Bruce Vojak — Identifying, Developing and Managing Serial Innovators (Part 3 of 3) - The Innovation Show

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
But it's just realizing that theexecutive and the innovator working

(00:04):
together, it really is a relationship.
It's a working relationship.
And it's not,, merely financiallytransactional, although there
are aspects of that, , in howthey're motivated and demotivated.
It's not a command and control.
That'll end it-- I mean, we've alreadytalked about this several times.
That'll end it in a heartbeat.
You know, either the person will stayand shut down or they'll, they'll leave.

(00:27):
And so it's how do you find theright balance of not overmanaging
or even, you know, not payingsufficient attention to the person?
What's that right balance, if you will?
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(00:47):
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Welcome to Identifying andDeveloping Serial Innovators.

(01:08):
In his best-selling book Range,our future guest on the innovation
show, - David Epstein, quotes researchfrom today's book and today's author.
"Toward the end of their book SerialInnovators," he writes, "the authors
depart from stoically sharing thedata and observations and offer
advice to human resource managers.

(01:29):
They are concerned that HR policies atmature companies have such well-defined
specialized slots for employeesthat potential serial innovators
will look like round pegs in squareholes and thus get screened out.
Their breadth of interest doesnot neatly fit any rubric.
They are pie-shaped people who divein and out of multiple specialties.

(01:52):
Look for wide-ranginginterests, they advise.
Look for multiple hobbies and avocations.
When the candidate describes his orher work, does he or she tend to focus
on the boundaries and the interfaceswith other systems?" Our guest's
research revealed that serial innovatorsrepeatedly claim that they themselves

(02:13):
would be screened out under theircompany's current hiring practices.
A mechanistic approach to hiring whileyielding highly reproducible results,
in fact, reduces the number of highpotentials for innovation candidates.
Been there, done that, ashave many of our audience.
It is a pleasure to welcomeback for part three, , author of

(02:36):
Serial Innovators, Bruce Vojak.
Welcome back.
Aidan, great to be back.
I sprung that one on you, man.
You didn't know that Epsteinhad written about you in Range.
embarrassed, but, , gratifiedand humbled by it, I tell you.
That's great.
It's great.
I was delighted share that with you,and I'm gonna... I've surely piqued the
interest of our audience to know what apie-shaped worker is, and I'm gonna leave

(02:59):
that little nugget right for the very end.
And I thought we'd get stuck in, and I'llset you up with some context from the
book because the way you open here is yousay, "Large international corporations
spend millions identifying and developingmanagers to optimize serial innovators'
potential, yet relatively little timeis spent identifying and developing

(03:20):
nascent serial innovators to generate thefuture growth that companies will need.
So this episode will explore aprocess for assessing the presence
of serial innovators within acompany." And you outline in this
chapter methods for identifyingand developing serial innovators
at various stages of their careers.
That's an important aspect.
And the key factors for identificationare assessing how innovators engage

(03:44):
with one, problems, two, projects,three, businesses, and four, people.
Hopefully set you up there, and we'llcome back to that pie shape thing,
later on because I absolutely love that
Great.
No, it's-- Aidan, it's,again, it's great to be here.
Yeah.
You know, I'm gonna reflectback briefly in the, the first
session that you and I had.

(04:06):
about this MP5 model of motivation andpersonality and, preparation and so forth.
we're gonna kinda reframe someof that and say, how do we use
those concepts to identify people?
And there, there are these fourareas that you've just mentioned,
how they engage with problems,projects, business, and people.

(04:27):
And they're kind of a filter thatallow you to identify the people.
And because they're sorare, it's not an easy task.
And, uh, know, so why don't I startby talking about how we identify
them, and then I'll talk about ita bit chronologically too because
I think that's important as wellgiven how rare these people are.
know, I, I, I mentioned how they engagewith problems, and this is really when

(04:49):
they're given, assigned something.
And we talked about thiseven just the other day.
A lot of times they'llreframe the problem.
Maybe they'll rethink itor redefine the question.
But these are people thatare inherently very curious.
They just dig into things, notfrom a deep academic side, but at
just a deep insight perspective.
they're systems thinkers.

(05:10):
They look not only at the dots,but how the dots form patterns.
And they're creative in how they dothat, not going outside the bounds
of reality, but really trying todeeply understand what's there.
And so they really do--they're good problem solvers.
They're good problem identifierseven for that matter.
The next, let's-- I'll say, qualifieror quality that you look for is

(05:32):
how they engage with projects.
I'll distinguish that from problemsbecause problems is how they get into and
try to understand The problem at hand.
A project is more, you know,how, how hard do they push?
How tenacious are they, if you will?
And, do they see thingsthrough to completion?
And, and, you know, you'll begin tosee as we've spoken about this, or

(05:55):
I'm sure you've seen this, that allthese characteristics come together.
Because if you're, if you're tenacious,you're gonna be crossing that
bridge we spoke about the other day.
You're gonna be taking and assumingresponsibility to drive the organization
forward, you're gonna see things through.
And, and that characteristicis not all that common.

(06:15):
Not only just not crossing thebridge, but just being tenacious.
Some people will get to acertain point and give up.
And so, uh, and you have to havejudgment and discernment too.
I don't wanna say that you'rebullheaded, but it's people that really
see things through to completion.
The third, characteristic is howthey engage with business, especially
because the people we interviewedwere, with almost without exception, I

(06:38):
think there was one person who didn'thave a technical undergraduate degree.
And again, not to overly specify that,but it's like a lot of them came from
this engineering or science background.
But it's really viewing that,we're here to make money.
And I know that maybe sounds silly to alot of people, you know, in an audience,
an important statement to make, especiallyin larger companies, because there are

(07:00):
a lot of people still to this day thatcan kind of hide out, really enamored
by the science and technology and, andnot really looking to do things that are
gonna generate a new product or a newprocess that's gonna have that kind of
financial impact that we spoke about.
And then finally, it's howthey engage with people.
They value the other people that are outthere, and they bring the team together.

(07:22):
When we spoke again last time, tryingto weave some of this together, we
talked about how do you build a team?
You know, does theinnovator build the team?
Do they draw on people thatthey need at a certain time?
Or do they get a team assigned to them?
And the innovators are just remarkable.
You know, and again, I, I-- when I'm donewith this, I wanna give you a little bit
of an insight of how we even collectedand, and sorted through this data, it

(07:45):
illustrates this, that the people thatthey valued, you know, they value their
coworkers, they do value the managementand executive management because
they're trying to solve their problems.
They value the customer.
I mean, the very last chapter of thebook, entitled Love Letters to Our
Audience, that was because Tom Osbornesaid that every time he developed
a new product, it was like a loveletter to his customers, you know?

(08:08):
you know, again, I, I don'twanna go over the top on this.
I know I said this in the last session.
These are beautiful stories tohear you see the very human side
of these people coming out whenthey talk about these things.
So, you know, you're looking at,potential serial innovators and, it's
not always an explicit checklist likethis you're asking these questions,

(08:29):
you know, how do they engage withproblems, projects, business, and people?
And then briefly, I wantto just take a step back.
We hadn't discussed this, but the, the waywe conducted much of this, research, not
all of it, but much of it was, in-depthinterviews, you know, extended interviews.
We asked the people, that we surveyed,"Just tell us your story." We didn't want
to hear their philosophy of innovation.

(08:50):
We didn't want to heartheir theory of innovation.
We stayed way away from that.
describe what happened.
And, and that really helped.
That was something actually that Abbybrought from her experience in working
in the business literature, s-socialscience literature, if you will.
And we had, you know, you can imaginejust reams of interview data, and then

(09:11):
we fortunately had some graduate studentswho could cut these little quotes out
and paste them onto three-by-five cards.
And the walls in this roomwe had were like a war room.
They were just covered with allthese cards, and we're looking , to
find the patterns in the data.
And it was from doing things likethat that we began to see, you know,
these four areas, for example, emerge.
Same data also told us the thr- the MP5model, today we're talking about more how

(09:35):
do you apply that MP5 model, if you will.
So that's kind of a, you know, maybe alittle bit of, too much detail, but at
least shows kind of how we got there,which I think s- is, is important to hear.
Bruce, have you not learned by now, man?
There's no too much detail on this show.
And I'm-- I'm-- I gottatell you, I'm loving it.
This is, like, cathartic.
You've found your tribe, man.

(09:56):
You've found your tribe.
.. So firstly for our audience,the book is So deep.
I mean, you heard there aboutthe research students and the
amount of depth of research.
Also, what's interesting is thecross-functionality of skill sets between
you and your co-authors as well thatbrought together, brought a unique view.
Each of you had different specialtiesthat you brought to- the book.

(10:17):
So it's very, it's a very deep book.
couldn't have planned that.
So
I heard it
started
was, an interesting, uh, as you say,I think it was in the preface or in
the introduction, it was somebodyelse who spotted the pattern.
Ray and I were talking in the parkinglot, and we started working together,
and it was a guy at the NationalScience Foundation that said, "You
know, Abby's about a mile away fromyou guys. You ought to talk to her."

(10:40):
I love that.
I mean, and, and that's the, one ofthe things a serial innovator does.
Maybe, maybe he shouldhave been in your research.
But I wanted to just say there's anappendix in the book, so if you are
a HR manager or you're growing yourbusiness and you are, you've got
the foresight to go, "You know what?
We need to develop thisskill for the future.
Maybe right- not right now, but weneed to develop it for the future,"

(11:03):
there's an appendix in there, which isa mechanical list of things to look for.
But in the book, you, in this chapter,you identify five characteristics that
all potential serial innovators have,and I thought we'd just share these.
So one was systems thinking,
Yeah.
two was above average levels ofcreativity, but not extreme levels

(11:24):
importantly, three was innate curiositythat extends across multiple domains,
mea culpa, four, the ability to developintuition based on deep expertise, and
five was the intrinsic motivation tomake things, in inverted commas, better.
Yeah.
I'm gonna reflect back that those,those characteristics in the problem

(11:45):
area alone, how they engage withproblems, are just so important.
mention, too, I think here, becauseI'm not sure if or where we'll get
it to it later, since we're talkingabout the chapter of identifying
and developing these people, that wefeel strongly about that checklist.
And, you know, I think you and Idiscussed that when you have multiple
co-authors, some areas, some willfeel more strongly than others.

(12:06):
And I think I can speak for bothAbby and Ray that, that we all
like what's in that section.
But I'll also say one of the things thatwe recommend is having the innovators in
your organization themselves participatein identifying these people, especially
identifying them either right out ofschool or even early in their careers.

(12:29):
Because they're-- It's kind of likewe talked about this a while ago, I
think, think in the first session,like the sommelier, you know, they're
gonna, they're gonna have-- somebodylooking at currency to say, "Is this
a, a legitimate, uh, bill, or is itfraudulent, uh, counterfeit bill?"
They're gonna see these things and,and I'll say almost intuitively,
they'll see these patterns emerge.

(12:50):
So, you know, we did the reductionist,you know, science approach, you know,
you know, carve out all the dots.
And we feel good about the dots, wefeel good about the questions, but
in the end, it's, it's this whole,the person that we're talking about
that, uh, you're looking to recognize.
You know, it's this word identify, butit's also recognizing these people.

(13:10):
And, and then the whole question becomeshow do you nurture and develop them and,
and see if that first guess is correct.
I love that sommelier.
One of the nicest complimentsI've had, uh, ever on the show
was a guy, Sangeet Paul Choudary.
He's brilliant thinker, wrote a brilliantbook recently called Reshuffle, also
deep understanding of platforms, and hewon the Thinkers50 Award for Strategy.

(13:34):
And he said that, "The InnovationShow is an ideas sommelier."
Love it.
was like, "I love that."
Well, and I,
so
I'm gonna, I'm gonna
you're a fine wine, man.
You're a fine wine.
here, too, even though that I knowthis isn't part of any-- Not that we
scripted this, but I, I, I just have,have loved your show, and I love who you
bring on and how you engage with them.

(13:56):
You go deep in ways that others don't.
So, it's
a pleasure, man.
It's an absolute...
on my part for you, so
it's a pleasure.
I- so we get back
to the, to the, this chapter becauseyou mentioned there career development.
You mentioned early stage development,and you break this, and this is so true.
Like, even when I think back on myown career, , and I, I was telling

(14:20):
you reading the book, you said it'scathartic having this conversation.
For me it was, it was like revisitingold wounds gradually opening
up and salt dripping into them.
But, it's just- it's a v- a visceralfeeling 'cause it brings back those
memories and in a good way as well,because it shows you that you did follow
a pattern that, that is repeatable.

(14:41):
That's the other thing.
But you mentioned, like,in, in years zero to five,
Yeah.
this person gets a break in a way.
Like, I, I, I got a break.
I, I actually, I, 100%, I tell thisto the students I lecture to all the
time, that I tell them that I wouldnot have got hired, I just would not
fit a normal today's system of howto hire me, and actually struggled to

(15:04):
get a job when I retired from sport.
And it was somebody who saw somethingin me, and then gave me all the things
you talked about, gave me interesting...Actually, the way he framed it was, "I
want you to go around the company andlook for problems that need fixing."
And, you start looking for stuff, andthen you come back with these reports.
And I don't think he, he actuallyexpected very much of me.

(15:28):
But you were looking for ways to savemoney, and you're going, you know,
like, stuff at the start, Bruce, waslike, "Those guys are using this water
supplier and those guys are using thatwater supplier. Like, we could get
a group gr- discount if we actuallyput them all together, like..."
And, and in your mind you're like going,"That's just stupid. Why is nobody doing
that?" And, uh, I thought we'd justshare the, the different stages, and

(15:51):
then we'll go into some of the, the wayse- early stage potential in- uh, serial
innovators engage with problems, projects,
Yeah.
business solutions, andthen connecting with people
Yeah, you know, there's-- we, webroke it out, and I think this is...
Well, first of all, we spoke acrossthe book about how these people

(16:12):
usually emerge in about the first 15years of being in an organization.
in this chapter in particular, we tookthat 15-year window and broke it into, you
know, really, we talk about two phases.
The first phase is, you know, kind ofzero to five years in an organization.
And say that phase, you really want tocast the net pretty broad, that you're

(16:36):
not worried too much about gettingit wrong by over-specifying-- or not
o-- , by identifying too many people.
So what I mean by that is, say you lookacross the organization and you say, "You
know, there's, there's probably 10 peoplewe ought to think about developing."
if you think in the end you don'tknow which three are gonna be the
ones that hit it out of the park youreally probably ought to be investing

(16:57):
in all 10 of those, 'cause you wantto see which ones really truly emerge.
It's kind of this Bayesian statisticsof updating your insights over time.
And one of the things that, that RayPrice brought from earlier research
that he did was that one of thebest ways to develop someone is to
give them a really hard problem.

(17:17):
And so early in their career, givingthem a problem or assigning something
that, , isn't gonna be-- isn't gonna givethem a big win necessarily right away.
I think that's really critical.
So, you know, you kind of beginto test their ability with these
problems, projects, business and peopleby throwing them in the deep end.

(17:38):
we can go into this more, but then thesecond s- phase, this five to 10 years,
that's when you begin to say, "Okay,of this, hypothetical group of 10,
these three are really starting to showpromise that the other seven aren't."
And again, I don't think we use thisword... Well, we do use the word,
I think, now that I'm saying it.
We talk a lot in, the business literatureand the business world about, about,

(18:01):
, having someone who's gonna mentor you.
But we-- In the book, we talk aboutapprenticeships and not in a traditional
sense like a machinist apprenticing,but apprenticing as an innovator.
a lot of times this, unarticulable insightabout how to navigate the organization
and how to do things transferredby a very explicit conversation.

(18:24):
It's transferred by working side by side.
And if you've got an active learner,someone who's really emerge like this,
they're gonna just be like a spongesoaking that up, working side by side
with, if you will, the master, you know?
So this apprenticeship role, if youcan swing it, having people work
side by side can be pretty powerful.

(18:45):
And it's side by side with aninnovator, not to disparage a
manager, but the management role isa little bit different than that.
And as the innovator matures, I feltthis one kind of viscerally as well,
where sometimes you have a win.
You talked about one-hit wonders.
So you've had a win, and there'sbeen a huge personal cost there.

(19:09):
I know many people listeningwill go, "Oh, Yeah.
there was." There, there'sa huge cost there, you know.
And to make it real, you're, maybeyou're bringing your work home.
You're, you're s- you'redreaming about it.
You're talking in your sleep about it.
Like, this happened to me, andmy wife's like, "Oh, you were
talking about the project again."And you, you, you're somewhat

(19:33):
obsessed, and there's, there's that.
Then there's all the, thefights you've been through.
What we talked about the last dayalso, about going outside the rails
in the outlaw area to, to get thingsover the line, getting outside voices
to speak in, connecting all thesedots that people can't even see.
And you get it over the line, and you're,you're just, y- the company's won.

(19:58):
You don't get any credit.
You're like a catalyst.
You burn up in the, in the process,
Yeah.
one of the things that happened tome, I got hired somewhere else with,
with, to, for a different role, andthen when they found out what I did in
the previous role, they asked me to doit, and it was digital transformation.

(20:19):
And from the time I had started it tothe time I had finished my previous job,
eight years had passed, and in that eightyears, digital transformation became
highest priority for the organization.
And I knew that the, the differencebetween when I did it the first time
was kinda nobody knew, really knew whatit was, so it was kinda able to be more
emergent, and that was really important.

(20:40):
And I knew that the challenge was gonnabe so big and so difficult, and it was
such a toxic organization anyway, that I,I couldn't possibly go through it again.
So I was just like,gonna go, "Nah, I'm out."
Yeah.
you talked about that, and I, I thoughtthat was really important because
it could be missed that sometimesthe serial innovator just doesn't

(21:02):
wanna go through it all over again.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, they, um, they develop,you know, again, they develop this
insight, this wisdom, this judgment,this discernment you know, are they--
I'll say, are they up to it, if you
Somebody
you know, do you really thinkit's, it's worth the effort?

(21:23):
And, uh, of the things we didn't talkabout earlier, and I thought about it
actually between our sessions, I wantedto mention, it, it ties into this,
excuse me, that, that when they, whenthey decide on a problem to work on,
you know, we talk about how they'reassigned a problem and they, and
they then take-- maybe redefine it.

(21:44):
Many of the people we interviewedtalked about how it was important
to them to pick a good problemto work on, an important problem.
Uh, because it takes just asmuch time, and this is going
to where you're talking now.
Takes just as much time to work on agood problem as a not so good problem.
I don't want to say a bad problem,but you know, one that doesn't have
the same impact or, or whatever.
And why keep pushing a boulder up ahill if it's gonna roll out, you know,

(22:07):
roll back down on you every day and youdon't have that opportunity for success?
So, you know, the people that are--that really do this well, they're not
looking for an easy way out, they'revery realistic about these things.
They're not, uh, uh, inappropriatelyidealistic about them.
once told me that, "Oh,being an innovator is.
a Herculean task," and I was like,"No, no, it's a Sisyphean task."

(22:31):
is.
Thank you.
Yeah, it's exactly right.
But another, another third categoryof capabilities that, and this one's
important too, if you are kinda going,"Oh, yeah, I, I know Jenny from our
company's like that, or Tom's likethat," and you're gonna go, and well,
you gotta understand there's a differencebetween an innovator and an inventor

(22:53):
yes.
that the innovator will be moreconscious of the organization's
strategy, where the strategic fit is,how the bus- that the business needs
to make money from this thing, and ifit's technology, that the technology
ne- has a means to an end, usuallyto make the company more successful.
And overall, pursuing thegreater good for both company and

(23:13):
customers is the right thing to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's, it's very mucha holistic understanding.
Um, and, um, and, you know, again,their innate curiosity is gonna
lead them typically in the direction
the
and, you know, I don't wanna belabor this.
In many cases, um, notinstructed to do these things.

(23:38):
I mean, I think I'd mentioned theother day, um, and if I hadn't, I know
it's in the book, maybe one or twopeople that we interviewed had MBAs.
These were not peoplewith business backgrounds.
They were engineers thatdiscovered what needed to be done.
And, uh, uh, and they jumped into it.
And they-- and didn't go too farwith the holistic view, but they went

(23:59):
far enough to know what was needed,again, to solve that customer problem.
bridge that we talked about the
Yeah, I
last day are snakes and ladders.
I love your chart.
Thank you for that.
No worries, brother.
So I, I, now you're gonna, nowI'm gonna have to show the chart.
I'll show the chart on the screen forthose people watching this on YouTube.

(24:19):
No, it's all o- it's all good.
I'll show that.
I'll flash it up on the screen.
But the next part then, talkingabout nurturing potential serial
innovators, and you'd say by the endof early stages of their careers,
they must have crossed the bridge,
Yeah.
and understand that this is a politicaljob as much as it is as a creative

(24:40):
job, if you wanna call it that.
But other ways to n- or nurture them,and again, speaking my language but
also the language of people on the show,even people are listening to the show,
that proves their curiosity as well.
So one of them is work thr- work tradeshoot, uh, work trade show booths,

(25:01):
Yeah.
and espe- and actually evenjust attending trade shows.
Having budget to go to events, likethat's something that I've seen.
I ran an event last year, and Isaw so many brilliant innovators
struggle, and I funded them to cometo the show, to the event, because I
actually wanted them to have such a,a, a lens-changing experience as well.

(25:24):
And, and that should never be thecase, and the company would not do it.
The other one was to accompanyservice technicians, especially to
customers who have had a catastrophicfailure, so there's usually gold
in there, treasure in the trash.
Work with a mentor from marketingor strategy who exposes them to the
strategies and marketing capabilitiesof the firm so they understand

(25:45):
cross-silo, and then take classesin NPD, new product development, and
commercialization, business strategy,market research, and marketing.
And negotiation, another important thing.
But I, I just wanted to add on that, thatwhen I read that I was like going, "Oh
my God, all those things." I remembertrying to Myself, uh, in a, in a firm

(26:06):
trying to get budget to... Like, Bruce,I ran, I r- I created digital products,
and I wanted to get a course in Prince2,the project management, and it costed
about a, it cost a grand maybe, andthe company wouldn't pay for it, right?
And I... was like, going, "I am wastingprobably a grand's worth, uh, of my

(26:27):
wage every month by being inefficient.How does this make any sense?" And
they just wouldn't do it, right?
The other one was, and this was againtalking to these things in curiosity, and
I eventually left because of this, was I,I wanted to lecture, and I'd been offered
this lecturing role, and they wouldn'tlet me because they were like, Oh.
no, that will dilute yourresponsibilities, and you'll

(26:49):
be distracted," and all that.
And I was like, "I'm, I'm out ofhere." So I-- was gone a year later.
But those two things link to thosethings that You gotta let, let
them develop because there's aconstant need to just, you gotta
collect dots before you connect them
Yeah.
Yeah.
I-- as you're describing this, itreminds me of a story that we, we

(27:11):
didn't put explicitly in the book.
We-- As I reread it, I thought, Ithink this may be a story that I
And
a personal friend and colleague,former colleague of mine, was an
innovator at a mid-size organization.
He ultimately moved intoa management position.
And I love the story that he shared thatin this, you know, kind of, I'd say,

(27:32):
executive level role, he had a group ofpotential innovators working for him,
and they had this idea about-- I'm notgonna remember the details, but it was
something about, some activities onloading docks, shipping loading docks.
they said, to my friend, "Frank, youknow, we got this idea." And he's like,
"Well, I, you know, I don't know." Andinstead of funding the idea, what he

(27:54):
did was he gave them six months anda not unreasonable budget to travel
to the top, like, six shipping docksin the United States and meet with,
you know, the, the key people there.
And they traveled around, and they cameback and, you know, again, this is--
You know, Aidan, this is just commonsense in hindsight, that that budget to
go out and talk to potential customers.

(28:15):
And, they came back and they said,"Well, yeah, our, our solution
is on the list, but it's, like,not number one or two or three.
It's, you know, it's maybe numberfour or five." And, and then
they had some ideas to work on.
And, you know- I don't know.
I mean, I don't know what else to say.
We talk about being, in the best sense,being empathic for customer needs, doing

(28:35):
design thinking, and yet how often dothese things just not take place because
of, you know, questions about, youknow, the $1,000 for, you know, a class
or taking the time to do something?
And, and it's, it's-- unfortunatelythese things play out and, and I don't
know how you convince some people.
I'm convinced, I'm convinced thatsome people are not convincible, if

(28:57):
that's the right way to phrase it.
And, and that helps you decide, as yousaid, when to move on on these situations.
we'll talk about that when we talkabout managing serial innovators.
Gary Klein actually talked about this inSeeing What Others Don't, is sometimes
your budget demands, so stuff you want tospend money on, there's no file for it.

(29:17):
It doesn't... There's no wayto actually expense that.
Yeah.
It, you know, and that's one of thechallenges I ran into, and it used
to frustrate the hell out of me.
So you'd go, "I want to buy myteam a subscription to the HBR,"
so Harvard Business Review.
"Oh, no, no." And I'd go, Yeah.
but, like, that, that departmentover there bring their team out to

(29:41):
the pub every Friday and spend a,
a boatload of money." And I go, like,"And you won't let me spend it on
actually progressing some way?" So th-those are the frustrations, the way
they actually emerge, and it used todrive me nuts, man, the whole time.
But we, we... I was... Let's get back to
the difficulty of hiring in the, inthe traditional process of hiring, and

(30:05):
actually I was thinking and I wantedto say this to you, again, to saying
this to the students, how difficult...
I, I definitely would'vebeen filtered out.
But now AI is f- is fil- pre-filteringCVs before they even get to a human.
Yeah.
I mean, how is an innovatorgonna get through there?
Because certainly the AI's, I don't...I would doubt there's an AI out there

(30:26):
that's programmed to look for andhas trained itself on your appendix
Well, and, you know, not only appendix,but things like, um, you know, one
of the key features that we saw, andagain, this wasn't necessarily a,,
And
we interviewed, you know, we sawthis pattern emerge because we didn't

(30:47):
ask this question, but we saw it.
Very early in their life they hadovercome some pretty significant
challenges in many cases, not everybody.
may have been a hardship, it mayhave been a loss of a parent, it
may have been, a dramatic move.
You know, not a small move, butone that really was impactful
to, the whole family situation.

(31:08):
It could be any one of a number of things.
Many of the people that weinterviewed grew up on farms.
And so this idea of being self-reliantand again, patterns of challenges
are things that, how do you develop aquestionnaire for those kinds of things?
And that's why, this p- relationalview of understanding who these people

(31:29):
are often plays out because you'rebeginning to maybe, you know, maybe
not in the first interview, but if youget to know people, you're gonna find
out things about them very comfortablyand naturally that you wouldn't get in
any kind of a formal screening process.
And I'll go back to something that youraised earlier today, the role of HR

(31:49):
and, and I really wanna be respectfulon this, and I don't want that to
be a throwaway statement either.
One of the big studies that we didin addition to understanding, the
characteristics of the innovators, wehad one graduate student, interview, and
I think he interviewed 60 people, andthey were 20 triads of, an executive, an

(32:10):
HR manager, and an innovator themselves.
And that was, you can imagine, kindof tricky to find the candidates
to even interview for this.
And we interviewed them based on whatmotivates and demotivates these people,
and we may get into this next time too.
it's this whole idea of the roleof HR in identifying these people.

(32:30):
And, they're designed-- You know,really, they're designed for economies
of scale and economies of scope,and they're not designed to pick the
outlier out of the crowd necessarily.
and it also means that a lot of timestheir policies of what they're willing
to pay for people, , and, how they wannaallow people to be managed, it's tough.

(32:51):
And that's a, that's another,you know, another front in the
activity of navigating the politics.
Not that the HR team necessarilyhas veto power, but they really
do influence these things.
the other thing that happens as wellis you see many serial innovators
falling victim to golden handcuffs or

(33:12):
Oh.
the fur-lined mousetrap where theyfind an organization, that organization
trusts them, builds them, they haves- a couple of wins they get them.
They know who they are.
Yeah.
there's a change of leadership,
Yeah.
there's a d- or the organizationloses its interest in innovating,

(33:33):
and that person loses interest.
And it's very, very hard to findsomewhere else that gets you.
First to get in there,it's usually word of mouth.
It's ex- you know, reputationand stuff like that.
But it's very, very hardto build that collateral.
It's, and it's, it's veryhard to even put words on it.
The stuff we talked about,essentially, the connections, The
reputation,

(33:54):
yeah
Yeah, the, and it's, it's, it'salso, like, the people knowing who,
who, what you represent, not by yourtitle, by what you actually represent,
and you're paid well for that.
And if the company really knowswhat you do, they'll pay you well,
but then there's a new investor, anactivist investor, there's a changing
of the guard, or they wanna sellthe company, and all of a sudden,

(34:17):
Yeah.
you're superfluous to that.
yeah.
yeah.
And, and, uh, and all thesethings can and do happen.
And, and you're right, mid-career orlate career, these are, these are,
these are challenges for people, andit can be very frustrating for people.
I mean, we know that, so.
So I, I, w- we're gonna do two separateparts, but I think we'll keep rolling

(34:38):
because the re- and the reason Iwanted to and I call it out to our
audience, I wanted to do separateparts because now we're gonna shift
from hiring or nurturing these peopleto managing innovators for impact.
and I think a lot of the stuff we talkedabout actually is very relevant to
this chapter anyway, so w- we'll keepgoing because people will have context

(34:59):
from what we've talked about earlieron, including those frustrations.
This has become a confessionalwith Bruce, Father Bruce.
and I don't want to be a downer here.
Sorry.
Okay.
so I'm gonna set you up here again,once again, for this chapter.
"By Now we expect that you'rethinking, "We have people like this.
It's just that we didn't know thatthey existed anywhere else." So having

(35:21):
identified these rare but not uncommonemployees, and having gained insight
into who they are and how they work,what are the best practices for managing
these unique, exceptional individuals?
As one innovator suggested, weadvise you let the birds fly.
Look at Bruce's cover of his bookto see about what that's about.
But what does this really mean,and how will you implement it?

(35:44):
That's what we're gonna cover now.
It's full of guidance on besthow to manage serial innovators.
Over to you, Bruce.
Now I'm gonna start with, uh, a commentthat, uh, Ray Price shared when we were
doing the research, and, uh, it's thatthing more difficult to find than a, a
impactful serial innovator is someonewho knows how to manage them well.

(36:06):
And again, that's-- You know, I, I hope, Ihope you've gotten to know me well enough
these last couple of weeks that I don't,I don't mean to be disparaging people.
I just wanna be-- It's the engineer in me.
I wanna just be descriptive,and I think I do at least.
And, and the description is,it's just tough to find this.
Um, and especially when you have what I'llsay is a, a professionalized, uh, approach

(36:29):
to management, executive management.
Uh, you know, I, I've seen, especiallyin large corporations, the training
programs that executives go through um,you know, it's, it-- the professional
management activity is, you know,there's books, there's training programs.
But at the end of the day, we'retalking about a very relational

(36:53):
, management style that has toemerge, , to be the most effective.
and I'm not trying to make this sound toosoft or squishy or, you know, we've all
got to sit around a campfire and be, youknow, somehow bond in some different way.
But it's just realizing that theexecutive and the innovator working
together, it really is a relationship.
It's a working relationship.

(37:15):
And it's not,, merely financiallytransactional, although there
are aspects of that, , in howthey're motivated and demotivated.
It's not a command and control.
That'll end it-- I mean, we've alreadytalked about this several times.
That'll end it in a heartbeat.
You know, either the person will stayand shut down or they'll, they'll leave.
And so it's how do you find theright balance of not overmanaging

(37:38):
or even, you know, not payingsufficient attention to the person?
What's that right balance, if you will?
some guest on the show said to mebefore that innovation is like a dance.
Actually, it was Frank Barrett.
Frank Barrett.
we have that in the book too.
It's a metaphor.
I love
yeah, I know.
It's a
Yeah.
you're listening to the music and
Exactly,
paying
yeah.
to each other.
I love that.
That's what I thoughtabout the, the leader doing

(38:01):
sometimes they're leading, sometimesthey're letting the innovator It's
like you, you lead this dance, a tango,and sometimes you have to step back.
Because I wanna putthis straight up front.
This is not gonna be Pollyanna-ish.
This is not like, oh, you have tomanage the ego of the serial innovator.
In fact, It's, actuallyquite the opposite.
The serial innovator's usuallyvery humble, and actually doesn't

(38:24):
take credit for a lot of the stuff,because actually they don't get
a lot of credit for their stuff.
But I think that's importantto call out as well, Bruce.
It's, um, it's not cowering, if, ifthat's another way maybe to say it.
But it's also not gettingthese, , incentives wrong.
I mean, if you, if you incentivizethe wrong people, if you reward the
wrong people, you don't reward theinnovator with appropriate compensation,

(38:49):
there's demotivating going on.
Because again, we talked, you know, in thefirst session about how these people are
self-motivated to solve customer problems.
a lot of times management and executivemanagement thinks about how we have
to put these incentives in place.
just want to be sure you don'tdisincentivize these people.
You don't want toalienate them in some way.

(39:10):
And, , they don't n- they-- I mean,for the most part, I'd say they
don't need their egos to be stroked.
They really are searching for ashared understanding of reality.
And maybe that sounds a bit toophilosophical, but it's that, that
engineer or scientist in most ofthem, they're looking for what's
this-- what really is going on here?

(39:30):
to them, discovering the reality of thesituation and what that is or process that
solves it brings great motivation and joy.
And so when the executive partners withthem in that discovery process, you
know, it's, it's-- Again, I-- not tosound corny, I'll stop using those, those
caveats, but it's beautiful to read thesethings when they really work together.

(39:54):
One of the things I found was youcouldn't be the carrot of money or reward,
financial reward wasn't often... Yeah.
you want it, of course youdo, but it wasn't the thing.
It wasn't... In fact, for me, what I,I gave up was reward based on outcome.

(40:16):
So it was more I wanted toactually just build things.
I was like, "Look, pay mea better base, and I...
'Cause I'm gonna do this anyway.
I don't want..." Because, andthey couldn't understand why.
And I was like, "Because if you giveme some type of bonus based on some
type of behavior, I'm inevitably goingto bend my decisions based on that."

(40:36):
And, and it's something you call out,and, and, and maybe we'll cover the
case of Demco and Sayak that you, youmention in the book, because you see
that happening, and you see how thereward systems of the organization
dictate the behavior of the organization.
Yeah.
You know, it's, um, the story thatyou referenced, um, you know, I gotta

(40:56):
tell you, we were fortunate working atthe university, we, we had kind of a
ready-made network there in addition toour own three personal networks to tap.
I had gotten to know Dennis Anders,who was the, um, and I think his
title was probably VP general manageror president of this division.
It was, uh, the company SAIC, uh, ScienceApplications, and I'm forgetting what

(41:17):
the I and C stand for, Corporation.
But a lot of independent business units.
So I don't know, like afederation of businesses.
So not highly overlapping with each other.
They each operate very independently.
Dennis was actually originallyhired by the founder of this unit
that was in Champaign-Urbana, AndyLee, an engineering professor.

(41:37):
And, Demeco was DefenseElectromagnetics Company.
and, Andy was an electromagneticsexpert, or is a electromagnetics
expert, able to, - design systemsthat could do identify friend and foe
systems in, , in aircraft, for example.
And he founded this company, and itdid really well Dennis was brought in
to, to manage it professionally, , andthen eventually, Andy sold to SAIC.

(42:00):
So kind of places us where we're at now.
So Dennis is running thisbusiness unit and, you know,
kind of a small to mid-sizedbusiness unit and very successful.
But they became part of SAIC,their financial model was such
that, you know, they're, sending,profits and they're meeting, their,
quarterly and annual financial goals.
But they're all beginning to realizethat, and maybe not the well's running

(42:24):
dry, but, you know, you're not gettingthis renewal, this constant renewal
that, that really innovation brings.
And so one of the things thatDennis did, was because Andy, after
he sold the business, he retired.
Dennis went out and he went back toAndy and said, "Hey, would you, would
you come back for a while?" You know?
And he brought Andy back into thecompany, and he carved out a little

(42:45):
team to work with Andy, and I'msure-- I don't remember the details.
I'm sure Andy had a voicein who was on that team.
they became a little, you know, I'll callit incubator activity for a time period.
And, in fact, Andy used to tell Dennis,"I don't like J work. I don't like
J work." And in electromagnetics, Jis the imaginary number and so, you

(43:08):
know, Andy didn't want to do what hefelt was imaginary work, which was
the more formal managing of it, butDennis could run that interference.
And, um, you know, Dennis, youknow, just a wonderful person.
Uh, you know, again, we've talkedabout this with other people in, in our
conversations, a very humble person.
Uh, and, and not that he'd betaken advantage of that way,

(43:31):
but just very humble, verymodest, uh, about these things.
And he knew that Andy was theguy who could, you know, pump
new life back into the company.
And, and so they set this group asaside, and they worked for a while.
They came up with a bunch of ideasand then, you know, it's something
that we had spoken a-about, Ithink even offline, uh, last time.

(43:51):
You have too many ideas for a while, soyou set it aside, and maybe you bring it
back when you need it, an ebb and flow.
It's a different model, but it'sstill having this management style
of saying, "We're gonna set asideresources and do this." I'm gonna,
I'm gonna tell you, it's not easy.
There's a story in-- You know, I'mgonna confess, if I told this ago,

(44:13):
stop me, and I won't tell it again.
But did I share the storyabout pheasant hunting in Iowa?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
I, I know I had it on my listin my mind when we were talking.
There's a story that was, I think it wasin The New York Times about a decade ago,
and they were reporting on how pheasanthunting in the state of Iowa was down.

(44:33):
And what they realized was that Thefarmers, because they had, you know,
only so much, you know, tillable land,they were farming right up to the edge
of their property, and I think precisionfarming was allowing this to happen.
so they were each optimizingtheir own little, you know,
their own farm, little farm.
They're not that little, but theywere each optimizing their own farm.

(44:57):
were, they were just taking it tothe limit, maximizing production.
And what happened was all this, this,ground that had, you know, grassy areas
and maybe natural trees that could havebeen there for all, you know, hundreds
of years, you know, they were all gone.
So there were no nestingplaces for pheasants.
so the pheasant population plummeted.

(45:18):
Pheasant hunting, which waslike part of the culture there,
was, was really dying out.
you know, I'm reading this storyand I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what
a metaphor for business." And, youknow, we talk about over-managing the
budgets, being over-restricted, and,you know, I'm gonna-- you know, I might
even riff on this for a moment now.

(45:40):
I, I think that we've gone too far inthat direction, and that's not just,
I'll say, someone who's been aroundtoo long complaining about today.
I even think that when we havethese fairs at a business unit or
corporate level where we have--we pick winners and losers, we're
losing opportunities to developmanagers who are willing to take bets.

(46:04):
Because now that's been, that's beendelegated up in the organization, either
to a small team or to some executive.
You know, you want these executivesto learn and develop just the way
the innovators are learning anddeveloping that we talked about
in this earlier session today.
And, uh, you know, how doyou develop these people?
And too much of a tight controlon the budget is gonna do that.

(46:28):
And in the same way I think there shouldbe nowhere to hide in an organization,
there should be places where youcan get things done that aren't part
of the normal... You know, I, I, Ifigured I'd probably be singing to the
choir or preaching to the choir here.
Oh, I love it--
you know,
man.
this, this metaphor of thepheasants in Iowa, I, I
Beautiful.

(46:49):
that story, you know?
It, it reminds me of, um, again,McGilchrist when we had him on.
The whole idea, you know?
y- the, the emissary's taken over,
Yeah.
It's
ex- it's exactly, exactly.
I'm cheering you on, but I agree
I love it.
I love it.
Maybe we'll co-author it, man.
I, I, you ha- like, there,there are little nuggets I love
because I think in metaphor, andtherefore I write in metaphor.

(47:12):
I'm gonna double-click on J typemanagerial responsibilities because
I think this one f- if you're amanager and you're listening to us,
I really want you to understand thisone, because this one is an absolute
energy drainer for, an innovator.
So, in the book you write Dennis,this manager of Andy, the top
serial innovator, he freed him upfrom administrative responsibility.

(47:36):
And when Andy is in pursuit of avision, he specifically asked to avoid
J work, a term he derives from thefield of computational electromagnetics.
In Andy's field, every number has areal part and an imaginary part, and the
imaginary part is denoted by the symbolJ. Andy wants to focus always on, real
work, innovating, not on what he seesas imaginary work, such as attending

(48:01):
staff meetings, managing others inthe group, and worrying about budgets.
To get the most from Andy, Dennisreleases him from J type managerial
responsibilities and allows him to focuson breakthrough product development.
If there's anything that makes you.
not want to work in a company, it'shaving to go through that sh- now,
it needs to be done, I totally get that.

(48:22):
Yes.
Yeah.
But, but when it's, y- you're, like,going, "Well, if I'm not doing this, I
ain't gonna be doing that J type work,then this is gonna be slower, and you keep
giving me crap about how quicker I cango, so you gotta help me here, chief."
And as you say, I, and I, I've heard aboutgiving air cover, but you, you actually

(48:42):
help them fly bel- below the radar.
Yeah.
Well, and I'm gonna quickly addhere too, 'cause I think this
is a place where it's relevant.
I'm not saying that the innovatorshouldn't be involved in current business.
Um, because for example, what I'veadvocated, uh, at times is that if

(49:04):
you've got, if you've got a mid-sizedcompany, let's say in particular, maybe,
let's pick a number, half the time ofsomebody who's your innovator probably
should be working on current business.
that's gonna give them a window to, youknow, current customer needs, current
problems with your product or process,and it's gonna feed that insight pipeline

(49:25):
that's gonna allow them to innovate.
It's really keeping them away from,again, this, this, if you will,
so-called imaginary work, the-- whatis perceived as being bureaucratic.
And I'm not saying that that otherwork isn't, uh, isn't necessary.
I really-- I, uh... And I don'tthink I'm waffling by saying that.
I think that there, there arereasons to report and communicate.
There are reasons to control and manage.

(49:47):
It's just that as we've said, we bothsaid it, when it goes too far, when it
takes over, you lose sight of reallythe lifeblood of the organization.
A few tips here as well, soI'm gonna read out a list here.
So
Yeah.
a manager, you would do this by, one,understanding that their innovation
process will start with a long period inwhich it looks as nothing's happening.

(50:07):
That's so important because I rememberBruce reporting to the board, and I
used to hold back pieces of informationthat were wins in order to be able to
look like there was progress happening.
'Cause I ne- I would plan out theproject and go, "Okay, this is...
Because this thing needs so much work.
here, it's gonna look like nothingelse." So I, I was kind of giving,

(50:29):
like, distractions, like the magician'sdistraction, kind of, "Look over
here while this thing..." Becausethey were, like, going, "Are you
still talking about this project?"
And you're kinda going, Oh.
God."
Uh, so you need air cover on that.
That's one.
Two, having patience with andtrust in the serial innov-
innovator for his or her process.
That's the other thing because whenthey start going, kinda probing at

(50:52):
you, it, it... I don't know if thisis me personally, but it drives me
nuts 'cause I'm, like, going, "I'mdoing what's best for the company
here and you're giving me crap for it?
Yeah.
screw you," you know? Like, No, oneelse is taking on this, and nobody
else probably could, and you'regiving me crap over it," you know?
So three, running interference,I-- love that term, with more

(51:12):
senior levels of management, sok- that air cover, so important.
Four, not burdening the serialinnovator with inappropriately
bureaucratic tasks, J work.
Yeah.
five, this is a really, really importantone, not requiring daily or weekly
written progress reports because itget... 'Cause it's even Do You know,

(51:33):
what I was thinking about, Bruce?
It, it's, it's a brainwavestate that you're not in.
So if you live in an alphabrainwave state, you're kinda
chilled, kinda, you see thingsdifferently, observe differently.
But if you have to move into, like,beta or high beta, this where you're
like, "Oh," and, and, and you'redreading it for the whole week.
You're going, "Oh, it's Friday and I haveto do my report," and straightaway that

(51:56):
day's ruined for you, and you're not gonnabe in the creative mode that you're in.
So I just thought I'd share that list.
Anything to add to that list?
No, I-- You know, one thing that cameto mind earlier, and it's coming back
to mind now, and this is more relatedto the innovator, if you will, selling,
but I think it relates to this as well.
There was one person who shared, uh,very confidentially that he had been,

(52:19):
uh, explicitly diagnosed with ADD.
And when he went to make certainpresentations, he had medication that
he would take would allow him to focus.
And I, you know, I was just blown awayby that, you know, level of transparency
in these, these conversations.
It was just, again, marvelous to hearbecause you're like, "Of course."

(52:40):
This is taking it to the next level ofwhat do I have to do to sell this, but
also what's required by management.
And if you think about it, so muchof management is, is looking to
control and communication I mean,phase gate, you know, I always tell
people phase gate is to instruct theneophyte and to remind the expert.
And it's also to kind of forceexecutives to make decisions.

(53:02):
But a lot of executives use a phase gateto, to control and to get information.
And I don't want to deny them that,but when you're sloshing around in
that hourglass model and going backup to the very first step, a lot
of people don't want to hear that.
I, I of- often, I, I've coachedheads of innovation and, and I say

(53:23):
sometimes speaking to a head ofinnovation or a serial innovator is
like drinking water from a hose pipe.
That's actually...
Yeah.
'Cause they're so full of ideas,but they can't filter them.
They, they can't put them incategories that the other side
Yeah.
appreciate them.
And then they actually kind of go,"This guy's a nut job." Like, you
know, "What, what's this guy, uh,doing in the co..." And then you

(53:44):
start to raise... Th- then you're nowflying below the radar, and they're
And they're
"I dunno if this is agood fit for our company."
on you at that point.
Yeah.
That's
That's it.
They've got target fixation.
An- another thing that happened, andthis happened, you mentioned this
with, with the, De Maco, uh, andSayak, the, Andy and Dennis, that

(54:04):
that f- that team they'd built, thatlittle unit, eventually fizzled out.
And you say here, "It is imperative thata serial innovator's ability to tr- travel
is not hampered, even when the rest ofthe firm's employee travel budgets are
cut or eliminated." Again, this is goingback to what we talked about earlier on.
It's usually the first thing that's cut
Because it's easy, it's easy to manage.

(54:26):
You know, that's a pr- it's, it'seasy to make a company-wide decision
and say nobody's gonna violate it.
And it goes back to when we talkedabout the, the role of HR, I'll
say the role of accounting andfinance in controlling these things.
you need an executive who's secureenough in their position to make
these decisions or can run, youknow, we've said, you know, run cover

(54:49):
or, or have a discretionary budgetthat allows these things to happen.
And yeah.
And it's-- And that's why thispair, the teamwork between the
executive and/or manager, as werephrase it in the book, the manager
and the innovator is so important.
And it's this dancebecause they both get it.

(55:09):
knows that they wouldn't be successfulif they didn't have this other person
floating around in their sphere.
And, and the, and the innovatorrespects and, and values the manager.
That's, that's the thing.
It's not a disdain relationship.
It's this trusting, um, partnership,if you will, that goes on.
I- I've seen it working in companies,and it's brilliant when you see it,

(55:30):
and you see one guy speaks politicand the other person doesn't,
and they translate for them.
It's, uh, th- this g- these guys, nowthey, they won't be recognizable, but
I just, I used to think of them like,do you ever see the movie Twins with
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito?
I love that.
Metaphors.
Yeah, keep going.
Yeah.

(55:51):
I used to think, I usedto think of them as that.
Couple of things.
You, you mentioned their ego, andthis, this is a difficult thing.
Like, if you're a manager and youhave an ego, you're not gonna even
listen to me because the guys say,"Managers who have big egos, need
the limelight, li- limelight, or needto be the focus of attention cannot
manage serial innovators effectively."

(56:13):
That's, that happened me big time.
A leader I had, she, she, and it's whyshe wanted to stop the show, did not
want this thing getting out there, didn'twant me speaking at events, and I, and
I couldn't understand it 'cause I waslike, I, I was like going, "This is
what's right for the company." And it was'cause of this, the limelight, the, the

(56:34):
reputation, and, and ultimately insecurity
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, you know, and I'll mention tooas we're going through this, there was
a project that Ray and I were engagedon, a consulting project that was-- the
book probably had just come out by then.
And it was with a, a large companythat had the system where the

(56:55):
managers and the innovators, uh,competed for the same salary pool.
And they couldn't figure out why, whythey were having these problems, you know?
And Ray and I are like, you know, "Howdo we tell them, guys?" And, you know, in
hindsight it just made so much sense, butto them it was, you know, I'm gonna-- I,

(57:15):
I don't think it's an exaggeration that tothem it was like this major breakthrough,
and they were so grateful to us.
And not just the, the, the innovators,but everyone was like, "Yeah, okay.
Uh, it makes sense." But these arethese structures that get set in place
that, that, you know, okay, I get it.
But a little bit of scratching beneaththe surface and, and you expose these

(57:36):
things that put them in a competition.
You see it all the time.
I experienced it as well whereI, I found out that the CFO And
the CEO were bonused on EBITDA,
Oh,
I'm the head of innovation.
I've got like, I gotta go.
Like, this, there's no way this is...
gonna work because everything's gonnabe so, like, talk about bureau- J work.

(57:58):
The amount of J work you're gonna haveto do to actually get something across
the line is just gonna kill any kind ofheadroom, any kind of pheasant space.
You're gonna have no place to growany pheasant eggs to try and create
something or nurture something.
So absolute killer.
You mentioned that actually with theDemaco, uh, example as well, that the, the
corporate structure also meant that peoplewere putting Band-Aids on stuff rather

(58:23):
than actually looking for new solutions.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, you know, and y- once youget into survival mode rather than,
you know, I'll say renewal mode,and this goes back to this idea,
you know, I'm not a big advocate
Oh.
Everybody has it, man.
Everybody has some version.
I've mentioned this to you, the Japanesetranslation of our book, and I'm not

(58:43):
gonna get this right, but the title isessentially how innovation occurs in
large companies not like, Silicon Valley.
I'm not doing it justice, , butit's saying, you know, you don't
need to be like these startups.
This is how it works in a mature company.
And, you know, again, it's just a,it's a totally different mindset.

(59:05):
And I'll quickly talk about incentives.
When I worked at Motorola, the executivefor our division was incentivized
based on invention disclosures ofall things, which we could never
decide why that was the case.
my direct, you know, VPthat I worked for initially.
And so we'd-- twice a year, we'd setaside a day and everybody had a, everybody
had to write up invention disclosures,even if they were, you know, I shouldn't

(59:27):
say even if they weren't good, but,you know, not everything was good.
And, you know, everybody got, you know,maybe 100 or $200 for a disclosure.
The executive met their,their, their metric.
You know, that's two days out of a year.
That's, you know, maybe pushing 1%of your productive work schedule.
Do you really want to spend 1% to,to generate J work, if you will?

(59:48):
So I, you know-- Sorry.
This Like I said, this is catharticfor me to remember these things.
I thought I'd share a couple, just la-last thing on this, and then we'll share
for those people interested or intriguedwhat we were talking about when we
talked about, , the , pie-shaped worker.
I'm gonna share the comparisonand contrast with recommendations

(01:00:10):
of the great Clay Christensen.
So again, everything has its place, andI also, I, I think it's so contextual.
So Tushman and O'Reilly, for example,would say, oh, you don't, you don't have
a unit away from the sucking sound ofthe core is what Christensen and Scott
Anthony and Clark Gilbert would call it.

(01:00:32):
You have, you have it in-inside the company because
otherwise it's gonna be orphaned.
It's gonna be rejected like abad organ transplant because it,
it, it was not invented here.
The great example being Xerox.
So maybe you'll take us throughwhat we're looking at here
We had, , a list that appearsin these boxes that we

(01:00:54):
I love that
to Abby, Ray, and myself, you mightget different impressions about which
ones, are more effective or more common.
But one of the things that I'll commentabout Christensen's work, and again,
maybe this is the Midwesterner inme, I don't want to bash his work.
I really don't.
I think there's a great value there.

(01:01:16):
Christensen assumes, as you've pointedout, that operating within the system
is kind of destined to failure almost.
what we felt and found was that withthe right management and the right
innovators, you could effectivelyoperate inside the organization.
And so that's the lower half ofthis box that you're showing here.

(01:01:38):
And so Christensen would say, he--I'd say he focuses on the lower left,
and this is the way we've got thischart drawn, that if you're trying to
launch something, a new idea inside theorganization, and without explicitly
saying this, I'd say without havingenlightened, involved management, lower
left box, and it's just not gonna work.

(01:01:59):
The lower right box, though,is saying, you know, we've got
a way to, run the gauntlet.
You've got the innovatorsthemselves that are self-motivated.
You've got the executive levels thatare willing to advocate with them.
It's not exactly the championrole, but it has features of that.
And you've got this, if you will,the lower one, the normal R&D
employee managed infor- formally.

(01:02:21):
That to me is the sweet spot becausethat's the one that I've seen anecdotally
occur time and time and time again.
I don't want to necessarily argueagainst an innovator group, but I will
say that my feeling is, and that's theupper right here, or en-tire-- spin
it on an entirely separate company,is that when you do that, there should

(01:02:42):
be an unartic- there, there is anunarticulated message to the rest of the
business that you guys can't do this.
You know, it's, it's a message tothe manufacturing and operations
group, "You guys are not up to thetask to accept this." And, you know,
nobody ever comes out and says that,but that's really what's going on.

(01:03:04):
I think that for the company toreally benefit from that existing
business unit working within thesystem, if you can swing it, is
really powerful, and that's why I likethe lower right quadrant of these.
We saw the, the, the top two in thelower right, but I felt always that
the lower right is the one that is the,the, if you will, the best approach

(01:03:27):
because it, it, it helps the main partof the company survive and thrive.
You're not just casting it off.
and I, I think that that'swhat's happened and I think
Maybe the cases that Christensencovered, they were the successes.
And I mean, if you, if you lookat enough data, it's like collect
enough dots and they'll connect indifferent ways and, and things change.

(01:03:50):
And I do think that that's actually areason that that has changed since, since
his work as well, to give it full respect.
I thought we'd finish with the worker
Yeah.
Yeah.
So will I tee you up?
I'll tee up a little quote and you can,you can bring us through the context.
So you say, "Serial innovatorsdevelop just the sort of breadth
found in T-shaped people.

(01:04:11):
However, they also develop deep technicalknowledge across multiple technical areas.
They thus may be described as beingdynamic Ts or even pi-shaped workers."
And that's work by Macaulay etal., 2010, Miles and Jones, 2008.
You quote that as well.
Individuals with a breadth of learningacross domains, but with great depth of

(01:04:34):
learning in multiple technical domains.
Yeah, you know, they're, what wewould refer to as M-shaped, you know.
And, and, uh, and, you know, can go evenbeyond that it, with multiple-- But the
idea is they're multiply deep and broad.
And usually it's, significant depthin more than one technical area, and
I'll say sufficient depth understandingmultiple aspects of the business.

(01:04:59):
so, if it's a product innovation,they're gonna know enough about
manufacturing processes and costs.
They're gonna know enoughabout, marketing, not just
individual customer needs.
They're gonna know enough about financeand, how we're really accounting for
this in the company , and does thisadvantage that we think we're bringing
really translate into financial advantage.

(01:05:21):
They're gonna know enough about, aswe mentioned when we talked about
navigating the politics, they're gonnaknow enough about their colleagues
and about other executives and the 20other people they've got to sell to.
And so that M isn't just a chemicalengineer or I'm an electrical engineer.
It's I'm an engineer plus, oh,I've learned, I'm not only an

(01:05:42):
electromagnetic engineer, I'm one whoknows enough about computational work.
I'm one who knows enough about thedesign of aircraft to know how to
do identify friend or foe, to knowwhat structures I'm looking for
and how that translates into this.
And I know enough about the businessor I can access that through working
with my management to get these things.

(01:06:03):
And that's where, we didn't exactly callit pairwise work, or teamwork in the
book, in a way the interaction betweenthe executive and the innovator when
it's the dance that's going on, it'sthe closest thing to pairwise work.
We've also seen it-- I've seenit anecdotally with a couple of
engineers working together thatthey become almost, a new entity

(01:06:26):
in themselves when they innovate.
it's getting those multiplydeep and broad activities.
And, again, this-- in hindsight, andit should all come together this way.
I showed you the charts, magiceyes dots, where you look at
it and you see the, the image.
It's collecting the dots.
And it's, and it's a directedcol- collecting the dots.

(01:06:46):
It's not just me sitting herewatching YouTube videos all day
or scanning Facebook all day.
It's, it's saying, "Ah, you know, I'm,I'm following my nose on this, and
I'm-- I think I have a sense, I havea belief that there's something here."
Eh, belief might be wrong, butyou pursue it for a while, and you
go through this, again, Bayesianprocess of updating your insight.

(01:07:09):
And if-- and if these things didn'tall fit together, there'd be a problem.
that's why, you know, I just lovetalking about this because every
time we start talking about onearea, another area comes up, and it
really all does-- it fits together.
And so the M shape is a, I think, ahandy way to talk about that these
are people that you begin to seeas having these depths of domain.

(01:07:33):
They also have broad, shallowdomain areas, but they're
able and willing to go deep.
Uh, one of the people we interviewed,they were interview-- they were
interested in horticulture.
I don't know if it was, uh,roses or some other plants.
They, you know, they bought-- wentout and bought a nursery, I think.
You know, it wasn't just likeplanting two plants in the backyard.
They would just throwthemselves into these things.

(01:07:54):
Yeah, I was at Chuck, Chuck House.
He had a nursery.
you know what?
Then it would've beenChuck, because I remember
Yeah.
sharing the story, soI bet that was Chuck.
Yeah, Chuck.
Chuck did, yeah.
And by the way, I wanna tell our audience,I'm gonna get Bruce back with Chuck.
So they haven't actually met, so I'mgonna get, um, they can riff over
the experience in the field and theexperience researching the field

(01:08:15):
as well.
And another guest that's gonna come,Bruce will be back again to discuss his
other book with Walter, Walter Herbst,and his book, No Excuses Innovation.
Maybe he'll give us a little previewof what that's gonna be about
you know, no excuses innovation was,uh, was, let's say, Walter's and my,
you know, love letter, we never calledit that, to, small and mid-sized

(01:08:37):
companies, and mostly mid-sized companies.
And, and that mid-size can bea standalone company, it can
be a division or business unit.
some of that is because, you know,mid-sized companies, for the most part,
are the lifeblood of a lot of economies.
And I'm gonna tell you, I, I see alot of those companies just not even
thinking about renewing their business.

(01:08:58):
And, um, and it has a, you know,it has impact on, on regions,
it has impact on families.
And, so we were looking at how dowe make the case to these companies?
And so one thing that we did, andyou can tell me if I'm wrong on this,
but I think it's unique in this book.
We have one chapter dedicated to whyshould you even innovate You know,

(01:09:19):
'cause most books on innovation startwith this, you know, unarticulated
assumption, "Okay, we're innovating,roll up your sleeves, and let's organize
this way," or, "Let's hire these people,"or, "Let's structure it this way." Nah.
You know, why are we even doing this?
And that's this very strategicquestion that we don't even address
in "Serial Innovators" becausewe didn't think we needed to.
And so we start with that, and then it's--You know, I don't call it a handbook,

(01:09:41):
but, you know, we jokingly have saidor we've heard people say rather that,
that if you have one book on innovationon your shelf, it ought to be this one.
Because, you know, Walter, who's justa remarkable world's expert on design
thinking and, and these kinds of issuesof understanding emotional design,
he took the lead on those chapters.
I took the lead on, on processeseven though, see there's a place

(01:10:05):
for them, but, not a dominant place.
And I took the lead on writing thesection on the people who innovate.
And then together we combinedto write about strategy.
And so we just pieced this all togetherand we said, again, if you're in a
mid-sized company and you don't have a lotof time, if you're an innovator in that
company and you want to get executivesto think about it, give them chapter one.
You know, if you can't-- In fact, Iworked with one company and I gave a

(01:10:28):
draft of the book to the owner, and Idon't want to be disparaging, but after
six months or eight months, I askedfor it back 'cause we had a new update.
And I said, "What'd you think?" Andhe goes, "I don't read." Oh, gosh.
You know?
Well, you do.
And it's okay.
I mean, I shouldn't say.
At the time it didn't feel okay.
But, it's how do you get themessage out to these companies?
Because, my view is you-- if youdon't renew the business, you're

(01:10:51):
not gonna survive and thrive.
You're either doing it to survive,and it's an insurance policy,
or you do it to thrive, and it'san option for future growth.
And it doesn't take a lot of money.
It doesn't take a lot of time.
Shouldn't take a lot of time.
It shouldn't-- should never take, amassive investment until you really
think you've got something good.
And then you just hope to findan audience who's able to hear

(01:11:13):
that message and act on it.
That's what we're here for, man.
That's what we're here for.
You, you over-optimize the field
Oh.
leave no space for the pheasant growth.
That's exactly what happens and whywe- this show is about promoting the
pheasants, the pheasants of the future.
And the ph- you know, let'spretend it's pheasants on the
cover of your book as well.
That's right.

(01:11:33):
It's been a, a pleasure, man.
A, a three-part series.
I'll put it all together and you'llsee lots of stuff coming out o-
over the next few days on LinkedIn.
Anywhere people can findyou where's the best place?
I'd say, you know, go to, go to LinkedIn.
It's easy.
Um, if you wanna go to a deeperdive, there's a link to my website,
Breakthrough Innovation Advisors,but LinkedIn's an easy way.

(01:11:54):
It's V-O-J-A-K it's, the Czechspelling and we can discuss
that more another time too.
So that's
Like Kojak.
Kojak with a V.
It's
An absolute pleasure.
Author of Serial Innovators, Bruce Vojak.
thank you for joining us.
Aidan, thank you
Thanks as always to our sponsor,Kyndryl, who runs and reimagines the

(01:12:15):
technology systems that drive advantagefor the world's leading businesses.
With a unique blend of AI-poweredconsulting built on unmatched managed
service capability, Kyndryl helps leadersharness the power of technology for
smarter decisions, faster innovation,and a lasting competitive edge.
You can find out more aboutKyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute

(01:12:35):
at K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L, kyndryl.com.

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Bruce Vojak — Identifying, Developing and Managing Serial Innovators (Part 3 of 3)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bruce Vojak — Identifying, Developing and Managing Serial Innovators (Part 3 of 3)