Latest / The Innovation Show / EP 667: David Bland on DuPont, Qnity and the Power of Assumptions Mapping

Transcript

EP 667: David Bland on DuPont, Qnity and the Power of Assumptions Mapping · The Innovation Show

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  the way I'm trying to approach it is not deferring too much of
• 0:02
  your critical thinking to AI.
• 0:04
  Have it more as a sparring partner, not so much as a, hey, like generate all
• 0:09
  the risk for me and the tests for me.
• 0:12
  I, I think there's some intentional friction that needs to occur
• 0:15
  when, when we're adopting AI.
• 0:17
  the culture's kind of a reflection of the work, you know, what you do day to day.
• 0:20
  And so I don't really think culture and strategy are at odds in any way.
• 0:23
  I, I feel strategy is like a series of integrated choices and
• 0:28
  the way you approach strategy is going to impact your culture.
• 0:31
  it's just you know, these companies I think the ones that struggle, I
• 0:37
  , I don't wanna call it innovation theatre because I don't think that
• 0:39
  almost says, "Oh, they're intentionally doing this to make it look good and
• 0:44
  they don't want change to happen." I don't think that's the case.
• 0:46
  I think they want the change to happen.
• 0:49
  just they're kind of unsure how to navigate the company in doing that.
• 0:53
  And heads of innovation, I've met a lot of heads of innovation over the years,
• 0:57
  and often they're like the, they are the friction, you know, they are the
• 1:01
  ones challenging things and saying we should be doing things differently.
• 1:04
  And they need to be able to navigate organizational politics and policy
• 1:08
  and everything and, and still nudge the company in that direction.
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  liken it to whiplash in a way, because imagine you're at a manufacturing
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  company, you've been there 30 years.
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  You have seen so much over the years of, "Well, this leader said everything
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  was Six Sigma and we have to do that.
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  And this leader came in and said, that thing's trash.
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  We're not doing that.
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  We're doing this innovative process." And you get sort of jaded,
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  I think, over time of, "Oh no, here's yet another new framework.
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  Oh boy, we get to do that for two years." I, feel like when you look at
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  these traditional companies that have been around for a long time, you know,
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  their employees have been around for decades and, and almost like, okay,
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  well, we'll see where this one takes us.
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  But I think it's, I, that's why I say whiplash.
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  I don't know if there's a better word because it's not as quick as
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  whiplash, but it definitely occurs, and I just see it cycle through
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  leadership in, in different companies.
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  that technique, I think, is becoming it's fewer and farer between when you
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  actually create something and then go find a use for it and make money.
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  I think what happens more often is you run out of runway or leadership runs
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  out of patience, and it's really tough.
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  It's really building this almost like capability inside your company to do it
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  of trying to just run a workshop here and there and hope it has an impact.
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  It's not.
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  I love workshops, but you need a sustained effort over time.
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  I think it was Brad Smith at Intuit.
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  quote always stuck with me.
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  He said, he was the CEO when, at, when I was visiting Intuit at the time.
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  And he said we have, this change going on inside our company and it's in our
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  bloodstream, but it's not in our DNA."
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  Before we start, I want to thank our sponsors Kyndryl with a unique blend
• 2:50
  of AI powered consulting built on unmatched managed service capability.
• 2:55
  Kyndryl helps leaders harness the power of technology for smarter decisions
• 2:59
  faster innovation and a lasting competitive edge you can find Kyndryl
• 3:05
  at the Kyndryl Institute at KYNDRYL.com/Institute
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  In 2026, several DuPont , and now QNITY, teams won an award for
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  Outstanding Innovative Culture at the Innovation Excellence Award shows.
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  While the awards recognize specific teams and outcomes, they also
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  reflected the ability to operationalize evidence-based decision making
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  across complex growth initiatives.
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  What began as structured experimentation cohorts evolved into a broader enterprise
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  capability for surfacing risk earlier, aligning stakeholders around evidence
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  and making faster commit, correct, and cut decisions under uncertainty.
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  Sounds like something so many companies need to do, whether they win an award
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  or not, but we're here to understand how they did it, and probably more
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  relevant, who helped them do it.
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  It is a great pleasure to welcome, he's been on the radar for a very, very
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  long time trying to find a spot, and i thought this case study was the way to
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  do it because you have asked for more case studies for The Innovation Show.
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  He's coauthor along with friend of the show Alex Osterwalder.
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  He is the author of Testing Business Ideas.
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  David Bland, welcome to the show
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  Thank you.
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  Thanks for having me.
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  Glad we can make it work.
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  It's great to have you man.
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  I, I got David just before his really, really busy se- season
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  so delighted to have you man.
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  I thought we'd just get stuck into this case study because i, I have
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  been on… We've been doing a few case studies and many books include
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  case studies but there's a huge appetite to know the how rather than
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  the what more and more from people.
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  People want less keynotes and more workshops so maybe you'll tell us
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  first about yourself and the work you do and that will then give us
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  context for the evolution of this case study and how you worked with DuPont
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  Yeah, a lot of people know me from the Testing Business
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  Ideas book, and rightfully so.
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  It's quite a popular book in many different languages, and actionable.
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  Alex and I made it a point to, make that book actionable.
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  I was one of the first, would say lead authors on a book, and using
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  you know, the power of Strategyzer to kind of promote that , and power it.
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  was a very interesting experience.
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  Alex is amazing and it's not trivial to write that style of book.
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  It's a lot of work.
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  So most people know me from the book, but though I've been
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  doing this work for a long time.
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  I would say 2011, late 2011 is when I started full-time doing advising work,
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  been doing similar advising work since.
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  And I work with mostly big companies, although I still help out with startups.
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  usually on high uncertainty ideas, so I don't focus on a
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  sector or a type of company.
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  It's more about blending a process with their domain knowledging domain
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  knowledge and helping them really avoid launching something very expensive
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  that, that flops in the market.
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  So normally, companies have experienced that before.
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  They realize they don't wanna do that again.
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  They bring me in to look at their commercialization process, look
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  at their innovation processes, and I don't really say that,
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  "Hey, you're doing this all wrong.
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  Here's my method." It's more of a, "Eh, let's see where the holes are.
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  Let's see what we can do to bring risk up sooner and avoid wasting money."
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  So it's been very interesting time.
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  On that right so I, I started in the workforce around - 2009
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  and the first books i lear- or I read were the Clayton Christensen
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  kind of suite of books back then.
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  They were so, so helpful but I thought most people knew this stuff and I
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  thought most people was reading stuff, and then I realised actually very few
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  people actually give themselves new lenses to learn new things, and it's
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  one of the reasons I do the show.
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  But I wondered what has changed for you?
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  What have you seen change over that 20… quarter of a century man?
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  And not to age you here, but what is that?
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  It's 15 years since you went out in 2011, but it's a long, long time and
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  it's, we've had many kinda crises, so you just started that business
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  right after the financial crash.
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  The, the, well, that one.
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  . And then we had pandemics, we've had geopolitical turmoil
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  much, much more going on there.
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  So wha- what's changed particularly now with new technology like AI
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  Yeah, it's been interesting to see how people need to adapt
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  to change and deal with more uncertainty and the pace of change.
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  So we launched the book in fall of 2019.
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  I did one tour event in person.
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  It was in, at a rooftop in San Francisco.
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  Everybody lined up to sign my book.
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  I though, "Oh, this is a life.
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  I'm gonna tour the world." And, we did one in person masterclass, Alex and
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  I, in Shortage in London. And on the flight back to San Francisco, everything
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  started getting shut down. And I started getting emails from my clients
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  going, "We can't do this in person.
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  You've been out of the country." And then it's, "We can't do this in person at all
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  because we're shutting down." And all these emails just started pouring in.
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  And I realized, "Oh, okay.
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  Let, let me look at my online content and adapt everything." So I was, I
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  think out of my peer group, I was one of the first to really jump in
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  full force online and say, "Look, this is going to be the future.
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  This is not a short-term thing that we're dealing with here.
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  sure my in-person material is in modules." And 2020 was an amazing year for me.
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  I think it was a combination because people were dealing a lot of uncertainty.
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  I think, honestly, I think people were home working on side projects too.
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  And they're like, "How do I get this side project off the ground?
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  Oh, this new book on testing business ideas.
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  Maybe that's the way." so it was a very interesting year because
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  it turned my plans upside down.
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  My book tour was canceled.
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  I had to do everything remote.
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  I had a bunch of people eager for a new book, but not able to access it.
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  You know, we put it in all these airport bookstores and then
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  all the airports closed down.
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  So it, it was just you know, I had to really use my own, my own process,
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  you know, to, to navigate that.
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  you look at now with AI, you know, it's disrupting companies and how
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  we work and how we approach things.
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  And can dive into that too a bit if you like.
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  I, I feel as if the way I'm trying to approach it is not deferring too much
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  of your critical thinking to AI Have it more as a sparring partner, not
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  so much as a, hey, like generate all the risk for me and the tests for me.
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  I, I think there's some intentional friction that needs to occur
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  when, when we're adopting AI.
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  Great point man.
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  We had a great guest on the show, a guy called Manu Kapoor and he wrote
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  a book called Productive Failure.
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  And I'm like the productive failure brand ambassador at the moment because
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  what it's about is essentially you have to go through struggle to actually
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  learn something y- you have to g- You have to go through that process.
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  And for me it's exact same as innovation It's the exact same as going to the gym
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  If you don't use it you lose it But you have to actually try in the first place
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  to build that muscle including innovation That's why i love your work ,I love what
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  Alex do Do As well Because it's based on doing You know?It's not based on thinking
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  with no tacit knowledge .it's getting out there Getting your hands dirty but
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  as you say also de risking the process by really kind of predicting what's coming
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  One of the biggest mistakes all of us make I've made it many times before i learned
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  all this content Is making assumptions In this session id love us to share an
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  assumptions map as well and tell our audience a little bit about that one last
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  thing was Many of our audience are heads of Innovation There would be many people
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  who worked With you and, one Of The Things They Probably Don SeeAndYou Have Seen This
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  Time And time AgainIsThatSometimes youll
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  have aheadofinnovation Whodoesnt ActuallyHaveaclue WhatToDoandTheyredoing
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  TheirVeryBestWithTheTools theyhaveAvailabletothembuttheyInaWaytheyspoilitforthenextheadOfInnovationandthecothecompany
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  becomessomewhatKindOFdisenchantedByThenewheadofinnovationandbecomesohwetriedthatbeforeanditsoneofthethingsactuallythatsinhereintheduponcasethattheytriedThingsBeforeandPeopleJustGoOhItsOuculturewedont wedontwecantdothesetypeofthingssoIdLoveyoutojustshareyourperspectiveOnThatwhatyouveseenagainfromoutbeingOutThereinthefieldworkingwithcompanies
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  Yeah, it's, it's not solved in a workshop.
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  It's not solved in a a talk.
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  You know, it takes change over time and behavior over time.
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  It's so, it's so interesting.
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  I was thinking about this conversation we were going to have
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  today last night on my commute.
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  I was, was in the Bay Area doing a, doing a masterclass and was
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  thinking about culture a lot, you know, in my commute as I'm stuck
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  in traffic as, as Californians are.
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  you know, I was thinking, you know, we have all these, the, these these
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  quotes we throw around, you know, like culture eats strategy for
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  breakfast and all this other stuff.
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  But when you think about culture change, you think about what that entails,
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  it's, it's usually the day-to-day work.
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  You know, it's the process.
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  It's intentionally designed, you know.
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  I feel like the, the work is what really the culture's kind of a reflection of the
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  work, you know, what you do day to day.
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  And so I don't really think culture and strategy are at odds in any way.
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  I, I feel strategy is like a series of integrated choices and
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  the way you approach strategy is going to impact your culture.
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  it's just you know, these companies I think the ones that struggle, I
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  , I don't wanna call it innovation theatre because I don't think that
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  almost says, "Oh, they're intentionally doing this to make it look good and
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  they don't want change to happen." I don't think that's the case.
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  I think they want the change to happen.
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  just they're kind of unsure how to navigate the company in doing that.
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  And heads of innovation, I've met a lot of heads of innovation over the years,
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  and often they're like the, they are the friction, you know, they are the
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  ones challenging things and saying we should be doing things differently.
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  And they need to be able to navigate organizational politics and policy
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  and everything and, and still nudge the company in that direction.
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  So I, I feel like the only change I've seen that sticks over time is
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  that you have leadership support, have a concerted effort over many
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  years, and you constantly practice it.
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  The moment you start, you know, you start thinking, "Oh, this is just the
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  way we work. Let's stop talking." That's when people stop working this way.
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  So it has to be, sounds like a broken record, but something you
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  have to keep repeating and have to keep working at day in and day out.
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  I was talking to last week Paul Nunes, the author of many books but one of them was
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  Jumping The S Curve, one of his top books.
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  He was saying that a company gets to a point or I was suggesting maybe you
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  have private equity money who buys that company or shareholders who want to milk
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  the cash cow and what they do is they get rid of the innovators or they get
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  rid of the people who created the curve that the company's on in the first place
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  Or else they frustrate them.
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  They give them crappy projects or no projects and frustrate them until they
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  leave because often those type of people get bored by just operational work.
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  And in doing so then they miss that opportunity because there's noth-
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  there's nothing to be working on.
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  And it's one of the things I like about your work and the w- work of many
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  practitioners is you're constantly testing ideas with the full knowledge that I
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  know now all of these are gonna work.
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  But what you're doing with this book and the work that you do, you're
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  de-risking as much as possible that.
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  But just maybe a, a word on that where you've seen the company changing hands,
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  new CEO comes in, maybe more an eye on the books and finances and the scoreboard
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  and gets rid of all the kind of creative or the innovators from the company
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  and just drives it for exploitation and nom- no longer exploration
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  Oh, it happens all the time.
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  I don't even have to name companies.
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  Here in the US, we'll see this trend of companies very innovative and
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  things are driven from leadership.
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  You know, we have to launch new products every year.
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  We have to keep testing things.
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  We have to have a volume of ideas.
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  And then if things start to go sideways a little bit or if that leader wants
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  to move on, you bring in someone else who's almost the opposite.
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  They kind of your framing of we have to make everything as
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  efficient as possible and get things back to running very smoothly.
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  And it's almost like this just wave that depending on the leader that comes
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  in, the company almost takes on the personality of that leader and it's
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  very, very natural in the way it works.
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  But it, it just almost seems like we're very innovative.
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  Oh no, let's bring in somebody with efficiency.
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  Okay, let's do that.
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  And then that person has to leave and then let's bring in an innovative person.
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  I think
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  liken it to whiplash in a way, because imagine you're at a manufacturing
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  company, you've been there 30 years.
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  You have seen so much over the years of, "Well, this leader said everything
• 16:25
  was Six Sigma and we have to do that.
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  And this leader came in and said, that thing's trash.
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  We're not doing that.
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  We're doing this innovative process." And you get sort of jaded,
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  I think, over time of, "Oh no, here's yet another new framework.
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  Oh boy, we get to do that for two years." I, feel like when you look at
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  these traditional companies that have been around for a long time, you know,
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  their employees have been around for decades and, and almost like, okay,
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  well, we'll see where this one takes us.
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  But I think it's, I, that's why I say whiplash.
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  I don't know if there's a better word because it's not as quick as
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  whiplash, but it definitely occurs, and I just see it cycle through
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  leadership in, in different companies.
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  It's like whiplash in slow motion.
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  We referred a car crash in slow motion, but the… Yeah, and, and
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  actually you mentioned there Six Sigma.
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  That was part of DuPont's story, and it was part of many
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  compa-… We saw it at 3M.
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  We saw an ex- an ex-GE CEO coming in, making them all ninjas at, at Six Sigma,
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  and having then the next CEO having to unravel all that work and kinda go and go
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  back and have your 20, 30% time and create stuff, go out there and innovate because
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  that's why they joined in the first place.
• 17:36
  But let's use that as a segue for DuPont.
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  So let's get stuck into this case study.
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  So just for our audience, this is where I was like, okay, David and I have
• 17:45
  struggled to actually get time in, in the diary to actually cover in depth
• 17:49
  his work and his book Testing Business Ideas, but let's use this case study on
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  DuPont, which was one that he worked with the team to develop huge revenue stream.
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  And I know that's the holy grail for many, many companies.
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  But let's share warts and all, the, the history of the story
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  and where they'd come from.
• 18:08
  So I mentioned that idea of kind of being jaded or disenchanted
• 18:12
  by the previous attempts.
• 18:14
  They had loads of previous attempts, but there was some key pieces, as you said,
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  parts of the story that they were missing.
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  They probably were not even aware that they were missing
• 18:24
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  And, and this happens, it's pretty common, you know?
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  Feel as if the story, at least the part that I'm involved
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  in it starts around 2016.
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  So that's when DuPont really wanted to build this culture of
• 18:39
  experimentation and innovation.
• 18:40
  And I'm not saying DuPont was not innovative before.
• 18:44
  They've created a lot of things in a lab and then they realize this is how
• 18:49
  we sell what we created in the lab.
• 18:50
  And some of it's even by accident, you know, I think you, you look at
• 18:53
  things like Kevlar and things that were a- almost looked like a mistake
• 18:58
  when they were created, you know, it's like, "Oh no, I accidentally messed
• 19:01
  up." And it's like a fashion designer working as a chemist and did things in a
• 19:05
  different way and created this material.
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  And they're like, "Oh, wait, there might be a use for this material."
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  then realizing, "Oh, well, this is a giant powerhouse of revenue for us." I
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  think companies that have been around for a long time, have that kind of
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  culture of we created something, we weren't really sure how to make money
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  with it, and then we figured it out.
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  But you fast forward to today, and that technique, I think, is becoming
• 19:32
  it's fewer and farer between when you actually create something and then
• 19:36
  go find a use for it and make money.
• 19:39
  I think what happens more often is you run out of runway or leadership runs
• 19:42
  out of patience, and it's really tough.
• 19:45
  So leadership was intentionally trying to change the culture.
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  they tried different things I think grew a bit frustrated, and that
• 19:55
  led them to seeking me out in 2022.
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  And again, my style isn't coming in and saying, "Oh, this is all stuff you're
• 20:02
  doing wrong." It's more of a, right, let's look at what you're doing and let's
• 20:05
  talk about how we get risk pulled up sooner in the process so we don't spend
• 20:12
  cycles on building things and creating things that don't matter." And so that
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  was all my work, looking at how their processes work, working with their team.
• 20:19
  They have amazing team I was working with.
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  We had C-Suite support Alexa.
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  it was very much a, "Okay, you've been trying this for six years to turn the
• 20:29
  culture around. I think these are your missing pieces." And it was a lot of
• 20:35
  desirable, viable, feasible language.
• 20:37
  It was a lot of extract your, your risk and test it sooner.
• 20:42
  And it, it just subtly shaped the company.
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  But without leadership support and without a team there that was really
• 20:50
  helping enable it, think it could have easily been, oh, let's run a couple
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  workshops and see the change happen and then get frustrated that it didn't.
• 20:58
  So luckily, you know, this is something I've been doing for you
• 21:03
  know, several years at this point, and then with QNITY, their spinoff.
• 21:06
  So it, it's been an interesting journey to see, you know, what all
• 21:09
  the processes it touched how to empower people to work this way.
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  And, and I can share some numbers and such that are public in the case study,
• 21:18
  but I felt as if, you know, I don't put out enough case studies though,
• 21:24
  yeah, this is a pretty good one.
• 21:25
  Let's get it out there and put some numbers behind it and, and show
• 21:28
  people what's possible because I think it's easy to get, get beaten down
• 21:31
  trying to do this kind of change and realize, oh man, there's no company
• 21:34
  I can point to that's done this well.
• 21:36
  And so I'm trying to share more of their stories.
• 21:38
  I saw the bat signal man.
• 21:39
  I saw , the light in the sky and i was like going, " Yeah, the case
• 21:43
  study let's cover it." But one of the things you mentioned was okay so
• 21:47
  DuPont leaders faced similar challenges that they'd seen before but they
• 21:51
  probably couldn't even articulate it.
• 21:53
  One was innovation processes were excellent but execution was weaker
• 21:58
  because it lacked early discovery so hence the idea of testing business ideas.
• 22:03
  But the other I just wanted to double click on was big bets were often
• 22:06
  made before any assumptions or risky assumptions were certainly surfaced.
• 22:10
  That idea of betting the farm or getting a big bet over the line, , I remembered
• 22:16
  'cause I was reading the case study and I remembered something that you
• 22:19
  had written in Testing Business Ideas.
• 22:21
  In the book, in the intro actually, I think it was… No, it was later on.
• 22:25
  It was in Assumptions Mapping you said, "Assumptions if proven false
• 22:30
  will cause your business to fail," and it's the definition of the top
• 22:34
  right quadrant of the assumptions map.
• 22:37
  So I thought we'd, we'd share that but maybe just a note on this idea that
• 22:43
  you have a team and then you have the people who have most power, the hippos,
• 22:48
  highest paid person in the room, or the person who, or maybe it's the CEO
• 22:53
  or it's a leader, or the person who kinda has influence over your career
• 22:59
  hence your health package and your mortgage and everything that goes with
• 23:04
  that, and they are backing an idea.
• 23:07
  And you're like going, "This idea is a bag of crap. How do I say that in a
• 23:12
  psychologically safe way?" But would, would this work if you have the data?
• 23:17
  It's the data making the decision not me, so this is not personal.
• 23:21
  But still it feels personal 'cause th- there's a little bit
• 23:23
  of shooting the messenger there.
• 23:25
  So there's a, there's a lot in there but I just wondered what your thoughts
• 23:28
  were on that where it's clear the leader has a favorite idea but the team don't
• 23:35
  really back that idea, and the only way they kind of share that is in the
• 23:38
  hallway if they're in not working from home anymore around the water cooler.
• 23:43
  It's a, it's a huge challenge you see time and time again
• 23:47
  It is, it is.
• 23:48
  And I think that's why I have a knack for facilitation and just taking
• 23:52
  a lot of the emotion out of it.
• 23:54
  I can't pick winners either.
• 23:55
  Alex and I talk about this all the time.
• 23:57
  A good idea and a bad idea look very similar early on.
• 24:01
  I've been doing this long enough, and I was in startups before this.
• 24:05
  there have been some ideas pitched to me and I though, oh, this is a horrible idea.
• 24:10
  And one of, some of my keynotes I've been leading with that, kind
• 24:12
  of me getting it wrong, you know?
• 24:14
  It's funny.
• 24:15
  My keynotes start with me getting it wrong and end with me getting it wrong.
• 24:18
  So I'm a, I'm one of those consultants that doesn't really shy away from
• 24:22
  telling people when I get it wrong.
• 24:25
  You know, one of the stories is a kitty litter idea, you know?
• 24:29
  Someone pitched me a kitty litter idea.
• 24:30
  I was like, "Oh, okay.
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:32
  Okay.
• 24:32
  There's a million brands of kitty litter.
• 24:34
  Like how is this possibly different?" And it was acquired for a billion dollars
• 24:39
  with a B, a billion dollars, a billion US dollars. So, you know, ideas early
• 24:44
  on can it, it's really tough, and I really do a better job not coming in
• 24:50
  and looking at your ideas, ideas and saying, "That one's good, that one's bad.
• 24:54
  Don't do that one.
• 24:55
  This is a pet project.
• 24:56
  Kill that." don't know if they're good or bad.
• 24:59
  I, I think the way you find out is running them through the process.
• 25:02
  And when leadership's on board with that, kind of back away from their ideas
• 25:06
  too, because I don't think they wanna have $100 million failure and realize,
• 25:10
  "Oh, that was my pet project and no one wanted to kill it because it was
• 25:13
  my idea." also why you don't have your leaders facilitate assumptions mapping,
• 25:17
  because people aren't going to really openly talk about the assumptions if it's
• 25:21
  their leader facilitating the session.
• 25:23
  That's why you need somebody from a different business unit or you need
• 25:26
  outside, you know, consultant or coach come in and help you build that
• 25:29
  capability, which is what I did at DuPont.
• 25:32
  And so I think there are some little tips and tricks you can definitely
• 25:36
  take to your advantage there.
• 25:38
  But I run it through the process, you know?
• 25:41
  I, who am I to say if your idea is good or bad?
• 25:43
  Let's run through the process and, and find out.
• 25:45
  It's so true, isn't it?
• 25:47
  Like, like we actually, you never know.
• 25:49
  I mean, that's the thing, you never know.
• 25:50
  Most of us have had this where I think it was Buckminster Fuller who said,
• 25:56
  "There's nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's gonna be butterfly."
• 25:59
  And what is the Peter Drucker… Oh, it's about the, it's about the comparison of
• 26:04
  the old and the new, that the new idea looks so puny compared to, to the, the
• 26:09
  size and the experience of the existing.
• 26:12
  So when you put them side by side, it, it changes your perspective, and
• 26:17
  therefore you kill lots of ideas.
• 26:19
  We do that.
• 26:19
  We've done it with people where we've grown up with them and then
• 26:24
  see them as being great successes or great sportspeople or great
• 26:27
  businesspeople and kind of go, "That guy?
• 26:29
  That guy Bland?
• 26:30
  He wrote a book.
• 26:30
  It's really successful.
• 26:31
  How-- I was in school with him.
• 26:33
  I thought he'd be nobody, man."And so we all do it, but we do it with ideas too.
• 26:38
  And the beauty, I mean w- we're not going to be teaching assumptions
• 26:42
  mapping in school to kids, but maybe we'll cover a little bit.
• 26:46
  I'm holding up the book there for the people watching us on YouTube.
• 26:49
  But also David's gonna share now the assumptions map and take us through this,
• 26:54
  and maybe we'll use it as a segue then to, to deep dive more into the DuPont case
• 26:59
  Yeah.
• 26:59
  Assumptions mapping, it has a long history.
• 27:02
  So I, I, and I honestly, it's hard to point the single source of truth with
• 27:06
  some of this stuff with user-centered design and design thinking and
• 27:11
  even lean startup to an extent.
• 27:13
  So I can tell you just from my personal experience though, I was at a large
• 27:16
  travel company in San Francisco, had them about experimentation, had
• 27:21
  running experiments all over the place.
• 27:23
  And then I had the VP of product pull me aside and say like, "Why are they
• 27:27
  still testing this? Why are they testing this? Why are they testing this?" And
• 27:31
  sometimes I didn't have a great answer.
• 27:33
  It was really embarrassing.
• 27:35
  And I realized, you know, getting people excited about experiments is
• 27:38
  not the only way to make this work.
• 27:41
  There has to be a a link back to risk, to tying back to something
• 27:45
  executive team is worried about.
• 27:47
  "Oh, we're running experiments.
• 27:48
  Why?
• 27:49
  Oh, we're actually trying to address this risk over here?
• 27:51
  Okay.
• 27:52
  How are we addressing it?
• 27:54
  "So it came out of necessity for me of finding a focusing mechanism for teams.
• 28:00
  I used to dot vote, you know, we would dot vote assumptions.
• 28:03
  It became a kind of popularity contest.
• 28:06
  Dot voting's not necessarily a bad facilitation technique.
• 28:09
  When it comes to risk, it's like oh, what dot is my boss going
• 28:14
  to put the dot on that one?
• 28:15
  Okay, yes, every all, all the dots go there.
• 28:18
  with stack ranking, it was okay.
• 28:20
  If you look at the value proposition design book from Alex, you'll
• 28:23
  notice some stack ranking in there.
• 28:26
  I'm not against stack ranking.
• 28:27
  I just think with risk, it's more nuanced than that.
• 28:30
  You, you can't just stack rank risk.
• 28:32
  And so I stumbled upon this from Jeff Gothalf and Josh Seiden, who your
• 28:37
  viewers or listeners probably know.
• 28:39
  I wrote Lean UX at the time.
• 28:41
  I had the, the, the privilege of working with them back at
• 28:44
  an agency Neo in San Francisco.
• 28:47
  They were based out of Neo, New York.
• 28:49
  And they had this two by two and lean UX that I liked, and, and they
• 28:53
  drew inspiration from people as well.
• 28:54
  So you can look at Janice Frazier's work.
• 28:56
  You can look at Laura Klein's work.
• 28:59
  You can look at I know Esther Gonn has a, a two by two as well with Dan Toma.
• 29:04
  So everyone has their own kind of two by two version of this thing.
• 29:08
  I think where mine is a bit nuanced is took the desirable, viable,
• 29:14
  feasible language that I was already using in my assumptions work.
• 29:18
  So I was helping teams write down, like, what's your risk about the customer?
• 29:21
  Okay.
• 29:21
  Pricing, what's your risk?
• 29:23
  Okay.
• 29:23
  Your ability to deliver, what's your risk?
• 29:25
  And that was going really well.
• 29:26
  And I though, oh, let's use that in the two by two because then there's
• 29:30
  an extra layer of information there where we can say, oh, you know what?
• 29:35
  We have a lot of desirability risk.
• 29:36
  We have a lot of viability risk.
• 29:38
  it also helped me spot anti-patterns where super early idea,
• 29:43
  wait, all your risk is build?
• 29:45
  Like, what's going on here?
• 29:46
  Help me explain.
• 29:48
  And it took a while, you know, I keep practicing with teams.
• 29:51
  I think probably Toyota was the first big public reveal of me doing this
• 29:56
  working with Toyota at the time.
• 29:58
  And the labels were okay, you know, important, unimportant for, for one axis.
• 30:04
  And then we were using known and unknown.
• 30:07
  And I thout's pretty straightforward, but there were problems.
• 30:11
  People would say, "I just know." I was like, "Oh, this is not
• 30:14
  going well." So I change it to certain, uncertain, that's better.
• 30:18
  And then people would say, "I'm certain." And I was like, "Okay, why
• 30:21
  are you certain?" They say, "I just know." I was like, "Okay, that's not
• 30:24
  working." then Alex and I were at the library at Stanford University.
• 30:28
  He had flown to Sanford, for San Francisco for work.
• 30:31
  I think he was meeting with Steve Blank as well, and some folks at Stanford.
• 30:36
  we had this conversation about evidence, and I drew that
• 30:39
  two by two on a whiteboard.
• 30:40
  We're like, "You know, Alex, this is working but not working, and we're
• 30:43
  gonna put this in the book, and I want it to really resonate." we're like,
• 30:47
  "The conversation is about evidence.
• 30:49
  Let's use evidence." And so in the book, in the current version, you
• 30:53
  see, you know, do you have evidence or do you not have evidence?
• 30:57
  people have even customized that as well.
• 30:59
  You know, Teresa Torres is, like, light evidence, strong
• 31:02
  evidence, which I kinda like.
• 31:04
  She says more important, less important, which also I kinda like.
• 31:08
  people say, say or do, you know, like, say versus do, which I kind of like.
• 31:13
  So I'm not necessarily on, this is what the labels have to be.
• 31:19
  I'm more about, are we having a structured conversation about risk and
• 31:23
  are we focusing our experimentation?
• 31:25
  So the labels, I've changed them three times.
• 31:28
  I'm not as particular about the exact labels as long as your
• 31:32
  company can have a conversation about risk and say, "You know what?
• 31:35
  That's the thing that could kill this.
• 31:37
  Let's go test it."
• 31:38
  one of the quotes w- there are many in the case study, you say the chief of
• 31:44
  staff summarized the whole challenge here.
• 31:47
  He said most failures weren't technical; they were driven by flawed
• 31:50
  commercial and customer assumptions.
• 31:52
  Great to hear somebody saying that inside a company who d- hasn't
• 31:55
  written a book because they've written it from scar tissue.
• 31:59
  But in the intro of… And this is the intro I was talking about.
• 32:01
  In the, in the intro of this book, 'cause I, when I read that, I was like
• 32:04
  there, there has to be a great line in here somewhere," and beautifully for me
• 32:08
  was in the intro you wrote that, "Don't make the mistake of executing business
• 32:12
  ideas without evidence." And on the same spread, the line about ideas that look
• 32:17
  great in the spreadsheet and business plan turning out to be a hallucination.
• 32:22
  I love that because most business plans are a hallucination.
• 32:26
  So many of us have been through that absolute pain where you're sitting down,
• 32:31
  depending on the size of your company, with a CFO, and the CFO is like, "Okay,
• 32:35
  let's go through the business plan.
• 32:37
  You're…" Like, "You're an innovation guy.
• 32:39
  You don't have a clue about finance, okay?
• 32:41
  So I'm gonna sit here and treat you like an absolute idiot, and you're gonna tell
• 32:46
  me how, how much how much do you think we'll make in six months?" "No idea.
• 32:51
  I dunno, I dunno." "What about 12?" "I, I, I dunno." Eight- 18, so let's
• 32:56
  say 18 months, and you're like, "Okay, we'll just get him off one back."
• 33:00
  18 months, 18 months, and then they put a figure in your mouth, and just to get the
• 33:04
  bloody project over the line, you say yes.
• 33:07
  And now you have a target on your back because you've committed to
• 33:11
  this green mile that's coming down, down the line for you, and you, you
• 33:15
  get yourself in serious trouble.
• 33:17
  And that idea of business models being a hallucination is everywhere
• 33:23
  It is.
• 33:24
  And we often don't start with the model.
• 33:25
  I think I was writing about this the other day.
• 33:27
  We start with a business case or a business plan, but we don't
• 33:30
  understand the underlying model.
• 33:32
  And this is where Alex and I worked really well together was, I think I took
• 33:36
  his masterclass in 2011 or 2012, I don't remember exactly, in San Francisco.
• 33:41
  It was at Fort Mason.
• 33:43
  And I was already a fan of his work because I was like, "There's
• 33:44
  something wrong here." 'Cause I was all in on the lean startup movement.
• 33:49
  I'd done some work with Eric Reese who wrote Lean Startup.
• 33:51
  And I felt like there was a missing piece when it came to strategy,
• 33:55
  when it came to what we're testing.
• 33:57
  And I loved the canvas.
• 33:58
  I the business model canvas.
• 34:00
  I loved modeling things and saying, "Okay, we have to test this model.
• 34:04
  How would we test?" So it felt very complimentary to my work.
• 34:08
  And I just started incorporating it, you know, with clients.
• 34:10
  And just became kind of surprised that we're not talking business
• 34:17
  models inside companies.
• 34:18
  Actually, if you ask an executive team what their business model is,
• 34:20
  you're gonna get five, six different, completely different answers.
• 34:24
  So I though, "Wow, we're creating these plans, but we don't understand the
• 34:27
  model." And I don't know how, I don't know if Alexhas said this on your show.
• 34:30
  I don't wanna speak for him, but Al- Alex is not a huge fan of business plans.
• 34:35
  I think I've been in a couple sessions where he told people
• 34:37
  to burn their business plans, so that from what you wrote.
• 34:41
  I was like, "You gotta understand the model before you write a plan, you
• 34:44
  know, five-year plan without a model.
• 34:46
  You're just, it's like creative fiction in Excel.
• 34:48
  You know, you don't know what you're doing.
• 34:51
  why are we, why are we pretending we do?
• 34:53
  Let's just talk about it openly." so, you know, you, you come back
• 34:57
  to kind of the DuPont story.
• 35:00
  Had already done research internal research to with the chief of staff to
• 35:04
  say, "Yep, this is why things are failing.
• 35:06
  It's not because we can't build.
• 35:08
  We can build anything.
• 35:09
  We're DuPont.
• 35:10
  It's because the market isn't ready for it or the market has
• 35:13
  changed or…" In manufacturing, it's a lot of switching costs.
• 35:17
  Like, we'll build something, but then the customer thinks they want it, but
• 35:20
  they don't understand it might take millions of dollars their side to switch
• 35:24
  this thing out in their production line.
• 35:26
  And they're like, "Oh, we can't do that." They're like, "Wait, we've
• 35:29
  been working on this for three years and now you're not gonna use it?
• 35:31
  And you're the only customer we built this for." you know, it's a lot of
• 35:35
  just pulling that risk upstream.
• 35:38
  If you, tie that with funding, and, and this is in the case study as
• 35:41
  well, know, you look at, okay, well, let's find those answers sooner and
• 35:46
  let's just stop working on things that aren't viable to the business.
• 35:51
  we saved over $12 million just stopping work on things.
• 35:55
  And so far we've made about $24 million on the things that went through.
• 35:58
  And again, these aren't ideas I judged and said that's a good idea or a bad idea.
• 36:02
  It's more of a, what are the bigger risks in this idea?
• 36:05
  Okay, have we tested those?
• 36:07
  Okay, let's test them now instead of later.
• 36:09
  And you'd be surprised just like, just starting to do that kind of work how
• 36:14
  much of an impact it has across the company because we ran 35 different ideas
• 36:18
  through that, like real multimillion dollar business ideas and touched every
• 36:23
  line of business trained coaches to learn how to do that inside the company.
• 36:29
  And so it's really building this almost like capability inside your company to
• 36:33
  do it of trying to just run a workshop here and there and hope it has an impact.
• 36:37
  It's not.
• 36:38
  I love workshops, but you need a sustained effort over time.
• 36:42
  One of the things there you said so y- you saved 12, you
• 36:44
  made 24, so huge return there.
• 36:48
  But when you're in a big company like a DuPont and you're a billion dollar company
• 36:54
  that looks like table sta-… It looks like a distraction to many com- companies
• 36:59
  to, particularly to senior leadership.
• 37:01
  So what you often get is like, "Let's just do what we're doing better or more of
• 37:06
  it, hire more salespeople, get rid of the innovation team and hire more salespeople
• 37:10
  and sale- sell more of what we have.
• 37:12
  We have enough, thanks very much." until you don't o- or until somebody
• 37:16
  else does something that, the thing that you could have created.
• 37:19
  So how do you get around that challenge of… Because one of the things I,
• 37:24
  I kind of read not directly between the lines but actually kinda called
• 37:27
  it out is like they had tried stuff before, but they could never scale it.
• 37:31
  So one of the things you see in innovation time and time again, particularly
• 37:36
  if you're a consultant is you'll see somebody get an idea off the ground great.
• 37:41
  It feels like they're making progress.
• 37:43
  Now they're getting to a point where it becomes serious and it's
• 37:46
  like going, okay, we've proven it.
• 37:48
  It's working.
• 37:49
  We have several pilots out in the field.
• 37:52
  Now we need to take it seriously and give it serious resources and it dies because
• 37:56
  they, the company doesn't want to actually dive in and take it to the next step.
• 38:01
  How do you get around that man?
• 38:03
  Yeah.
• 38:03
  Well, you, you need leadership support at the very least.
• 38:06
  You need a champion inside that org that will help you integrate this.
• 38:12
  It's interesting when I talk to all these, and this is in Silicon Valley too.
• 38:14
  I do a lot of work in Silicon Valley still.
• 38:18
  Companies still use Horizon Planning, so Horizon one, two, and three.
• 38:22
  they feel as if, oh, Horizon three's the hardest, you know, creating new.
• 38:25
  Yeah, it's, it's quite hard, but it's tragic when you create something
• 38:29
  and then it never makes it Horizon two because there's no one in the
• 38:32
  org to pick it up and champion it.
• 38:35
  There's nothing, you can't use your existing channels, you can't
• 38:39
  get it prioritized, you can't get a spot in the org for it to work.
• 38:43
  This is why a lot of innovation labs in the US have shut
• 38:46
  down over the last few years.
• 38:48
  lots of amazing work that came out of the labs, no place in
• 38:51
  the company for them to go.
• 38:54
  you could try to spin them out, which some companies are doing now.
• 38:57
  Especially in Silicon Valley, there's a lot of like innovation,
• 39:00
  I call them innovation outposts or, or, or of something of that nature
• 39:03
  where you're spinning things out and they become their own companies.
• 39:07
  Incredibly hard to do well, by the way.
• 39:10
  It is possible, but you have to work through IP and equity
• 39:13
  and have the founding team and all that and the branding.
• 39:17
  So it's not as simple as saying, let's just spin it out.
• 39:20
  it's very interesting when I look at companies and, and see
• 39:26
  do we make this part of your DNA?
• 39:28
  I think it was, I think, I think it was Brad Smith at Intuit.
• 39:31
  quote always stuck with me.
• 39:32
  He said, he was the CEO when, at, when I was visiting Intuit at the time.
• 39:36
  And he said we have, have this change going on inside our company and it's
• 39:42
  in our bloodstream, but it's not in our DNA." always stuck with me because I
• 39:46
  though, "Oh, it's there, it's happening."
• 39:48
  You know, people are going through the motions, not gonna stick.
• 39:51
  It's not gonna actually change the company unless we change some of our processes
• 39:56
  and change how we incentivize people and, and make these changes to make it stick.
• 40:01
  and so I think that's where people get nervous, you know, like, "Oh, we have to
• 40:04
  change our commercialization process?"
• 40:06
  It's like, "Yeah, you probably do." Not like throw it out and completely rebuild
• 40:10
  it, but it's going to need to change.
• 40:12
  And I think one of the things I give DuPont a lot of credit for is they didn't
• 40:16
  shy away from that, at least with me.
• 40:18
  So the DVF language is through the commercialization process.
• 40:23
  It's traditional manufacturing, right?
• 40:24
  You have your stage gates, but they have DVF language now and we're like,
• 40:28
  "Have we tested desirability yet, you know, at this stage?" So it takes time,
• 40:33
  but I think you just have a much bigger impact than having it self-contained and
• 40:38
  do all this amazing work and then see it just die on the vine when it tries
• 40:42
  to go to the org without a sponsor.
• 40:43
  I think that is not a sustainable approach.
• 40:47
  One of the things I've, I f-… We had a brilliant guest on the show before,
• 40:50
  a guy called K- Herb Cohen, and Herb's in his… He's, he's almost in his 90s.
• 40:55
  Had him on the show.
• 40:56
  He w- he wrote a book c-called Negotiate This!
• 40:59
  And he gave this great line.
• 41:01
  He said, "The best thing about hiring a consultant is," he said,
• 41:06
  "I care, but not that much."
• 41:08
  So I don't actually I don't care that much.
• 41:11
  I care because you're paying me to care, but I'm not, so I'm not emotionally
• 41:15
  involved, and that is such a benefit.
• 41:19
  And I'm saying that because one of the things you said, so what
• 41:22
  helped here was, one, you had a, a customized decision system aligned
• 41:27
  with DuPont strategy and governance.
• 41:29
  That was number one.
• 41:30
  Number two, learning plans as the core artifact for
• 41:33
  evidence-based decision making.
• 41:35
  So people n- were on the same page.
• 41:37
  They were, they had the same lens to look through things.
• 41:40
  Three was coaching as the primary scaling mechanism, and four was
• 41:44
  executive sponsorship that you mentioned there through a two-in-a-box business
• 41:48
  and technical leadership model.
• 41:50
  Okay?
• 41:50
  So there's there's four elements there.
• 41:52
  But this idea means that you need a David Bland in the house for
• 41:58
  a period of time, like training wheels, to get them up and running.
• 42:02
  And a lot of companies think you're trying to sell more consulting there.
• 42:05
  But you do need, like, a teacher.
• 42:08
  You need a teacher there because m-many organizations, particularly
• 42:12
  if they've been around for a while, are in the execution mo-model.
• 42:16
  They're, that's where they are in their life cycle or the S-curve, and
• 42:19
  you're trying to create, you're tryna in, eh, show them how to explore again
• 42:25
  what got them to where they are today.
• 42:27
  So you need to be there.
• 42:28
  So maybe you'll tell us about what you did with Precoil, what did
• 42:33
  you do with the team, and how you helped them through the lenses of
• 42:38
  those four things that I mentioned
• 42:40
  Yeah, I'm kind of an anti-consultant that way.
• 42:43
  I don't, I don't want a dependence.
• 42:45
  I don't want, I don't want that.
• 42:47
  I want companies to build their own capability because
• 42:49
  that's what's fun for me.
• 42:51
  So I, I think DuPont's special that way.
• 42:54
  You know, when we started working together, we had a cross-functional
• 42:56
  team, leadership, seeing this change and, and making it happen, you know?
• 43:02
  And I'm a, I'm a big believer of starting pretty small.
• 43:04
  So start with a few teams, a coach on each team or someone that could
• 43:09
  become a coach, go through the process.
• 43:11
  I call it EMT, so it's extract map test.
• 43:13
  So we do it on real ideas.
• 43:16
  Yeah, I have some fun case studies that we talk about, but most of the
• 43:19
  work I do is on the real opportunities.
• 43:21
  And I think that's where you learn personally how to, like, learn by doing.
• 43:26
  And also you learn how the org's gonna respond to this kind of work
• 43:30
  because you can't always predict it.
• 43:31
  So I have a flow.
• 43:33
  It's like, let's start here.
• 43:35
  We, we do it for a bit, let's say 12 weeks, then we realize, "Oh, you know
• 43:39
  what? The way your culture works and everything, I think we need to swap
• 43:42
  this part or maybe include more of this." And you do that with a few teams.
• 43:47
  And I think it was by, like, the second cohort or so, we started to get this,
• 43:52
  what we called, like, a steady state.
• 43:53
  The chief of staff was calling it the steady state.
• 43:55
  It's like, "You know what? I think we found the flow that works for us." And
• 44:01
  and then we just scaled that.
• 44:03
  So we just kept running teams through.
• 44:04
  Again, we went through 35 teams with real opportunities.
• 44:07
  These weren't teams coming up with a fun idea to work on for the program.
• 44:10
  It was, "This is a real opportunity inside DuPont." And we were able to start to
• 44:15
  see the impact and see the aha moments.
• 44:17
  And, know, it's hard to keep morale up when you're actively cutting
• 44:22
  things people are working on.
• 44:23
  It has to be a safe space.
• 44:24
  They have to know they're not gonna get fired.
• 44:26
  There's more ideas to work on.
• 44:29
  I think we had a volume of ideas that was working for us.
• 44:32
  I think some of the other companies I've been at where they
• 44:34
  said, oh, we have three ideas.
• 44:36
  Like, we have three ideas?
• 44:37
  Like, you're not gonna kill any of those ideas.
• 44:39
  People are gonna be afraid to kill those ideas because there's
• 44:42
  no other ideas to work on.
• 44:44
  So you do need a volume which they had.
• 44:46
  Ideas are not a problem inside DuPont.
• 44:49
  And, know, I find most companies, it's like, you have a lot of ideas.
• 44:53
  That's not the issue.
• 44:54
  It's how you test them.
• 44:55
  And just running through that process keeping in touch with leadership, training
• 45:00
  leadership on how to ask questions about the work in a different way,
• 45:04
  because you can't ask, as you mentioned before, only ROI questions on this
• 45:08
  kind of work because we're pre-revenue.
• 45:11
  it, it's just know, I think I take this approach where I have
• 45:15
  organizational change background too, so I understand org won't always respond
• 45:20
  the way I think it will to my ideas.
• 45:23
  So be open to seeing how it responds working with them on how to address that.
• 45:29
  A- and I don't really treat people as antibodies or treat them as
• 45:33
  some kind of virus response.
• 45:36
  It's more of like, treat them as people.
• 45:38
  It's like, you're in a company with processes, there for a reason, you know?
• 45:43
  They probably prevented your company from failing at some point.
• 45:46
  So let's see how we can change these to modify this new way of working.
• 45:51
  So I'm very you know, test and, test and respond know, type of approach in my work.
• 45:58
  yeah, it, it, once I find a company that's a great fit like
• 46:01
  DuPont, it's amazing, like tens of millions of dollars of revenue.
• 46:05
  it just becomes a, you have to be committed to it and you have to be
• 46:08
  willing to that we can't predict all the things that are going to happen.
• 46:13
  We have to try the work and learn from that and then
• 46:16
  customize it for your company.
• 46:19
  I, I don't know if you've heard about that thing about the, the
• 46:22
  breakfast is like how do you know what's committed in the breakfast?
• 46:26
  You know the thing about the ch- the h- the
• 46:28
  yes.
• 46:28
  pi- So for our audience who don't know, the pig is committed, the hen contributes.
• 46:36
  so for, for vegetarians out there, I'm sorry.
• 46:39
  I'm sorry.
• 46:40
  But David, one last question was, so you're, you've gone through this process.
• 46:45
  You've you've gone from bloodstream to DNA and one, one thing that you see
• 46:51
  again is this problem where you have a team who's created something, and it's
• 46:57
  not so much… Like i, I agree with you.
• 47:00
  I used … The old me, th- the me back in 2011 when you went out on your own
• 47:05
  was I'd, I'd discovered the antibodies, and I, I treated them like, "Oh, they're
• 47:10
  dinosaurs, they're idiots," kinda thing, which is so wrong because straightaway
• 47:15
  I've set myself up for failure.
• 47:17
  And i, I might get to the start of the funnel with an idea, but I need the
• 47:21
  organization to adopt that idea, and they won't because they're like kind of going,
• 47:24
  "Screw you, you're the guy going around saying we're all idiots," kinda thing.
• 47:28
  Now, I wasn't.
• 47:29
  I'm, I'm making it sound more dramatic, but the one thing you do discover is you
• 47:33
  need the sales force behind the idea, and you need them to be out selling
• 47:38
  that idea giving it to customers.
• 47:40
  So how do you get around that bottleneck that kills so many ideas or stalls them
• 47:45
  certainly when they're good ideas but you can't get them out in the field
• 47:49
  Yeah.
• 47:49
  I mean, socialization is, is really key.
• 47:51
  You, you wanna make the work very visible, very public.
• 47:55
  The first agency is interesting.
• 47:57
  We were actually called Big Visible that I joined.
• 47:59
  It was all about making things big and visible inside orgs.
• 48:03
  Shout out to BB, it was a great great group of people.
• 48:06
  But the idea was make it visible.
• 48:10
  You wanna create an environment where people are coming over and
• 48:12
  saying, "Wow, this looks really fun.
• 48:14
  Like, what are you doing over here?" And it's like, "Oh, we're treating
• 48:18
  risk a different way and we're testing and we're doing stuff, but
• 48:21
  it's having real business impact.
• 48:22
  It's, it's focused on the business.
• 48:24
  It's not just the sticky notes." So there's an element of socialization.
• 48:29
  There's an element of I'll share the story with, with Alexa Dembeck in DuPont.
• 48:36
  She would do something called Dead Projects Day, where we would dress up
• 48:39
  on Halloween in all costume, we would celebrate the projects we killed.
• 48:44
  And it sounds very silly at face value.
• 48:46
  It's like, why are you dressing up and what are you doing?
• 48:50
  we had leadership teams dressed up in Halloween costumes talking about this is
• 48:56
  why we killed this idea, let's actually socialize this and make it known that we
• 49:02
  killed this because people weren't going to pay enough or they didn't want it.
• 49:06
  It wasn't that we couldn't build it.
• 49:07
  And so we would line up the ideas and we would have like an event on Halloween.
• 49:13
  And it's like, how do you create that safe space inside the company?
• 49:17
  That's one way you do it.
• 49:19
  Leadership going, "I'm glad we killed that.
• 49:21
  We didn't waste tens of millions of dollars on it.
• 49:23
  And let's celebrate it and be kind of silly about it." It doesn't
• 49:25
  mean we wanna keep failing.
• 49:27
  No one wants to fail, but it can't be let's ignore that and pretend it didn't
• 49:32
  happen or dress it up like a success.
• 49:34
  That's even worse.
• 49:35
  So things like that, you know, it's just building that culture inside the
• 49:40
  company to socialize, make sure no one's gonna get fired for working this way.
• 49:45
  And this is where we're trying to nudge the company.
• 49:47
  We have to go faster.
• 49:48
  We have to derisk faster.
• 49:50
  And so we have to have an environment that supports that.
• 49:52
  If you just stay at the team level, the teams will get this stuff, but
• 49:55
  then they're going to run into things that teams cannot control gonna stall.
• 50:00
  And you need support outside the teams so they don't stall.
• 50:04
  And I'm pretty happy with DuPont.
• 50:06
  DuPont is split into two companies now.
• 50:07
  So DuPont and QNITY.
• 50:09
  QNITY is the semiconductor company.
• 50:11
  They also still epo - espouse these ideas inside CUNY.
• 50:15
  They're both, the commercialization processes of both companies have been
• 50:19
  altered and improved based on this work.
• 50:22
  So it can last and it can have a lasting impact.
• 50:25
  just need leadership support.
• 50:27
  You need to be able to create a safe space where people can work this way and be
• 50:31
  willing to try to see how it integrates and not, you know, don't force it, but
• 50:36
  also be willing to say, "You know what? I'm, I'm willing to change my approach
• 50:39
  because of this and this and this."
• 50:41
  And I think you can't just rubber stamp innovation processes across companies.
• 50:46
  There's too many different variables at work.
• 50:50
  Beautiful.
• 50:50
  And the sales guys, do you include them in your training?
• 50:54
  Do you bring them in early?
• 50:56
  Yeah, we do.
• 50:58
  I think with sales entering your original question with sales, know,
• 51:03
  I think it's about incentives.
• 51:05
  It's about them understanding that if we understand the problems of our
• 51:08
  customers, we're the closest to the customers and new new opportunities
• 51:14
  for revenue are gonna come from those people closest to your customers.
• 51:17
  It's not gonna come from the leadership team going, "Wouldn't it be cool if
• 51:20
  we did this?" It's gonna come from people on the ground with customers
• 51:24
  understanding their needs, and that's where you're gonna unlock new revenue.
• 51:28
  So when I'm pulled into a company, it's a lot of, we want our people
• 51:31
  using their critical thinking skills.
• 51:33
  We want a shared language so we understand, you know, when these
• 51:36
  opportunities arise, how we go test them.
• 51:39
  sales is a big part of that.
• 51:41
  And you do have to look at your incentive structure.
• 51:43
  Are they incentivized to do discovery and not just selling?
• 51:47
  And I think once you're willing to look at that, and, and start to rethink
• 51:53
  incentives and rethink about how they can be this amazing touchpoint for
• 51:56
  your company, it works really well.
• 51:59
  Same with legal, you know?
• 52:00
  I was making this joke yesterday in a masterclass that almost like we, we
• 52:05
  design all these tests and then at the end we go to legal and say, "Hey, we
• 52:08
  wanna run this, can we?" And they say, "No, what are you trying to do?" like,
• 52:13
  pull them up early in the process.
• 52:15
  As soon as you're starting this work, "Hey, here's an
• 52:17
  experiment we're thinking about.
• 52:19
  It's only 100 people.
• 52:21
  Here's the, the, like kinda blast radius for this.
• 52:23
  It's not very big.
• 52:25
  You know, this is the why." And they're much less likely to reject what you're
• 52:29
  trying to do, but it's like, "Oh, we can't do this because of legal." say no, or we
• 52:34
  can't do this because of sales because they won't wanna confuse the customer.
• 52:37
  You have to include them sooner in the process and explain the why.
• 52:40
  And they also have to have incentives to be aligned with you.
• 52:44
  And I think it takes work, but it's very, very doable.
• 52:47
  It's just don't be surprised when you include them at the end and they don't
• 52:51
  have the context and they push back.
• 52:54
  Nice, man.
• 52:54
  Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant advice.
• 52:56
  And again, brilliant book, and I w- wish you the very best with
• 53:00
  your your Q4, which is c- right upon us the busy season as well.
• 53:05
  David, for people who wanna find out more about your work, your writing, your books,
• 53:09
  et cetera, love your LinkedIn posts.
• 53:11
  David is well worth following on LinkedIn as well.
• 53:13
  Great sense of humor that comes across in your posts all the time.
• 53:16
  But where's the best place to find you?
• 53:18
  Yeah, LinkedIn's pretty good.
• 53:19
  It's you know, you'll find me if you search David Bland on LinkedIn.
• 53:23
  My company is Precoil, so it's P-R-E-C-O-I-L.com.
• 53:27
  I also have DavidJBland.com.
• 53:29
  You'll find me if you need to get in touch.
• 53:31
  I, I'm out there.
• 53:32
  I'm, I'm, I'm pretty visible that way.
• 53:34
  Author of Testing Business Ideas, and indeed this DuPont case, David
• 53:38
  Bland, thank you for joining us.
• 53:40
  Thanks for having me.
• 53:41
  Thanks as always to our sponsor Kyndryl what a unique blend of AI powered
• 53:45
  consulting built on unmatched managed service capability Kyndryl helps leaders
• 53:49
  harness the power of technology For smarter decisions Faster Innovation And
• 53:53
  a Lasting Competitive Edge You can find Kyndryl At kyndryi.com And you can find
• 53:59
  many of the guests Of The Innovation Show At the Kyndryl institute Where they've
• 54:04
  written In depth articles On their fields of expertise Kyndryl.com/institute