48:19
That's the way I heard the story.
48:20
But he-- I know he, he identified as trim tab at times.
48:24
It might even be on his, tombstone, his grave marker.
48:28
"I am
48:29
- trim tab,"
48:30
made me think of the gaffe the scale.
48:32
You're, you wanna tip the s- odds in your favor, actually tip the odds
48:37
in the favor of the organization.
48:38
That's ultimately what you're doing.
48:40
This is the great tragedy of it.
48:41
I found a quote by Chuck House, by the way.
48:44
He said, "I wasn't trying to be defiant or..."
48:46
H- I'm not gonna be able to say this word, 'cause I've never even heard of it.
48:50
"Ostreporous."
48:52
Yeah.
48:53
Ostreporous.
48:53
trying to be a jerk.
48:56
" Yeah, I just wanted s- success for HP.
48:59
It never occurred to me that it could cost me my job." that's the thing.
49:02
You're... Like, I talked to you about this before, and I
49:05
said it on that first episode.
49:08
You're, getting punished for doing the right thing, and that's
49:12
actually the most hurtful thing.
49:13
When you do get a slap on the wrist, you're going away kinda going, "I
49:18
actually care in th- in..." And if you were to actually zoom out, you'd
49:22
go, more than most people inside the organization, 'cause I'm risking
49:26
a lot to do what I think is the best thing for this organization.
49:29
And I have to go and go out to the outlaw area, get customers to send in requests
49:36
for this product, whatever, f- cajoling and trying to influence the trim tab,
49:42
and it's a, dangerous and lonely place.
49:46
moving stories?
49:49
When I hear what you just des- described, not to sound corny, my heart
49:53
soars when I hear things like that.
49:56
And to me it's this-- it goes back to being a very personal
49:59
human endeavor that innovation is.
50:01
It's-- We take it out of the... Again, not that these, processes are bad,
50:06
but we take it out of the process and return it to the fact that it's a
50:10
human very personal act of discovery.
50:13
Absolutely, and the very listener to this show as well.
50:17
Bruce, I thought we'd finish with the diagram, . gonna share on the screen,
50:21
for those who've been joining us the whole time this diagram, which is
50:25
Navigating Organizational Politics, and I'm just gonna hand it over to
50:29
you, Bruce, to take us through it
50:31
thank you.
50:32
You start in the upper left, and this is this naive view.
50:35
And I should quickly add this, combines elements of time
50:40
evolution and also activity.
50:43
So there's a lot going on in this chart, but it does combine a lot
50:46
of things, I think, in one place.
50:49
Almost everybody comes with this naive view, "It's not my,
50:52
it's not my job," basically.
50:54
they get to the point where they realize if they're-- if they wanna have
50:58
impact, as we've said, they cross the bridge and they accept, and they're
51:03
willing to try to influence people.
51:05
So that's the first upper left to the second upper left sphere, moving
51:10
from upper left to one sphere in.
51:13
once they accept that they're willing to influence, they'll apply
51:17
just various influence techniques, and they apply them flexibly.
51:22
They use discernment when they apply them, so they might as we've
51:26
talked about, they engage other people, they position the project.
51:29
uge-use what we refer to as hard and soft influence.
51:33
And by hard and soft, we meant more quantitative versus qualitative.
51:38
Not hard in terms of clubbing people, but hard in terms of,
51:42
providing data, if you will.
51:44
they apply these as the situation dictat-dictates.
51:49
And as they do that, this is how they build they build trust they,
51:55
they develop their network of people.
51:58
They're very often seen widely in the organization.
52:01
And by doing that, at the very top of this, you have the organization and
52:06
you're moving the organization forward.
52:09
And so it's this, flow, if you will, of, "It's not my job," to, "I
52:15
have to take ownership," to, "I'm gonna learn and develop how to do
52:19
this in a very appropriate way, organizationally appropriate way.
52:24
gonna begin to build and develop more trust with others, and I'm gonna move
52:28
the organization forward." And it encapsules all of this in one chart.
52:33
And as I said, I was embarrassed as I was going back through my notes.
52:37
I've used this chart for years.
52:38
I thought this chart was this way in the book, and it's not one of the
52:42
figures, but it combines aspects of two figures, and then it adds to it as well.
52:46
And someday I'll talk to Ray and Abby to find out why we didn't use this, image,
52:51
but that's a whole separate conversation,
52:53
special, unique, unique chart for the Innovation Show.
52:56
I, I was comparing this one in my head to the previous chart that we
52:59
did, and the other one goes downwards.
53:02
It's,
53:03
It's
53:03
it's a birthing.
53:03
A birthing, as you said.
53:05
This one's more of a transcendence.
53:07
It is.
53:07
Yeah.
53:08
I like that.
53:08
That's good.
53:09
I-- You're adding new visuals and, thoughts to this, so I appreciate that.
53:14
Absolutely.
53:15
Bruce, so we're gonna come back for part three of our, fuller pieces.
53:21
What are we gonna discuss on part three?
53:23
What, have we got ahead for our audience?
53:25
time we talked about who are these people?
53:27
How do we begin to understand who they are?
53:29
How do they operate?
53:31
Today, we talked really entirely about how these people navigate the organization,
53:36
Fantastic.
53:40
They are and how they succeed.
53:43
time we're gonna talk about it from a managerial perspective.
53:46
And what I wanna begin to if you will, tease you and your listeners with is
53:52
that, the people who are doing this much rely on executive management,
53:58
they rely on good executive management.
54:01
And I'll probably mention this again next time.
54:04
Sometimes the more the-- it's more difficult to find somebody who knows
54:10
how to manage these people than it is to find a serial innovator.
54:12
And that's a pretty, it's a pretty powerful statement.
54:17
And we'll talk a bit about how to the, best identify and develop the people.
54:22
So this is again, the complimentary view of, the innovator and their manager.
54:27
We'll talk about how they identify and develop them, and then how
54:30
they manage them for success.
54:31
And you a little teaser, too, that on the cover of the book and Ray and
54:36
I and Abby did-- Ray and Abby and I did not come up with this, but the
54:39
cover of the book a bunch of birds flying, and one is a different color.
54:43
One of the quotes we heard was, "The best managers let the birds
54:46
fly." these self-motivated people.
54:49
saw the cover, we're like, "Oh, man why didn't we think of that?" and
54:54
I gotta hand it to the people at Stanford University Press for, just
54:58
grasping that and running with it.
55:00
And so we'll talk about the manager's perspective.
55:03
I wanna leave you with today, and I wanna come back to next time, is
55:06
that you're an innovator and you're listening to this and you want to be
55:11
encouraged for what to look for, and if you want your manager to listen to
55:16
something, them to the next episode.
55:19
Because I think there's a different-- an additional audience that will
55:23
benefit from that episode as well.
55:27
And I totally got the cover, by the way.
55:29
I was gonna ask you about the cover 'cause one of the things you
55:32
could've done with the cover is had the orange bird facing the different
55:35
way could the, from the bluebirds.
55:38
And I was like going, "Well, that's not the goal. The goal
55:40
is actually to bring them with you," and that's what we discussed
55:43
today in the Navigating Politics.
55:46
Bruce,
55:46
absolute pleasure.
55:47
Author of Serial Innovators, Bruce Vojak, thank you for joining us.
55:51
Thank you
55:52
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