May 14, 2026 • 56 mins
"I see dead people."
That was Nancy Dawes' answer when Bruce Vojak asked her how she did it. The chemical engineer who took Olay from a dying brand to a billion-dollar product line wasn't being mysterious — she was telling him she saw patterns no-one else did. And the real burden, she realised, wasn't seeing them. It was getting an entire organisation to see them too.
In part two of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak returns to unpack the chapter most innovators learn the hard way: the politics. In over 90% of a mature firm, resources, people and management attention are locked onto today's products. Breakthrough innovation has to fight all of it — for capital, for headcount, for strategic oxygen — and that fight is political by design.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
- The Galileo scenario — why a serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else and sees a completely different solution
- Why politics loses its negative meaning the moment you realise it is the only way to actually serve the customer
- Strategic coherence vs tactical coherence — and the one question to ask before you push any breakthrough idea into your firm
- "Crossing the bridge" from the naïve view (invention is sufficient, the manager will recognise it) to political pragmatism
- The four elements of trust — competence, reliability, openness, concern — that buy a serial innovator the right to be heard
- Why every breakthrough story Bruce found came from an emergent team, not a pre-formed innovation team
- The "Stone Soup" model of recruiting allies one favour at a time
- The Disneyland queue problem of selling internally — you think you've got buy-in, and then there are ten more people behind the next corner
- Soft influence (planting seeds, telling stories, "people tolerate my conclusions but act on their own conclusions") and hard influence (data, prototypes, signed purchase orders, customer pull-through)
- "The best marketing research is a signed purchase order" — the line Bruce still uses as a filter today
- Buckminster Fuller's outlaw quote, and his trim tab metaphor — how one person, properly placed, can move the whole ship
- Chuck House's HP defiance and the line that captures every serial innovator who ever risked their job for the work: "I wasn't trying to be defiant. I just wanted a success for HP. It never occurred to me it might cost me my job."
00:00 Sponsor Message
00:25 Why Breakthroughs Stall
01:15 Meet Bruce Vojak
02:36 Seeing Hidden Patterns
06:14 Innovation Lenses
09:28 Strategic vs Tactical Coherence
10:37 Reframing Politics
11:57 QWERTY Switching Costs
14:27 Owning the Political Work
18:00 Trust and Early Wins
21:14 Crossing the Bridge
30:04 Convincing Many Stakeholders
31:40 Engaging Allies Slowly
33:01 Emergent Teams Not Assigned
38:21 Innovation as Team Sport
39:10 Positioning for Strategy Fit
43:26 Too Many Innovators
44:38 Proof via Purchase Orders
46:25 Outlaw Area and Trim Tab
50:17 Politics Navigation Diagram
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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(00:25):
for most existing companies, over90% of the organization's resources,
people, energy, and management attentionare focused on producing, delivering,
and improving today's products.
This chapter and today's episodereviews some of the political challenges
associated with getting breakthroughinnovations that move the firm into new
(00:45):
white space accepted for development anddescribes how serial innovators influence
their organization to move these types ofinnovations into the development pipeline.
Breakthrough innovations competewith current product lines for
resources and attention, making thempolitically difficult to undertake.
Our guest today callsit the Galileo scenario.
(01:08):
The serial innovator looks at thesame data as everyone else, but
sees something totally different
. It's a joy to go deepdiving into this book.
We were supposed to be actually on hisnew book, but we're still on this first
book because there's so much into it.
It's the book, Serial Innovators,and the author, once again,
is with us, Bruce Vojak.
(01:28):
Welcome back to the show.
It's, all my pleasure, truly.
It's great to have you back, man.
I'm loving this book.
As you know, I keep sending Bruce notesand little cartoons and loads of little
ideas that I come across the whole time.
This chapter is probably one of thebiggest strains and difficulties in
(01:53):
being an innovator in a big corporationbecause initially, if you're naive,
you think it's about ideas, you thinkthe idea is strong enough, you think
there's an onus on the organization toaccept your ideas, and you pretty soon
learn that it's not the case at all.
This is like entering into the mazefull of minotaurs and medusas, snakes
(02:19):
in the grass, snakes in the trees.
It's a very difficult act, andwe're gonna go deep dive into this.
Maybe you'll give us a bit of contextto this chapter because you've
experienced it yourself, Bruce.
We all have.
Anybody who has a good idea, it's verydifficult to get it through to production.
it really is.
And there's a story that I wantedto tell at some point today, but I
(02:40):
think I'm gonna start with it, 'causeI think it'll illustrate of it.
And this goes back to one of theinnovators that we interviewed
in the process of conductingthe research, Nancy Dawes.
She was at Procter & Gamble her entirecareer, chemical engineer by education.
She had worked on things like chocolatechip cookies and Pringles potato chips, at
(03:03):
one point was assigned to work on the Olayproduct and was really responsible for
taking Olay from a really a dying brandto a billion-dollar brand for the company.
But the story I want to tell abouther, and I could come at this multiple
ways, but, she had come to campus anumber of years ago to give a talk.
Ray Price had invited herand she was visiting us.
(03:26):
And so she and I just had lunchand we were talking, and at that
time was beginning to explorehow innovators know what to do.
And this is a whole separatediscussion we may have someday.
Because I've really been curiousabout how the best innovators
know what direction to head in.
And so I asked her over lunch, I saidNancy, tell me how did you know what to
(03:49):
do?" she's looking down, she's eating,and she says, " I see dead people." Okay?
Now, I had not seen the movie "TheSixth Sense," and I'm like who
is this woman?" I knew her, but Ithought where is this coming from?"
And, she went on to explain and she said
I see patterns that other peopledon't see." And it's not to make
(04:12):
this mysterious or too far out therein any way but she saw patterns.
It's like being able to forecastthe weather or anything else.
She sees trends and patterns otherpeople j-just don't see or, she sees
them sooner than other people do.
she said at first, early in her career
she didn't realize that.
(04:35):
And then there was a point at which shebegan to realize, "No, wait, I'm seeing
things. this is real. I'm, not justseeing things differently, I'm seeing
things differently that are good things tosee." And then she realized that the onus
was on her help people understand thatand to help people see those patterns.
(04:55):
And so what started out as a simplequestion and a quick answer, I'm gonna
tell you, we probably talked for 15or 20 minutes about how she progressed
in her career of not realizing thatto realizing it, and then what the,
in the best sense, what her burdenwas to carry in the organization.
(05:16):
And we had different stories fromdifferent people throughout the research,
but that one to me just encapsulates
a reflection of what this looks like.
And it's powerful because this is--This, discussion of navigating the
organization, navigating the politicsof the organization is what truly sets
(05:38):
apart an inventor from an innovator Thereare other things, but in particular,
it's not just creating an idea, it'shelping move the organization forward.
Bruce, we're gonna go through a diagramthat you thought was in the book.
There's parts of it in the book,by the way, but we have a diagram.
We're gonna go through that.
But I'd love us to, to build uptowards it, because there's a lot
(06:01):
of context that jumping to thediagram too early, we'll lose.
And I, am, I'll l- fill in some littlepieces and dots that have connected
across previous episodes as well.
One of them was talking to ChuckHouse, who's featured in the book.
Chuck House, we did a four-part serieswith Chuck about the the Permission
(06:22):
Denied book, the odyssey of being anintrapreneur inside an organization.
But one of the things that I was sayingto Chuck, and I've come to realize
myself, was exactly to your point and toNancy's point, that thing about seeing
things differently means that when youget frustrated in an organization and
(06:47):
you're talking to them, you're kindagoing, "W- like, why can't they see it?
They're dinosaurs, they're idiots,"this kind of thing that we, all
go through as a... And you growout of that pretty quickly.
If you don't grow out of ityou're, pretty much screwed.
But you grow out of it, and you realizeactually they just don't have the lenses.
And oftentimes what I find with manyinnovators, and for people listening
(07:11):
to this show, is you will take timeto listen to an episode like this.
You will take time tolisten all the way through.
So many people write into the showand go, "I listen over and over
to the same episodes because I getsomething different every time." I know
that now, and actually, the librarybehind me, in the early days, I don't
think I would've been able to readyour book as well as I can today.
(07:34):
It's like I've graduated.
I've earned the lenses.
And when you talk to most people insideorganizations, and why I opened up
with that little quote is, they'reso focused on exploiting the current
advantage, or they're measured on it,or they're recognized on it, that why
would they ever deviate from that path?
And why would they go to conferences?
(07:56):
Why would they read books?
Why would they l- read periodicalsabout, or talk to customers except to
see if they're happy with their current
products?
And actually, in there is the problem
I'm just sitting here cheering youon as I'm hearing you talk about
this and ... And it reminds me too ofsomething we spoke about last week.
(08:17):
And I don't mean to overly keep-- Idon't mean to bring him up too often,
but Iain McGilchrist the, two sides ofthe brain the, master and the emissary.
And that's going on here a lot.
I think the people who in particularare very process-oriented, and
(08:38):
I don't wanna criticize that,it's a very important role.
I'm not saying you should eliminate that,but the ones who are so process-oriented
very often just can't, even beginto imagine what this other view is.
and then how do you navigate that?
And it's, it is just not easy sometimes.
one of the first things, when I workwith an organization, I do a workshop
(08:59):
and they're quite surprised becausethe first thing is getting them on the
same page and exposing the gaps in whatthey think they're talking about the
same thing, and they're totally talkingabout something totally different.
And it's a real realization where they'regoing, "Ah." And you talk about the
concept of coherence, and essentiallythat's what you're trying to create,
(09:19):
some type of alignment or coherence.
This is a term that you adopt in thebook and you bring to life a little bit.
Maybe we'll explain that.
There's, And I'll take a s-a little bit of a step back.
There is a need to have whatI'll say different types of
coherence in an organization.
(09:40):
And, these in hindsight mayseem pretty obvious, but I,
like being explicit about it.
There's a need for strategiccoherence and tactical coherence.
And strategic coherence to me means,are we gonna even invest in innovation?
And tactical coherence is, will we investin this particular innovation concept?
(10:02):
And really it's the first question toask is, your company even strategically
open to considering these things?
Because if it's not, you're reallypushing a boulder up a hill.
If it is, at least if it says itis, then it's more, how do I get
my idea through the organizationand run the gauntlet, if you will?
(10:23):
And what, again, what we'll talk abouttoday is in this idea of navigating
the politics of innovation, howdo you run that tactical gauntlet?
How do you help people understand, andhow do you bring the organization along?
gonna quickly add, too before weget too far into this, and this
goes back to being on the same page.
(10:44):
I don't wanna say we get pushback,but some people when they hear
the word politics, they tense upand it sounds very self-serving.
And our intent when we talked aboutthe politics of the organization,
really are talking about how doyou get that coherence, how do you
get that alignment, and how do youbring people along, if you will.
It's not meant to be a self-servingform of politics, which can
(11:07):
often be understood that way.
It's really a a servantview of it, if you will
that certainly comes across in thepeople you've interviewed as well.
I thought I'd maybe explain this aswell, because I think when you get this
next, this is a paragraph from the book,when you get this concept, you realize
that it's not stupidity, it's actuallyexpertise that sometimes gets in the way.
(11:33):
So you write in the book, "Breakthroughinnovations may be politically difficult
for the firm to accept because they raisequestions about strategy in general.
What is the product strategy inthe short term, in the long term?
How does the proposed breakthroughinnovation fit into the current strategy?
Does it change the strategy?
And if so, is this new directionone in which the firm should move?
(11:57):
And answering those questions oftenchallenges senior executives and
requires significant discussion, debate,and political maneuvering across the
organizations." So that's an importantthing, and I was telling you off
air before we started, I've writtenan accompanying article for today's
episode called The QWERTY Conundrum.
And the whole idea is that th- thekeyboard most people have in front of
(12:21):
them was developed for a typewriter,and it was developed to slow people
down so they wouldn't get carpal tunnelsyndrome, and also the keys wouldn't jam.
So it's actually inefficient.
But then comes along the Dvorakkeyboard, this new keyboard that was
designed to actually be more efficient,30% more typing speed, et cetera.
And if you think about, westill have QWERTY keyboards.
(12:43):
We've progressed to keyboards.
We've progressed then to another paradigm,which is a phone, and we still have QWERTY
keyboards, and it's everybody's designedaround that system of that's how you
write and how you go about your writing.
And to actually have to retrain anduntrain and unlearn is a huge expense,
(13:05):
a switching cost for people, and Iuse that as this kind of way that's
what happens in outside organizations.
They're very good at what they do,and along comes the serial innovator,
like Tom Osborne, and goes, "Yeah, Iknow we just launched that product a
month ago, but we could do a b- muchbetter job." And everybody's "Shut up,
we're making progress." And I love itthat, 'cause that, I think when you
(13:28):
get that, you go, "Oh, now I get it.
Now I know the task is at... What'sahead of me, and I know how difficult
this political maze is gonna be.
I often talk about it as being bothan option for future growth, which
I think a lot of us understand,but also an insurance policy.
And You think of Tom's story wherehe had this Really a, reconsideration
(13:51):
or rethinking of what a femininehygiene product should be.
If they didn't do that and oneof their major competitors did
that it's an insurance policy.
to-- You know, so it's notonly growth, it's keeping from
getting knocked off the pedestal.
and it's both.
And that's also why, again, I think inany size company, a small investment
(14:14):
is often sufficient to at least getthese questions on the table, they
really are strategic questions, and youneed people who are able and willing
to put these questions on the table.
And it's not an easy thing to do.
I think it's important,and you do call this out.
You say, "Serial innovators start todistinguish themselves from typical
inventors when they realize that in orderto develop breakthrough innovations,
(14:37):
they must learn how to manage thepolitical processes of the firm.
Politics,
this is what you're talking about, "losesits negative connotation as they come
to value it as a necessary mechanism foraccomplishing what they want to get done."
That, that's a very key point, andsomething that- many innovators or many
(14:58):
people who take the head of innovationrole don't know going into the role.
But it's a huge choice becauseit means that it's not as easy.
It's not beanbags and foosballtables and Post-it Notes.
It is a much different role, and manyserial innovators or many wanna be serial
innovators don't know that, go intothe role and feel like they've failed.
(15:21):
But it's one of the reasons I, likeI didn't know that before I went
into a big organization very, toxicorganization, and you can feel totally
like you're drowning, and I think it'sreally important to call this aspect out
I may have mentioned this last-- inthe last session, but there's two
quick concepts that I like to repeatwhen I think about things like this.
(15:43):
One is, it was a question that we heardfrom one of the people we interviewed.
When they hire people, they wantpeople who wanna do the work that
innovators do, not be an innovator.
And to me, it applies in a lotof places but the politics in
particular is just so critical thatyou have to be able to do that.
(16:05):
And and I think it's a challenge.
It's really, it's afilter for so many people.
I, don't wanna say it's one in 10 or twoin 10 that do this, it's not everybody.
In a, large organization, it's still,I think, easy to hide at times.
And people can have long careers You know,doing, I don't want to say inconsequential
(16:27):
work, but doing consequential workbut not have the same level of
impact if they hadn't taken it on.
The other thing I'll say, and again,I may have mentioned this last time,
is that most of the people that weinterviewed, and it was by default from
the sample that we worked with, had atleast an engineering undergraduate degree.
In fact, a large number of them did.
(16:47):
Most, most did not have graduatedegrees, and just by chance,
it wasn't planned that way.
But they also mostly had engineeringpersonalities, and as I think I may
have mentioned, that you can tell anengineer's an extrovert because they're
looking at your shoes, not their own.
and so this is painful for a lotof the people that we interviewed
(17:08):
because it's just not part oftheir personality to do this.
And then this goes back to whatyou were talking about earlier.
If the organization is is open todealing with data and facts, it
actually makes it a little bit easierfor some engineers to navigate that
because, okay, I'm used to getting data.
I'm used to collecting facts.
(17:29):
I'm used to saying, "Here's the data.The data speaks for itself." And that
makes it-- I, don't want to say it'seasy, but it makes it easier to raise
these things if the organization hasthat virtue of really, dealing with
reality rather than preferences,
. And we'll come back to some of that because you do talk about that later
(17:51):
in the book and tactics to share dataas well and to get the, get the data
into the company, not through you'cause they might not listen to you.
But one of the places I thought we'dstart is this is, and this is so true.
I've seen this time and time againwhen I work with heads of innovation.
You say, and this is talking aboutearly career actions that build trust
(18:12):
and networks through competence.
So you say in the book, "Innovators emergesometime between 5 and 15 years into their
career, depending on the organization'sculture, structure, and size." And often
they have an early win, and the earlywin gives them credibility or trust,
and then they build on that later on.
(18:33):
early wins.
I actually had this emailexchange with someone on a
totally different area recently.
Being reliable in the sense that they saywhat they're gonna do, and they do what
they say, and I don't want to get on asoapbox, but that's not always common.
And so people begin tojust naturally trust them.
(18:56):
They're open about things.
They're honest about these things.
they show some level of I usedthis word earlier, empathy.
But they're people that,
This is probably the negative,stating in the negative.
They're people that not only you don'thave to fear, but that you turn to
because they are so reliable and theyare dealing with facts and reality.
(19:20):
And I, I-- again, I think sometimes itmakes it easier if you are, again, an
engineer in a company that is at least
maybe not a, high tech company, but atleast technically inclined companies
that ba- are based on technologiesto navigate those organizations.
(19:40):
I think it can be more difficultif it's strictly marketing or
strictly something where it's notas, as crisp of an understanding
of what performance looks like.
I was thinking about this, idea of trustis really important, and it made me think
of Joe Bower's work, so the whole ideaof the resource allocation process, and
(20:02):
he talked about that it wasn't an ideam- meritocracy inside organizations.
It was basically middlemanagers who decided on where
the budget would be spent.
So if they trusted you and you had a winfor them before, you made them look good.
So the idea comes along and goes,"Whose idea is it?" And they go,
"It's Vojak in sector 7G." And yougo, "Ah, Vojak, yeah, he's good.
(20:24):
He's good for it.
Give him the money." And I thoughtabout that so much for this part of the
project, and you can be very unlucky'cause you could try the project,
and the conditions were wrong that...
and it failed 'cause ofthat, not 'cause of you.
Yeah, and, oh and again, we didn'tsample on this, but anecdotally,
I've known people in organizationsthat become bitter because of
(20:48):
these things and you know what?
gotta tell ya
I understand it.
I understand how that can happen, andthrough no fault of them- themselves.
It's just the way things play out.
And then know, how how do they use whatskills and, capabilities they have to
still move the organization forward?
(21:08):
It's it can be difficult for some people.
Naive view of how thingsget done in the organization
Where
again, I'm-- I think I'm probablyoverstating the engineering side,
but I think it, it's important hereto use this as an illustration.
(21:32):
Being an engineer by training and Isay by personality you're taught...
What are you taught in school?
You're taught to solve pro-You're given a problem.
That's the first challenge.
You're given a problem, and you solve it.
And over the course of roughly fouryears, you get really good at solving
problems that are given to you.
once you solve that problem, you're done.
(21:52):
It gets graded, and that's the end of it.
And so you go into theworkforce, and what do you think?
I'm given a problem.
Let's go back to thehourglass even for a minute.
I'm given a problem, I solvethe problem, I get a grade, and
let's go on to the next one.
And so you have this view very often,it's almost ingrained or trained into
(22:12):
you to say, "I've done my technical work.
I've solved this problemthat you've given me.
I've given you an answer.
Okay, management, ball's in your court.
I'm done.
I've fulfilled my obligation to theorganization." It's it's not only
your responsibility to recognizethis is a good idea, it's your
(22:32):
responsibility to carry it forward.
And and I get that becauseagain we're, taught, if you
will, almost to be this way.
At least conditioned to be this way.
And
so, even when people are developingthis, trust in their network, they're
(22:53):
often still not getting to the pointwhere they're, assuming that level
of-- that next level of responsibility.
And taking that next step significant.
I don't know, I don'tknow how else to say it.
It's, significant, and it's really oneof the, one of the big distinguishers.
If you-- you can be the, you can be theperson who's most curious, most insightful
(23:20):
most visionary, but until you takethat ownership and responsibility.
And so we at the time used thisphrase and it's, stuck, and I think
it, it's a pretty good metaphor.
They cross the bridge andthey take responsibility.
They take ownership.
One guy that we interviewed,it was a marvelous story, and I
think I'm gonna get this right.
(23:41):
mother was a pIaino teacher andhis father was a car salesman.
And and this guy was just really good.
And he just-- I think he must havepicked this up just being in the
household that he was in, learned howto advocate for things very comfortably.
There's nothing false aboutit, nothing inappropriate.
And what a marvelous set of backgroundsthat, that led him to be able to say,
(24:05):
"Yeah, okay, I gotta sell these ideas."not everybody was like that, that
it w- that it came so comfortably.
But when you see that and you seethe people take that responsibility,
it's a beautiful thing.
And it's, a filter.
I don't know how else to say it.
It's a filter.
And I'm gonna quickly addhere two two, two stories.
One two short stories.
(24:27):
One is
Ray and I were visiting a companyand we were talking to, I think
it was VP level, at least a VPlevel, if not a more senior VP.
And he was expressing this frustrationthat he couldn't get people to,
to be motivated to do things.
And we're realizing, it this is go--tying back to even this MP5 model, if
(24:50):
people aren't motivated to do thesethings on their own, it's really
hard to get them to cross the bridge.
Yeah, the mo- the motivationactually is huge, and again I'm
so interested about how peopleare formed inside an organization.
I actually think one of the reasonsI'm a little bit, a bit of a weirdo
(25:11):
is because I had a career in sportfirst, and I actually came to the
working world quite late, as in I was31, 32, and I had the resilience that
sports gives you, and also maturity.
So if you come inside an organization,I was thinking about this, you come to
an organization, my first experience,I'm sending ideas to the lead- to,
(25:36):
not leadership team, but to, towhere I think the ideas should go.
Don't even get a response.
Don't even get an email back, right?
So I'm the type of character whoare like, "How rude is that?"
And I'll push back, and I'll tryand find a way, and I'll keep going.
But this is how most... If you think ofsomebody who's onboarded as a junior,
(25:57):
they're learned that's the way thingsare around here." And then you learn,
and these are the three things youcall out, that invention is sufficient.
That's number one.
Yeah.
Number two, managers have theresponsibility to recognize the value of
the invention and to see that it is usedeffectively inside the organization, two.
Three, if an invention is sufficientfor acceptance and the next steps are
(26:19):
the responsibility of the manager,it's reasonable to in- to conclude
that nothing more is expected of thetechnologist or the ideat- or the person
who comes up with the ideas, and allresponsibility for development and
commercialization passes to someone else.
And when you go through those stepsas a junior person or a, you're hired
into an organization, you then getformed that way, and you go that's
(26:43):
the way we do things around here.
I don't do ideas, I do execution." Andyou can see how an organization creates
a culture by that. But the weirdos, thepeople who see the world differently,
people who see dead people, go,"Actually, it's all on me to do this.
If I actually want to go and push thesethings through, I'm gonna have to find
(27:06):
a way to-" Position the idea find aco- a coalition, find air cover, find
customers who actually want this, andit's that. So it's a very unique type
of person that survives that onboarding.And like you say, the pIaino the son
(27:29):
of the pIaino teacher and the used carsalesman I, was picturing them there
"Okay, I've bought five cars off my dad.
I'm gonna advocate for myself."I've used up all my pocket money.
I gotta do something about this.
I, and y- it's, true.
S- something different in your upbringingor your education or your enfant terrible,
(27:52):
you're the unhappy child the, kid whojust is asking questions in school and
being told to shut up by the teacher.
It, there's something in there thatcreates you to be this type of person.
I think there is.
And this-- we could spend an hourjust talking about is it nature or
nurture, and I think some of these
Bruce,
(28:15):
as you spoke.
One is, if we go back to the chart, thestage gate chart that we talked about
last week, where there was inventor,champion, and implementer, and then
the serial innovators crossed those.
This is clearly illustrating theinventor versus champion roles and also
to a certain extent, the implementer.
And and we do operate in silosfunctionally, organizationally.
(28:39):
They're, designed that way.
you're right, I think it, it imposeson people something that is never
really discussed, but it's the realityof the organizational structure.
yet and, this is one of the recurringminor themes that I like to raise, is that
people who are serial innovators, they'redoing innovation the way it would've been
(29:01):
done before any of our books were written.
They just say, "There's a problem.
Ah, I'm gonna really--I'm gonna obsess about it.
I think I'm seeing something.
I'm gonna pursue it.
I'm gonna try to make it happen."And to me it's refreshing.
It's almost liberating to sayall these books are right, 'cause
(29:22):
they are describing pieces of it.
at the end of the day, it's a verypeople view of how things work.
And you got people whoare motivated to do this.
And I I don't wanna sound corny, butI think it's beautiful 'cause th-th--
'cause th-these people just emerge inplaces and times that can be so impactful
(29:44):
for an organization, for everybody.
I was thinking about what you weresaying crossing the bridge, and I had
created a cartoon of a bridge, and itwas full of, like, ogres and, like,
trolls and stuff that you had to get past
than I would've thought, but I like this.
But here's one of the ogresy- you quickly discover.
So I often think of this one, I callit the Disneyland queue problem.
(30:09):
So anyone who's been to Disneyland, youthink you're at the top of the queue,
and then it turns around a corner.
You're like going, "Oh my God, we'reonly at the first corner here." And one
of the, one of the things that happensas a serial innovator is you talk about
this one serial innovator who describeda conversation with his manager in which
the manager said, "You have me convinced.
(30:31):
Now you need to help me convincethe larger set of other people."
And for virtually all breakthroughinnovations, gaining acceptance
for the project is a matter ofconvincing many people, not just one.
And sometimes you think you're thereand you think, "Yes, got it over the
line." And next thing you go, no, there'sanother 10 people you have to get in here.
(30:51):
And, it's those little...
Y- you have to go through tounderstand how, gut-wrenching
that is when that happens.
But calling it out makes youat least be able to plan for
it when it comes down the line.
by it.
And in fact, all those 10 otherpeople, they probably have 20 different
triggers th-that you need to address.
Two for each.
(31:12):
And so it's customizing in many cases,especially for the more important
ones, the ones managing resources.
It's a wonder that thesethings even happen sometimes.
And it's not surprising when they don't.
As we said earlier on,sometimes these ideas, they just
escape from the organization.
Or el- or else, I'm sure you'veseen it, I just go, "You know what?
(31:33):
I've had enough.
I'm gonna do it myself.
I'm gonna get funding.
I'm gonna build this idea, andI'm gonna be a competitor." We've
seen that time and time again.
But I ta- I, mentioned therethe idea of snakes and ladders.
Some of the ladders Ithought we'd talk about.
The, first one, so these are theones that are accelerate you.
These are like when you're inSuper Mario Kart and you get that
coin that makes you go extra fast.
(31:55):
So the first one is engaging people,so to get participation and buy-in.
And I'll tee you up here.
You say, "Serial innovators are askingcolleagues for favors with only their
trust and goodwill as their currency,as well as their contagious excitement
about the idea, these are theirbargaining tools. Allies are created
one at a time by making direct requestsand selling the potential for the
(32:19):
project." That's, a difficult thing aswell, and something this many serial
innovators do naturally very, very well.
But it's a slow process.
And again, you think you're g-you're been hired as a head of
innovation, you're gonna be out
heard of, out of the blocks and startcreating ideas, but it's this slow
step-by-step process that you go through.
(32:44):
children's book called "Stone Soup"?
Yes.
Yeah, exactly
The-- What do they come to the,what do they come to the party with?
They got three stones and a big bucket anda pot of, or a pot of water and a fire.
They get people involved.
And the best ones engage that way.
The other thing that, that in myanticipating our conversation today,
(33:07):
I wanted to point out, because I thinkthis is a good place to do it, is that
in engaging others, and I don't thinkwe call it out explicitly in the book,
the innovator themselves may not behired as the director of innovation.
We're really talking about people inthat organization for the most part.
They, attract these otherpeople to the project.
(33:29):
And this really calls into question, howdo you structure a, an innovation project?
And there is this tendency onexecutive management's part at
times, not everybody, but a lotof them, form-- to pre-form teams.
gonna put again, I don't know enoughabout rugby, but I actually had a
boss who was a Welsh rugby player,a amateur player, so I heard a bit.
(33:52):
But you have certain positions and soyou, if you will, recruit those positions.
But that always the best way toform a team when you don't even
know exactly what you're doing?
And so these-- the people that emergeas innovators, they would bring
people on to the project, if you will.
(34:12):
And I say bring them on,that sounds too formal.
it doesn't really accurately describe it.
They'd get people engaged asthey needed to be engaged.
Tom Osborne's story, he wanted to make,I don't know if it was a sample of 50
or, 100 of these products to test them.
needed to get somebody inthe lab to do him a favor.
And the two of them worked side by sidebuilding some of these, samples by hand.
(34:37):
it wasn't that anybodyassigned that person.
In fact, he was doing itunder the radar at the time.
It's a different view of organizationalstructure versus what I'll say almost
inside out or an emergent behavior.
And and the pattern man Igotta be careful saying this.
(35:02):
Someday, like a year from now after we'vetalked about this, I'll want to hear
from you to say, how many times haveyou heard stories where the pre-formed
innovation team created the breakthrough?
And it and I f- I almost feelbad saying this 'cause I don't
have, I don't have data for it.
But I'll tell you, every story weheard, it was not a pre-formed team.
(35:26):
And, I know of a lot of pre-formedteams, and I know a lot of people who
are, hired for innovation directorand I don't wanna knock those.
But, you've gotta ask yourself, areyou looking for the people who can
make this happen, or are you gonnatake ownership of that yourself?
And if you're gonna take ownership,you have to get it right.
(35:49):
And I don't know if this is gonnasound heretical or if you're seeing
these patterns too, but again, a yearfrom now, I'd like to hear from you
to see if this is what you see too.
now if you want.
There's a, a brillIaint quote by ClaytonChristensen, it's like, "Almost always
disruptive innovations," I'm, I'm
paraphrasing now, "come- don't comefrom a single department or silo. They
(36:11):
come from a mix of those departmentsor silos, or people that have never met
before." And it's the neurodiversity.
B- and also, we talked about coherenceas in energy coherence before.
I genuinely, think it'san energy connection.
It's people who want to do things whoare at the same kind of level of, energy.
(36:33):
They emit the same energy.
They, see the same things.
They're on the same page.
And that's very difficult whenyou're in the same team to
to do those kind of things.
But one of the things I just wantedto call out on that is you say
sometimes you get assigned a team.
So I've seen this before.
(36:54):
You get given people.
Chuck talked about this.
He ended up getting Andthey weren't, great people.
D- they were dregs people, didn'twant, people who had bad attitudes.
And you talked about Frank,the heavy commitment heavy
equipment serial innovator.
We didn't talk about him.
Maybe you'll give a better context on him.
(37:15):
But he, got his team to make a quilt.
And he was assigned a team bymanagement rather than hand selecting
them and, you call out y- this.
You say this can be difficult becausein his case, it was even worse 'cause
it was a government body, and theyweren't accustomed to doing hard work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and and there, thisgoes back to motivation.
(37:35):
'cause usually when you're recruitingpeople a, lowering of that energy barrier
yeah, I, I kinda like what you're saying.
I'm bought into that,and yeah, I'll help you.
I'll make a few of these.
I'll test this for you.
but when you're assigned people-- And thatwas, again, and I hate to keep using this
phrase, that was a beautiful story too.
In fact, I gotta tell you, if we hadonly interviewed these people and we
(37:58):
never wrote a book, it would've been avery enjoyable process because you're
you're, you lift the screen on howthese things happen behind the scenes.
But yeah, in that case, he he had themeach create a little part of a quilt.
They put it together, and theyshowed how the group operated as
a whole, and he was looking to getpeople to be more part of the team.
(38:21):
I hear people, I trust and respecttalk about innovation as a team sport.
I, often ask them, "What sport is it?"
Because think about it.
Different sports, different teamsare formed in different ways.
And in American football, the quarterbackor American baseball it's the pitcher
(38:41):
are, the focus of these teams.
Other teams, I think, are a bit morefluid and a bit more evenly spread.
What kind of team is this?
And is it pre-formed or is itformed if you will, on the fly?
And 'cause I do not disagree withit being a team sport, but I think
that metaphor carries with ita lot of, preconceived thinking
(39:02):
that we should at least understand
Yeah, and, and the skillsneeded for depend on the
project that's in front of you.
Speaking of which, you talk aboutpositioning the project and that every
product commercialized needs to fitinto the strategic context and goals
of the organization, and sometimeshow the potential breakthrough product
(39:23):
fits with the rest , of the productlines or the company's existing
strategy is not always obvious.
So therefore, a political task forthe innovator is to position the
new breakthrough so that others canunderstand how it fits in the first place.
Because if you don't do that, they'regonna get it all, like, "He's just coming
up with crazy ideas," or, "She's coming upwith crazy ideas," and they'll dismiss it.
(39:46):
I thought this one was really importantto call out that first you need to
know a strategy before you can actuallytry and fit the other idea to it.
And then the flip side, which I wastelling about Gary Klein's book,
Gary we had on the show before,is seeing what others don't.
He talked about, well, sometimesyou'll find a brillIaint idea
(40:07):
and there's no file for it.
There's no filing cabinet to putthat idea because it doesn't fit,
but it's a brillIaint idea, butit's not what we do around here.
And that can be frustrating whenyou stumble upon those genius ideas.
And as you're describing this, it's re-or you're reminding me of a story Nancy
Dawes, who I mentioned earlier, shared.
(40:29):
was working on a project, and shehad some just really good insight.
she brought it forward to herimmediate manager, and it really
didn't fit in terms of timing.
and this is where I'm not gonna rememberexactly if she fully set it aside, put
the technology on the shelf, or if shecontinued to work on it a bit quietly.
(40:51):
Because most of the serial innovatorscould get their job done in let's say
some fraction of the time required,and they would use the other time
learning and developing other things.
But I don't know if it was six oreight months later, they came back
to her and said Nancy, rememberthat and then the timing was right.
And that's part of positioning too.
(41:12):
It's again, and I think it also is part ofseeing things that other people don't see.
She knew to anticipate this.
And I don't wanna say that allthese people are superhuman
because that's not fair to them.
I don't wanna overly idealize the stories,but the patterns were pretty unescapable
that that they saw these things.
(41:33):
And that was part of the deftnessof how they navigated it.
It was-- wasn't just, "I've gotan idea, I gotta sell it," and
they're out hammering people.
"Okay, we'll work with you."
I wanna remind our audience here, agreat episode we did was w- on the Nokia
series, which is still ongoing, thatseries, but it was with Timo Partanen.
He was the guy, Bruce, who presentedto senior management, head of market
(41:57):
intelligence, the document aboutthe iPhone a year before the iPhone
graced the stage in California.
And I, was asking him just thelittle nuggets of stuff, and he said
one of them for me, one thing thatcame to mind was they were giving
away a music subscription servicefor free as part of the Nokia deal.
(42:17):
So you could download... Back then, itwas download a physic- like a, software
MP3, and you could add it to your phone."
He said, "We had Spotify, but wejust didn't have any way to even
think about Spotify as a service.We could've sold that. We could've
created it, but..." And I, and this iswhere this all came together for me.
If you don't have a lens or afiling cabinet, a mental filing
(42:43):
cabinet to go, "Oh, that's asubscription service that works.
That could actually be a product inthe future." If you don't have that
skill set or capability inside anorganization, you're missing ideas
all the time, and I, actually, I callthe article Filing the Future Under
the Past, 'cause you revert to yourexisting mental filing cabinet and go...
(43:03):
By default.
Yeah.
Almost always.
Yeah.
So I just thought that was an i- that,that came to mind as I was reading this
book, is that- You want a strategic fit,but then you have that Nancy problem
sometimes that you go, "Yeah, but thisis a great idea. The technology mightn't
exist yet, or we have too much going on atthe moment. I need somewhere to store it."
(43:25):
Yeah . I think,
As you mentioned, too muchgoing on at the moment.
I'm gonna quickly add, one of the mostchallenging questions that I've been asked
when I-- whenever I've given talks is,"Can you have too many of these people?"
And and my default is always no you can't.
And partly it's because so rare thatdoes too many mean you've got two
(43:46):
instead of three or two, two insteadof one or five instead of three?
I don't know.
But there probably is a pointwhere you can have too many.
And and again, it's part of this what's,the organizational appetite for this even?
I agree you can have too many, 'causeyou don't want too many dreamers.
(44:06):
You get nothing done.
you can have too Many.
That's the point.
If
Yeah.
If they're just inv-inventorsand they're-- they become the
curmudgeons in the corner, yeah, youcan always have too many of them.
But the truly, the serialinnovators, can you have too many?
And I, don't know.
I don't-- I, don't know yet.
I'm-- That-- I'm still--
(44:27):
I'm inclined to say no, butit's, I'm thinking of really
the exemplars at this point
... And you covered successful
ones.
There's so many who didn't make it,the survivorship bias challenge.
Yeah.
couple of little tips herethat are really useful.
So you talked about assembling supportor creating data to support your
idea, and one of the things, and thenwe talked to Chuck House about this.
(44:51):
One of the things he did was gettingcustomers to accept the idea before the
idea was accepted by the organization.
And as you say in the book, one serialinnovator said, "The best marketing
research is a signed purchase order."This is one of those underhanded
tactics that you have to use sometimes.
And I've u- I've done this kind ofstuff, Bruce, and it, you feel a bit
(45:15):
duplicitous doing this kind of thing.
But it's like, collateral damage in the,for the greater good of the organization
something that doesn't exist,I might have a problem with it.
But if you're selling somethingthat can exist that really is a
viable product concept, I thinkit's marvelous because it's a pull.
(45:37):
It's, a way to get management attention.
And I think that question in general aboutdo you have a signed purchase order or
someone willing to pay for I regularlystill use that as a filter when I talk to
people because there are a lot of ideasout there, but they're not a lot of ideas
that really stimulate someone to buy.
(45:58):
I know I fall into thiswhen I evaluate ideas.
"Oh, it sounds like a great idea." Andthen I think, "Ah, am I gonna spend the
time to actually use this if I buy it?
I don't know." thatpurchase decision is huge.
Just to be clear, I don't meanbeing duplicitous to the customer.
I mean more
To the organization.
(46:19):
yeah, you kinda
And I didn't take it asyou were being dupli-
duplicitous
to the customer, more to the organization.
To the organization you can feel andit's a little bit like, "Man, this
could get me in trouble." And there'sa quote I love by Buckminster Fuller,
and I, lived by this quote, "All humanadvances occur in the outlaw area."
(46:42):
I love that quote, 'cause itspeaks to this, 'cause sometimes
you have to break the rules.
You're not doing anything, you'renot breaking the law, but you have
to break the rules, and there aretimes when the potential customer and
organizational benefits of pushing aproject outweigh the personal risks.
And we saw this again with Chuck.
Chuck said this, that henever even thought of that.
(47:05):
He, was so focused on doing what wasright for the organization, he never
thought that he could lose his job.
And was, as we saw in part onewith Tom Osborne, he nearly
lost his job three times.
Yeah.
You mentioned Buckminster Fuller.
I'm gonna quickly if you will,riff on that for a moment.
You've heard the trim tab, story?
I love that,
(47:27):
And again, I think I'm gonna get thisright, but basically my understanding
of a trim tab is that if you'vegot like an ocean-going ship, ship,
it's got a rudder, steer the rudder.
You steer a little tab at the end ofthe rudder, and then that moves the
rudder, and then that moves the ship.
(47:48):
And so the serial innovatorsare a bit like that trim tab.
And, I to me, I love that because it's oneperson has a small can do a small thing,
but that can turn a huge ocean liner.
And in a way it's the power ofthe people who know how to move
an organization or move peoplethat can move the organization.
(48:11):
man.
That's, going in the blog someday.
that's another one I'vesearched, and I don't know if
I found it on the ocean liner.
That's the way I heard the story.
But he-- I know he, heidentified as trim tab at times.
It might even be on his,tombstone, his grave marker.
"I am
-trim tab,"
made me think of the gaffe the scale.
(48:32):
You're, you wanna tip the s- oddsin your favor, actually tip the odds
in the favor of the organization.
That's ultimately what you're doing.
This is the great tragedy of it.
I found a quote byChuck House, by the way.
He said, "I wasn't tryingto be defiant or..."
H- I'm not gonna be able to say thisword, 'cause I've never even heard of it.
"Ostreporous."
(48:52):
Yeah.
Ostreporous.
trying to be a jerk.
" Yeah, I just wanted s- success for HP.
It never occurred to me that it couldcost me my job." that's the thing.
You're... Like, I talked toyou about this before, and I
said it on that first episode.
You're, getting punished fordoing the right thing, and that's
actually the most hurtful thing.
(49:13):
When you do get a slap on the wrist,you're going away kinda going, "I
actually care in th- in..." And ifyou were to actually zoom out, you'd
go, more than most people insidethe organization, 'cause I'm risking
a lot to do what I think is thebest thing for this organization.
And I have to go and go out to the outlawarea, get customers to send in requests
(49:36):
for this product, whatever, f- cajolingand trying to influence the trim tab,
and it's a, dangerous and lonely place.
moving stories?
When I hear what you just des-described, not to sound corny, my heart
soars when I hear things like that.
And to me it's this-- it goesback to being a very personal
(49:59):
human endeavor that innovation is.
It's-- We take it out of the... Again,not that these, processes are bad,
but we take it out of the processand return it to the fact that it's a
human very personal act of discovery.
Absolutely, and the verylistener to this show as well.
Bruce, I thought we'd finish with thediagram, . gonna share on the screen,
(50:21):
for those who've been joining us thewhole time this diagram, which is
Navigating Organizational Politics,and I'm just gonna hand it over to
you, Bruce, to take us through it
thank you.
You start in the upper left,and this is this naive view.
And I should quickly add this,combines elements of time
evolution and also activity.
(50:43):
So there's a lot going on in thischart, but it does combine a lot
of things, I think, in one place.
Almost everybody comes withthis naive view, "It's not my,
it's not my job," basically.
they get to the point where theyrealize if they're-- if they wanna have
impact, as we've said, they cross thebridge and they accept, and they're
(51:03):
willing to try to influence people.
So that's the first upper left tothe second upper left sphere, moving
from upper left to one sphere in.
once they accept that they'rewilling to influence, they'll apply
just various influence techniques,and they apply them flexibly.
They use discernment when theyapply them, so they might as we've
(51:26):
talked about, they engage otherpeople, they position the project.
uge-use what we refer toas hard and soft influence.
And by hard and soft, we meant morequantitative versus qualitative.
Not hard in terms of clubbingpeople, but hard in terms of,
providing data, if you will.
they apply these as thesituation dictat-dictates.
(51:49):
And as they do that, this is howthey build they build trust they,
they develop their network of people.
They're very often seenwidely in the organization.
And by doing that, at the very top ofthis, you have the organization and
you're moving the organization forward.
And so it's this, flow, if youwill, of, "It's not my job," to, "I
(52:15):
have to take ownership," to, "I'mgonna learn and develop how to do
this in a very appropriate way,organizationally appropriate way.
gonna begin to build and develop moretrust with others, and I'm gonna move
the organization forward." And itencapsules all of this in one chart.
And as I said, I was embarrassed asI was going back through my notes.
(52:37):
I've used this chart for years.
I thought this chart was this wayin the book, and it's not one of the
figures, but it combines aspects of twofigures, and then it adds to it as well.
And someday I'll talk to Ray and Abby tofind out why we didn't use this, image,
but that's a whole separate conversation,
special, unique, unique chartfor the Innovation Show.
I, I was comparing this one in myhead to the previous chart that we
(52:59):
did, and the other one goes downwards.
It's,
It's
it's a birthing.
A birthing, as you said.
This one's more of a transcendence.
It is.
Yeah.
I like that.
That's good.
I-- You're adding new visuals and,thoughts to this, so I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
Bruce, so we're gonna come back forpart three of our, fuller pieces.
(53:21):
What are we gonna discuss on part three?
What, have we got ahead for our audience?
time we talked about who are these people?
How do we begin tounderstand who they are?
How do they operate?
Today, we talked really entirely about howthese people navigate the organization,
Fantastic.
They are and how they succeed.
(53:43):
time we're gonna talk about itfrom a managerial perspective.
And what I wanna begin to if you will,tease you and your listeners with is
that, the people who are doing thismuch rely on executive management,
they rely on good executive management.
And I'll probably mentionthis again next time.
(54:04):
Sometimes the more the-- it's moredifficult to find somebody who knows
how to manage these people thanit is to find a serial innovator.
And that's a pretty, it's apretty powerful statement.
And we'll talk a bit about how to the,best identify and develop the people.
So this is again, the complimentary viewof, the innovator and their manager.
(54:27):
We'll talk about how they identifyand develop them, and then how
they manage them for success.
And you a little teaser, too, thaton the cover of the book and Ray and
I and Abby did-- Ray and Abby and Idid not come up with this, but the
cover of the book a bunch of birdsflying, and one is a different color.
One of the quotes we heard was,"The best managers let the birds
fly." these self-motivated people.
(54:49):
saw the cover, we're like, "Oh, manwhy didn't we think of that?" and
I gotta hand it to the people atStanford University Press for, just
grasping that and running with it.
And so we'll talk aboutthe manager's perspective.
I wanna leave you with today, andI wanna come back to next time, is
that you're an innovator and you'relistening to this and you want to be
(55:11):
encouraged for what to look for, andif you want your manager to listen to
something, them to the next episode.
Because I think there's a different--an additional audience that will
benefit from that episode as well.
And I totally got the cover, by the way.
I was gonna ask you about thecover 'cause one of the things you
(55:32):
could've done with the cover is hadthe orange bird facing the different
way could the, from the bluebirds.
And I was like going, "Well,that's not the goal. The goal
is actually to bring them withyou," and that's what we discussed
today in the Navigating Politics.
Bruce,
absolute pleasure.
Author of Serial Innovators, BruceVojak, thank you for joining us.
Thank you
Thanks again to our sponsor, Kyndryl,who run and reimagine the technology
(55:56):
systems that drive advantage forthe 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 about Kyndrylat K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L, kyndryl.com.
Before we start, I wanna thankour sponsor, Kyndryl, who runs
(00:02):
and reimagines the technologysystems that drive advantage for
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 Kyndryl and the KyndrylInstitute at K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L, kyndryl.com.
(00:25):
for most existing companies, over90% of the organization's resources,
people, energy, and management attentionare focused on producing, delivering,
and improving today's products.
This chapter and today's episodereviews some of the political challenges
associated with getting breakthroughinnovations that move the firm into new
(00:45):
white space accepted for development anddescribes how serial innovators influence
their organization to move these types ofinnovations into the development pipeline.
Breakthrough innovations competewith current product lines for
resources and attention, making thempolitically difficult to undertake.
Our guest today callsit the Galileo scenario.
(01:08):
The serial innovator looks at thesame data as everyone else, but
sees something totally different
. It's a joy to go deepdiving into this book.
We were supposed to be actually on hisnew book, but we're still on this first
book because there's so much into it.
It's the book, Serial Innovators,and the author, once again,
is with us, Bruce Vojak.
(01:28):
Welcome back to the show.
It's, all my pleasure, truly.
It's great to have you back, man.
I'm loving this book.
As you know, I keep sending Bruce notesand little cartoons and loads of little
ideas that I come across the whole time.
This chapter is probably one of thebiggest strains and difficulties in
(01:53):
being an innovator in a big corporationbecause initially, if you're naive,
you think it's about ideas, you thinkthe idea is strong enough, you think
there's an onus on the organization toaccept your ideas, and you pretty soon
learn that it's not the case at all.
This is like entering into the mazefull of minotaurs and medusas, snakes
(02:19):
in the grass, snakes in the trees.
It's a very difficult act, andwe're gonna go deep dive into this.
Maybe you'll give us a bit of contextto this chapter because you've
experienced it yourself, Bruce.
We all have.
Anybody who has a good idea, it's verydifficult to get it through to production.
it really is.
And there's a story that I wantedto tell at some point today, but I
(02:40):
think I'm gonna start with it, 'causeI think it'll illustrate of it.
And this goes back to one of theinnovators that we interviewed
in the process of conductingthe research, Nancy Dawes.
She was at Procter & Gamble her entirecareer, chemical engineer by education.
She had worked on things like chocolatechip cookies and Pringles potato chips, at
(03:03):
one point was assigned to work on the Olayproduct and was really responsible for
taking Olay from a really a dying brandto a billion-dollar brand for the company.
But the story I want to tell abouther, and I could come at this multiple
ways, but, she had come to campus anumber of years ago to give a talk.
Ray Price had invited herand she was visiting us.
(03:26):
And so she and I just had lunchand we were talking, and at that
time was beginning to explorehow innovators know what to do.
And this is a whole separatediscussion we may have someday.
Because I've really been curiousabout how the best innovators
know what direction to head in.
And so I asked her over lunch, I saidNancy, tell me how did you know what to
(03:49):
do?" she's looking down, she's eating,and she says, " I see dead people." Okay?
Now, I had not seen the movie "TheSixth Sense," and I'm like who
is this woman?" I knew her, but Ithought where is this coming from?"
And, she went on to explain and she said
I see patterns that other peopledon't see." And it's not to make
(04:12):
this mysterious or too far out therein any way but she saw patterns.
It's like being able to forecastthe weather or anything else.
She sees trends and patterns otherpeople j-just don't see or, she sees
them sooner than other people do.
she said at first, early in her career
she didn't realize that.
(04:35):
And then there was a point at which shebegan to realize, "No, wait, I'm seeing
things. this is real. I'm, not justseeing things differently, I'm seeing
things differently that are good things tosee." And then she realized that the onus
was on her help people understand thatand to help people see those patterns.
(04:55):
And so what started out as a simplequestion and a quick answer, I'm gonna
tell you, we probably talked for 15or 20 minutes about how she progressed
in her career of not realizing thatto realizing it, and then what the,
in the best sense, what her burdenwas to carry in the organization.
(05:16):
And we had different stories fromdifferent people throughout the research,
but that one to me just encapsulates
a reflection of what this looks like.
And it's powerful because this is--This, discussion of navigating the
organization, navigating the politicsof the organization is what truly sets
(05:38):
apart an inventor from an innovator Thereare other things, but in particular,
it's not just creating an idea, it'shelping move the organization forward.
Bruce, we're gonna go through a diagramthat you thought was in the book.
There's parts of it in the book,by the way, but we have a diagram.
We're gonna go through that.
But I'd love us to, to build uptowards it, because there's a lot
(06:01):
of context that jumping to thediagram too early, we'll lose.
And I, am, I'll l- fill in some littlepieces and dots that have connected
across previous episodes as well.
One of them was talking to ChuckHouse, who's featured in the book.
Chuck House, we did a four-part serieswith Chuck about the the Permission
(06:22):
Denied book, the odyssey of being anintrapreneur inside an organization.
But one of the things that I was sayingto Chuck, and I've come to realize
myself, was exactly to your point and toNancy's point, that thing about seeing
things differently means that when youget frustrated in an organization and
(06:47):
you're talking to them, you're kindagoing, "W- like, why can't they see it?
They're dinosaurs, they're idiots,"this kind of thing that we, all
go through as a... And you growout of that pretty quickly.
If you don't grow out of ityou're, pretty much screwed.
But you grow out of it, and you realizeactually they just don't have the lenses.
And oftentimes what I find with manyinnovators, and for people listening
(07:11):
to this show, is you will take timeto listen to an episode like this.
You will take time tolisten all the way through.
So many people write into the showand go, "I listen over and over
to the same episodes because I getsomething different every time." I know
that now, and actually, the librarybehind me, in the early days, I don't
think I would've been able to readyour book as well as I can today.
(07:34):
It's like I've graduated.
I've earned the lenses.
And when you talk to most people insideorganizations, and why I opened up
with that little quote is, they'reso focused on exploiting the current
advantage, or they're measured on it,or they're recognized on it, that why
would they ever deviate from that path?
And why would they go to conferences?
(07:56):
Why would they read books?
Why would they l- read periodicalsabout, or talk to customers except to
see if they're happy with their current
products?
And actually, in there is the problem
I'm just sitting here cheering youon as I'm hearing you talk about
this and ... And it reminds me too ofsomething we spoke about last week.
(08:17):
And I don't mean to overly keep-- Idon't mean to bring him up too often,
but Iain McGilchrist the, two sides ofthe brain the, master and the emissary.
And that's going on here a lot.
I think the people who in particularare very process-oriented, and
(08:38):
I don't wanna criticize that,it's a very important role.
I'm not saying you should eliminate that,but the ones who are so process-oriented
very often just can't, even beginto imagine what this other view is.
and then how do you navigate that?
And it's, it is just not easy sometimes.
one of the first things, when I workwith an organization, I do a workshop
(08:59):
and they're quite surprised becausethe first thing is getting them on the
same page and exposing the gaps in whatthey think they're talking about the
same thing, and they're totally talkingabout something totally different.
And it's a real realization where they'regoing, "Ah." And you talk about the
concept of coherence, and essentiallythat's what you're trying to create,
(09:19):
some type of alignment or coherence.
This is a term that you adopt in thebook and you bring to life a little bit.
Maybe we'll explain that.
There's, And I'll take a s-a little bit of a step back.
There is a need to have whatI'll say different types of
coherence in an organization.
(09:40):
And, these in hindsight mayseem pretty obvious, but I,
like being explicit about it.
There's a need for strategiccoherence and tactical coherence.
And strategic coherence to me means,are we gonna even invest in innovation?
And tactical coherence is, will we investin this particular innovation concept?
(10:02):
And really it's the first question toask is, your company even strategically
open to considering these things?
Because if it's not, you're reallypushing a boulder up a hill.
If it is, at least if it says itis, then it's more, how do I get
my idea through the organizationand run the gauntlet, if you will?
(10:23):
And what, again, what we'll talk abouttoday is in this idea of navigating
the politics of innovation, howdo you run that tactical gauntlet?
How do you help people understand, andhow do you bring the organization along?
gonna quickly add, too before weget too far into this, and this
goes back to being on the same page.
(10:44):
I don't wanna say we get pushback,but some people when they hear
the word politics, they tense upand it sounds very self-serving.
And our intent when we talked aboutthe politics of the organization,
really are talking about how doyou get that coherence, how do you
get that alignment, and how do youbring people along, if you will.
It's not meant to be a self-servingform of politics, which can
(11:07):
often be understood that way.
It's really a a servantview of it, if you will
that certainly comes across in thepeople you've interviewed as well.
I thought I'd maybe explain this aswell, because I think when you get this
next, this is a paragraph from the book,when you get this concept, you realize
that it's not stupidity, it's actuallyexpertise that sometimes gets in the way.
(11:33):
So you write in the book, "Breakthroughinnovations may be politically difficult
for the firm to accept because they raisequestions about strategy in general.
What is the product strategy inthe short term, in the long term?
How does the proposed breakthroughinnovation fit into the current strategy?
Does it change the strategy?
And if so, is this new directionone in which the firm should move?
(11:57):
And answering those questions oftenchallenges senior executives and
requires significant discussion, debate,and political maneuvering across the
organizations." So that's an importantthing, and I was telling you off
air before we started, I've writtenan accompanying article for today's
episode called The QWERTY Conundrum.
And the whole idea is that th- thekeyboard most people have in front of
(12:21):
them was developed for a typewriter,and it was developed to slow people
down so they wouldn't get carpal tunnelsyndrome, and also the keys wouldn't jam.
So it's actually inefficient.
But then comes along the Dvorakkeyboard, this new keyboard that was
designed to actually be more efficient,30% more typing speed, et cetera.
And if you think about, westill have QWERTY keyboards.
(12:43):
We've progressed to keyboards.
We've progressed then to another paradigm,which is a phone, and we still have QWERTY
keyboards, and it's everybody's designedaround that system of that's how you
write and how you go about your writing.
And to actually have to retrain anduntrain and unlearn is a huge expense,
(13:05):
a switching cost for people, and Iuse that as this kind of way that's
what happens in outside organizations.
They're very good at what they do,and along comes the serial innovator,
like Tom Osborne, and goes, "Yeah, Iknow we just launched that product a
month ago, but we could do a b- muchbetter job." And everybody's "Shut up,
we're making progress." And I love itthat, 'cause that, I think when you
(13:28):
get that, you go, "Oh, now I get it.
Now I know the task is at... What'sahead of me, and I know how difficult
this political maze is gonna be.
I often talk about it as being bothan option for future growth, which
I think a lot of us understand,but also an insurance policy.
And You think of Tom's story wherehe had this Really a, reconsideration
(13:51):
or rethinking of what a femininehygiene product should be.
If they didn't do that and oneof their major competitors did
that it's an insurance policy.
to-- You know, so it's notonly growth, it's keeping from
getting knocked off the pedestal.
and it's both.
And that's also why, again, I think inany size company, a small investment
(14:14):
is often sufficient to at least getthese questions on the table, they
really are strategic questions, and youneed people who are able and willing
to put these questions on the table.
And it's not an easy thing to do.
I think it's important,and you do call this out.
You say, "Serial innovators start todistinguish themselves from typical
inventors when they realize that in orderto develop breakthrough innovations,
(14:37):
they must learn how to manage thepolitical processes of the firm.
Politics,
this is what you're talking about, "losesits negative connotation as they come
to value it as a necessary mechanism foraccomplishing what they want to get done."
That, that's a very key point, andsomething that- many innovators or many
(14:58):
people who take the head of innovationrole don't know going into the role.
But it's a huge choice becauseit means that it's not as easy.
It's not beanbags and foosballtables and Post-it Notes.
It is a much different role, and manyserial innovators or many wanna be serial
innovators don't know that, go intothe role and feel like they've failed.
(15:21):
But it's one of the reasons I, likeI didn't know that before I went
into a big organization very, toxicorganization, and you can feel totally
like you're drowning, and I think it'sreally important to call this aspect out
I may have mentioned this last-- inthe last session, but there's two
quick concepts that I like to repeatwhen I think about things like this.
(15:43):
One is, it was a question that we heardfrom one of the people we interviewed.
When they hire people, they wantpeople who wanna do the work that
innovators do, not be an innovator.
And to me, it applies in a lotof places but the politics in
particular is just so critical thatyou have to be able to do that.
(16:05):
And and I think it's a challenge.
It's really, it's afilter for so many people.
I, don't wanna say it's one in 10 or twoin 10 that do this, it's not everybody.
In a, large organization, it's still,I think, easy to hide at times.
And people can have long careers You know,doing, I don't want to say inconsequential
(16:27):
work, but doing consequential workbut not have the same level of
impact if they hadn't taken it on.
The other thing I'll say, and again,I may have mentioned this last time,
is that most of the people that weinterviewed, and it was by default from
the sample that we worked with, had atleast an engineering undergraduate degree.
In fact, a large number of them did.
(16:47):
Most, most did not have graduatedegrees, and just by chance,
it wasn't planned that way.
But they also mostly had engineeringpersonalities, and as I think I may
have mentioned, that you can tell anengineer's an extrovert because they're
looking at your shoes, not their own.
and so this is painful for a lotof the people that we interviewed
(17:08):
because it's just not part oftheir personality to do this.
And then this goes back to whatyou were talking about earlier.
If the organization is is open todealing with data and facts, it
actually makes it a little bit easierfor some engineers to navigate that
because, okay, I'm used to getting data.
I'm used to collecting facts.
(17:29):
I'm used to saying, "Here's the data.The data speaks for itself." And that
makes it-- I, don't want to say it'seasy, but it makes it easier to raise
these things if the organization hasthat virtue of really, dealing with
reality rather than preferences,
. And we'll come back to some of that because you do talk about that later
(17:51):
in the book and tactics to share dataas well and to get the, get the data
into the company, not through you'cause they might not listen to you.
But one of the places I thought we'dstart is this is, and this is so true.
I've seen this time and time againwhen I work with heads of innovation.
You say, and this is talking aboutearly career actions that build trust
(18:12):
and networks through competence.
So you say in the book, "Innovators emergesometime between 5 and 15 years into their
career, depending on the organization'sculture, structure, and size." And often
they have an early win, and the earlywin gives them credibility or trust,
and then they build on that later on.
(18:33):
early wins.
I actually had this emailexchange with someone on a
totally different area recently.
Being reliable in the sense that they saywhat they're gonna do, and they do what
they say, and I don't want to get on asoapbox, but that's not always common.
And so people begin tojust naturally trust them.
(18:56):
They're open about things.
They're honest about these things.
they show some level of I usedthis word earlier, empathy.
But they're people that,
This is probably the negative,stating in the negative.
They're people that not only you don'thave to fear, but that you turn to
because they are so reliable and theyare dealing with facts and reality.
(19:20):
And I, I-- again, I think sometimes itmakes it easier if you are, again, an
engineer in a company that is at least
maybe not a, high tech company, but atleast technically inclined companies
that ba- are based on technologiesto navigate those organizations.
(19:40):
I think it can be more difficultif it's strictly marketing or
strictly something where it's notas, as crisp of an understanding
of what performance looks like.
I was thinking about this, idea of trustis really important, and it made me think
of Joe Bower's work, so the whole ideaof the resource allocation process, and
(20:02):
he talked about that it wasn't an ideam- meritocracy inside organizations.
It was basically middlemanagers who decided on where
the budget would be spent.
So if they trusted you and you had a winfor them before, you made them look good.
So the idea comes along and goes,"Whose idea is it?" And they go,
"It's Vojak in sector 7G." And yougo, "Ah, Vojak, yeah, he's good.
(20:24):
He's good for it.
Give him the money." And I thoughtabout that so much for this part of the
project, and you can be very unlucky'cause you could try the project,
and the conditions were wrong that...
and it failed 'cause ofthat, not 'cause of you.
Yeah, and, oh and again, we didn'tsample on this, but anecdotally,
I've known people in organizationsthat become bitter because of
(20:48):
these things and you know what?
gotta tell ya
I understand it.
I understand how that can happen, andthrough no fault of them- themselves.
It's just the way things play out.
And then know, how how do they use whatskills and, capabilities they have to
still move the organization forward?
(21:08):
It's it can be difficult for some people.
Naive view of how thingsget done in the organization
Where
again, I'm-- I think I'm probablyoverstating the engineering side,
but I think it, it's important hereto use this as an illustration.
(21:32):
Being an engineer by training and Isay by personality you're taught...
What are you taught in school?
You're taught to solve pro-You're given a problem.
That's the first challenge.
You're given a problem, and you solve it.
And over the course of roughly fouryears, you get really good at solving
problems that are given to you.
once you solve that problem, you're done.
(21:52):
It gets graded, and that's the end of it.
And so you go into theworkforce, and what do you think?
I'm given a problem.
Let's go back to thehourglass even for a minute.
I'm given a problem, I solvethe problem, I get a grade, and
let's go on to the next one.
And so you have this view very often,it's almost ingrained or trained into
(22:12):
you to say, "I've done my technical work.
I've solved this problemthat you've given me.
I've given you an answer.
Okay, management, ball's in your court.
I'm done.
I've fulfilled my obligation to theorganization." It's it's not only
your responsibility to recognizethis is a good idea, it's your
(22:32):
responsibility to carry it forward.
And and I get that becauseagain we're, taught, if you
will, almost to be this way.
At least conditioned to be this way.
And
so, even when people are developingthis, trust in their network, they're
(22:53):
often still not getting to the pointwhere they're, assuming that level
of-- that next level of responsibility.
And taking that next step significant.
I don't know, I don'tknow how else to say it.
It's, significant, and it's really oneof the, one of the big distinguishers.
If you-- you can be the, you can be theperson who's most curious, most insightful
(23:20):
most visionary, but until you takethat ownership and responsibility.
And so we at the time used thisphrase and it's, stuck, and I think
it, it's a pretty good metaphor.
They cross the bridge andthey take responsibility.
They take ownership.
One guy that we interviewed,it was a marvelous story, and I
think I'm gonna get this right.
(23:41):
mother was a pIaino teacher andhis father was a car salesman.
And and this guy was just really good.
And he just-- I think he must havepicked this up just being in the
household that he was in, learned howto advocate for things very comfortably.
There's nothing false aboutit, nothing inappropriate.
And what a marvelous set of backgroundsthat, that led him to be able to say,
(24:05):
"Yeah, okay, I gotta sell these ideas."not everybody was like that, that
it w- that it came so comfortably.
But when you see that and you seethe people take that responsibility,
it's a beautiful thing.
And it's, a filter.
I don't know how else to say it.
It's a filter.
And I'm gonna quickly addhere two two, two stories.
One two short stories.
(24:27):
One is
Ray and I were visiting a companyand we were talking to, I think
it was VP level, at least a VPlevel, if not a more senior VP.
And he was expressing this frustrationthat he couldn't get people to,
to be motivated to do things.
And we're realizing, it this is go--tying back to even this MP5 model, if
(24:50):
people aren't motivated to do thesethings on their own, it's really
hard to get them to cross the bridge.
Yeah, the mo- the motivationactually is huge, and again I'm
so interested about how peopleare formed inside an organization.
I actually think one of the reasonsI'm a little bit, a bit of a weirdo
(25:11):
is because I had a career in sportfirst, and I actually came to the
working world quite late, as in I was31, 32, and I had the resilience that
sports gives you, and also maturity.
So if you come inside an organization,I was thinking about this, you come to
an organization, my first experience,I'm sending ideas to the lead- to,
(25:36):
not leadership team, but to, towhere I think the ideas should go.
Don't even get a response.
Don't even get an email back, right?
So I'm the type of character whoare like, "How rude is that?"
And I'll push back, and I'll tryand find a way, and I'll keep going.
But this is how most... If you think ofsomebody who's onboarded as a junior,
(25:57):
they're learned that's the way thingsare around here." And then you learn,
and these are the three things youcall out, that invention is sufficient.
That's number one.
Yeah.
Number two, managers have theresponsibility to recognize the value of
the invention and to see that it is usedeffectively inside the organization, two.
Three, if an invention is sufficientfor acceptance and the next steps are
(26:19):
the responsibility of the manager,it's reasonable to in- to conclude
that nothing more is expected of thetechnologist or the ideat- or the person
who comes up with the ideas, and allresponsibility for development and
commercialization passes to someone else.
And when you go through those stepsas a junior person or a, you're hired
into an organization, you then getformed that way, and you go that's
(26:43):
the way we do things around here.
I don't do ideas, I do execution." Andyou can see how an organization creates
a culture by that. But the weirdos, thepeople who see the world differently,
people who see dead people, go,"Actually, it's all on me to do this.
If I actually want to go and push thesethings through, I'm gonna have to find
(27:06):
a way to-" Position the idea find aco- a coalition, find air cover, find
customers who actually want this, andit's that. So it's a very unique type
of person that survives that onboarding.And like you say, the pIaino the son
(27:29):
of the pIaino teacher and the used carsalesman I, was picturing them there
"Okay, I've bought five cars off my dad.
I'm gonna advocate for myself."I've used up all my pocket money.
I gotta do something about this.
I, and y- it's, true.
S- something different in your upbringingor your education or your enfant terrible,
(27:52):
you're the unhappy child the, kid whojust is asking questions in school and
being told to shut up by the teacher.
It, there's something in there thatcreates you to be this type of person.
I think there is.
And this-- we could spend an hourjust talking about is it nature or
nurture, and I think some of these
Bruce,
(28:15):
as you spoke.
One is, if we go back to the chart, thestage gate chart that we talked about
last week, where there was inventor,champion, and implementer, and then
the serial innovators crossed those.
This is clearly illustrating theinventor versus champion roles and also
to a certain extent, the implementer.
And and we do operate in silosfunctionally, organizationally.
(28:39):
They're, designed that way.
you're right, I think it, it imposeson people something that is never
really discussed, but it's the realityof the organizational structure.
yet and, this is one of the recurringminor themes that I like to raise, is that
people who are serial innovators, they'redoing innovation the way it would've been
(29:01):
done before any of our books were written.
They just say, "There's a problem.
Ah, I'm gonna really--I'm gonna obsess about it.
I think I'm seeing something.
I'm gonna pursue it.
I'm gonna try to make it happen."And to me it's refreshing.
It's almost liberating to sayall these books are right, 'cause
(29:22):
they are describing pieces of it.
at the end of the day, it's a verypeople view of how things work.
And you got people whoare motivated to do this.
And I I don't wanna sound corny, butI think it's beautiful 'cause th-th--
'cause th-these people just emerge inplaces and times that can be so impactful
(29:44):
for an organization, for everybody.
I was thinking about what you weresaying crossing the bridge, and I had
created a cartoon of a bridge, and itwas full of, like, ogres and, like,
trolls and stuff that you had to get past
than I would've thought, but I like this.
But here's one of the ogresy- you quickly discover.
So I often think of this one, I callit the Disneyland queue problem.
(30:09):
So anyone who's been to Disneyland, youthink you're at the top of the queue,
and then it turns around a corner.
You're like going, "Oh my God, we'reonly at the first corner here." And one
of the, one of the things that happensas a serial innovator is you talk about
this one serial innovator who describeda conversation with his manager in which
the manager said, "You have me convinced.
(30:31):
Now you need to help me convincethe larger set of other people."
And for virtually all breakthroughinnovations, gaining acceptance
for the project is a matter ofconvincing many people, not just one.
And sometimes you think you're thereand you think, "Yes, got it over the
line." And next thing you go, no, there'sanother 10 people you have to get in here.
(30:51):
And, it's those little...
Y- you have to go through tounderstand how, gut-wrenching
that is when that happens.
But calling it out makes youat least be able to plan for
it when it comes down the line.
by it.
And in fact, all those 10 otherpeople, they probably have 20 different
triggers th-that you need to address.
Two for each.
(31:12):
And so it's customizing in many cases,especially for the more important
ones, the ones managing resources.
It's a wonder that thesethings even happen sometimes.
And it's not surprising when they don't.
As we said earlier on,sometimes these ideas, they just
escape from the organization.
Or el- or else, I'm sure you'veseen it, I just go, "You know what?
(31:33):
I've had enough.
I'm gonna do it myself.
I'm gonna get funding.
I'm gonna build this idea, andI'm gonna be a competitor." We've
seen that time and time again.
But I ta- I, mentioned therethe idea of snakes and ladders.
Some of the ladders Ithought we'd talk about.
The, first one, so these are theones that are accelerate you.
These are like when you're inSuper Mario Kart and you get that
coin that makes you go extra fast.
(31:55):
So the first one is engaging people,so to get participation and buy-in.
And I'll tee you up here.
You say, "Serial innovators are askingcolleagues for favors with only their
trust and goodwill as their currency,as well as their contagious excitement
about the idea, these are theirbargaining tools. Allies are created
one at a time by making direct requestsand selling the potential for the
(32:19):
project." That's, a difficult thing aswell, and something this many serial
innovators do naturally very, very well.
But it's a slow process.
And again, you think you're g-you're been hired as a head of
innovation, you're gonna be out
heard of, out of the blocks and startcreating ideas, but it's this slow
step-by-step process that you go through.
(32:44):
children's book called "Stone Soup"?
Yes.
Yeah, exactly
The-- What do they come to the,what do they come to the party with?
They got three stones and a big bucket anda pot of, or a pot of water and a fire.
They get people involved.
And the best ones engage that way.
The other thing that, that in myanticipating our conversation today,
(33:07):
I wanted to point out, because I thinkthis is a good place to do it, is that
in engaging others, and I don't thinkwe call it out explicitly in the book,
the innovator themselves may not behired as the director of innovation.
We're really talking about people inthat organization for the most part.
They, attract these otherpeople to the project.
(33:29):
And this really calls into question, howdo you structure a, an innovation project?
And there is this tendency onexecutive management's part at
times, not everybody, but a lotof them, form-- to pre-form teams.
gonna put again, I don't know enoughabout rugby, but I actually had a
boss who was a Welsh rugby player,a amateur player, so I heard a bit.
(33:52):
But you have certain positions and soyou, if you will, recruit those positions.
But that always the best way toform a team when you don't even
know exactly what you're doing?
And so these-- the people that emergeas innovators, they would bring
people on to the project, if you will.
(34:12):
And I say bring them on,that sounds too formal.
it doesn't really accurately describe it.
They'd get people engaged asthey needed to be engaged.
Tom Osborne's story, he wanted to make,I don't know if it was a sample of 50
or, 100 of these products to test them.
needed to get somebody inthe lab to do him a favor.
And the two of them worked side by sidebuilding some of these, samples by hand.
(34:37):
it wasn't that anybodyassigned that person.
In fact, he was doing itunder the radar at the time.
It's a different view of organizationalstructure versus what I'll say almost
inside out or an emergent behavior.
And and the pattern man Igotta be careful saying this.
(35:02):
Someday, like a year from now after we'vetalked about this, I'll want to hear
from you to say, how many times haveyou heard stories where the pre-formed
innovation team created the breakthrough?
And it and I f- I almost feelbad saying this 'cause I don't
have, I don't have data for it.
But I'll tell you, every story weheard, it was not a pre-formed team.
(35:26):
And, I know of a lot of pre-formedteams, and I know a lot of people who
are, hired for innovation directorand I don't wanna knock those.
But, you've gotta ask yourself, areyou looking for the people who can
make this happen, or are you gonnatake ownership of that yourself?
And if you're gonna take ownership,you have to get it right.
(35:49):
And I don't know if this is gonnasound heretical or if you're seeing
these patterns too, but again, a yearfrom now, I'd like to hear from you
to see if this is what you see too.
now if you want.
There's a, a brillIaint quote by ClaytonChristensen, it's like, "Almost always
disruptive innovations," I'm, I'm
paraphrasing now, "come- don't comefrom a single department or silo. They
(36:11):
come from a mix of those departmentsor silos, or people that have never met
before." And it's the neurodiversity.
B- and also, we talked about coherenceas in energy coherence before.
I genuinely, think it'san energy connection.
It's people who want to do things whoare at the same kind of level of, energy.
(36:33):
They emit the same energy.
They, see the same things.
They're on the same page.
And that's very difficult whenyou're in the same team to
to do those kind of things.
But one of the things I just wantedto call out on that is you say
sometimes you get assigned a team.
So I've seen this before.
(36:54):
You get given people.
Chuck talked about this.
He ended up getting Andthey weren't, great people.
D- they were dregs people, didn'twant, people who had bad attitudes.
And you talked about Frank,the heavy commitment heavy
equipment serial innovator.
We didn't talk about him.
Maybe you'll give a better context on him.
(37:15):
But he, got his team to make a quilt.
And he was assigned a team bymanagement rather than hand selecting
them and, you call out y- this.
You say this can be difficult becausein his case, it was even worse 'cause
it was a government body, and theyweren't accustomed to doing hard work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, and and there, thisgoes back to motivation.
(37:35):
'cause usually when you're recruitingpeople a, lowering of that energy barrier
yeah, I, I kinda like what you're saying.
I'm bought into that,and yeah, I'll help you.
I'll make a few of these.
I'll test this for you.
but when you're assigned people-- And thatwas, again, and I hate to keep using this
phrase, that was a beautiful story too.
In fact, I gotta tell you, if we hadonly interviewed these people and we
(37:58):
never wrote a book, it would've been avery enjoyable process because you're
you're, you lift the screen on howthese things happen behind the scenes.
But yeah, in that case, he he had themeach create a little part of a quilt.
They put it together, and theyshowed how the group operated as
a whole, and he was looking to getpeople to be more part of the team.
(38:21):
I hear people, I trust and respecttalk about innovation as a team sport.
I, often ask them, "What sport is it?"
Because think about it.
Different sports, different teamsare formed in different ways.
And in American football, the quarterbackor American baseball it's the pitcher
(38:41):
are, the focus of these teams.
Other teams, I think, are a bit morefluid and a bit more evenly spread.
What kind of team is this?
And is it pre-formed or is itformed if you will, on the fly?
And 'cause I do not disagree withit being a team sport, but I think
that metaphor carries with ita lot of, preconceived thinking
(39:02):
that we should at least understand
Yeah, and, and the skillsneeded for depend on the
project that's in front of you.
Speaking of which, you talk aboutpositioning the project and that every
product commercialized needs to fitinto the strategic context and goals
of the organization, and sometimeshow the potential breakthrough product
(39:23):
fits with the rest , of the productlines or the company's existing
strategy is not always obvious.
So therefore, a political task forthe innovator is to position the
new breakthrough so that others canunderstand how it fits in the first place.
Because if you don't do that, they'regonna get it all, like, "He's just coming
up with crazy ideas," or, "She's coming upwith crazy ideas," and they'll dismiss it.
(39:46):
I thought this one was really importantto call out that first you need to
know a strategy before you can actuallytry and fit the other idea to it.
And then the flip side, which I wastelling about Gary Klein's book,
Gary we had on the show before,is seeing what others don't.
He talked about, well, sometimesyou'll find a brillIaint idea
(40:07):
and there's no file for it.
There's no filing cabinet to putthat idea because it doesn't fit,
but it's a brillIaint idea, butit's not what we do around here.
And that can be frustrating whenyou stumble upon those genius ideas.
And as you're describing this, it's re-or you're reminding me of a story Nancy
Dawes, who I mentioned earlier, shared.
(40:29):
was working on a project, and shehad some just really good insight.
she brought it forward to herimmediate manager, and it really
didn't fit in terms of timing.
and this is where I'm not gonna rememberexactly if she fully set it aside, put
the technology on the shelf, or if shecontinued to work on it a bit quietly.
(40:51):
Because most of the serial innovatorscould get their job done in let's say
some fraction of the time required,and they would use the other time
learning and developing other things.
But I don't know if it was six oreight months later, they came back
to her and said Nancy, rememberthat and then the timing was right.
And that's part of positioning too.
(41:12):
It's again, and I think it also is part ofseeing things that other people don't see.
She knew to anticipate this.
And I don't wanna say that allthese people are superhuman
because that's not fair to them.
I don't wanna overly idealize the stories,but the patterns were pretty unescapable
that that they saw these things.
(41:33):
And that was part of the deftnessof how they navigated it.
It was-- wasn't just, "I've gotan idea, I gotta sell it," and
they're out hammering people.
"Okay, we'll work with you."
I wanna remind our audience here, agreat episode we did was w- on the Nokia
series, which is still ongoing, thatseries, but it was with Timo Partanen.
He was the guy, Bruce, who presentedto senior management, head of market
(41:57):
intelligence, the document aboutthe iPhone a year before the iPhone
graced the stage in California.
And I, was asking him just thelittle nuggets of stuff, and he said
one of them for me, one thing thatcame to mind was they were giving
away a music subscription servicefor free as part of the Nokia deal.
(42:17):
So you could download... Back then, itwas download a physic- like a, software
MP3, and you could add it to your phone."
He said, "We had Spotify, but wejust didn't have any way to even
think about Spotify as a service.We could've sold that. We could've
created it, but..." And I, and this iswhere this all came together for me.
If you don't have a lens or afiling cabinet, a mental filing
(42:43):
cabinet to go, "Oh, that's asubscription service that works.
That could actually be a product inthe future." If you don't have that
skill set or capability inside anorganization, you're missing ideas
all the time, and I, actually, I callthe article Filing the Future Under
the Past, 'cause you revert to yourexisting mental filing cabinet and go...
(43:03):
By default.
Yeah.
Almost always.
Yeah.
So I just thought that was an i- that,that came to mind as I was reading this
book, is that- You want a strategic fit,but then you have that Nancy problem
sometimes that you go, "Yeah, but thisis a great idea. The technology mightn't
exist yet, or we have too much going on atthe moment. I need somewhere to store it."
(43:25):
Yeah . I think,
As you mentioned, too muchgoing on at the moment.
I'm gonna quickly add, one of the mostchallenging questions that I've been asked
when I-- whenever I've given talks is,"Can you have too many of these people?"
And and my default is always no you can't.
And partly it's because so rare thatdoes too many mean you've got two
(43:46):
instead of three or two, two insteadof one or five instead of three?
I don't know.
But there probably is a pointwhere you can have too many.
And and again, it's part of this what's,the organizational appetite for this even?
I agree you can have too many, 'causeyou don't want too many dreamers.
(44:06):
You get nothing done.
you can have too Many.
That's the point.
If
Yeah.
If they're just inv-inventorsand they're-- they become the
curmudgeons in the corner, yeah, youcan always have too many of them.
But the truly, the serialinnovators, can you have too many?
And I, don't know.
I don't-- I, don't know yet.
I'm-- That-- I'm still--
(44:27):
I'm inclined to say no, butit's, I'm thinking of really
the exemplars at this point
... And you covered successful
ones.
There's so many who didn't make it,the survivorship bias challenge.
Yeah.
couple of little tips herethat are really useful.
So you talked about assembling supportor creating data to support your
idea, and one of the things, and thenwe talked to Chuck House about this.
(44:51):
One of the things he did was gettingcustomers to accept the idea before the
idea was accepted by the organization.
And as you say in the book, one serialinnovator said, "The best marketing
research is a signed purchase order."This is one of those underhanded
tactics that you have to use sometimes.
And I've u- I've done this kind ofstuff, Bruce, and it, you feel a bit
(45:15):
duplicitous doing this kind of thing.
But it's like, collateral damage in the,for the greater good of the organization
something that doesn't exist,I might have a problem with it.
But if you're selling somethingthat can exist that really is a
viable product concept, I thinkit's marvelous because it's a pull.
(45:37):
It's, a way to get management attention.
And I think that question in general aboutdo you have a signed purchase order or
someone willing to pay for I regularlystill use that as a filter when I talk to
people because there are a lot of ideasout there, but they're not a lot of ideas
that really stimulate someone to buy.
(45:58):
I know I fall into thiswhen I evaluate ideas.
"Oh, it sounds like a great idea." Andthen I think, "Ah, am I gonna spend the
time to actually use this if I buy it?
I don't know." thatpurchase decision is huge.
Just to be clear, I don't meanbeing duplicitous to the customer.
I mean more
To the organization.
(46:19):
yeah, you kinda
And I didn't take it asyou were being dupli-
duplicitous
to the customer, more to the organization.
To the organization you can feel andit's a little bit like, "Man, this
could get me in trouble." And there'sa quote I love by Buckminster Fuller,
and I, lived by this quote, "All humanadvances occur in the outlaw area."
(46:42):
I love that quote, 'cause itspeaks to this, 'cause sometimes
you have to break the rules.
You're not doing anything, you'renot breaking the law, but you have
to break the rules, and there aretimes when the potential customer and
organizational benefits of pushing aproject outweigh the personal risks.
And we saw this again with Chuck.
Chuck said this, that henever even thought of that.
(47:05):
He, was so focused on doing what wasright for the organization, he never
thought that he could lose his job.
And was, as we saw in part onewith Tom Osborne, he nearly
lost his job three times.
Yeah.
You mentioned Buckminster Fuller.
I'm gonna quickly if you will,riff on that for a moment.
You've heard the trim tab, story?
I love that,
(47:27):
And again, I think I'm gonna get thisright, but basically my understanding
of a trim tab is that if you'vegot like an ocean-going ship, ship,
it's got a rudder, steer the rudder.
You steer a little tab at the end ofthe rudder, and then that moves the
rudder, and then that moves the ship.
(47:48):
And so the serial innovatorsare a bit like that trim tab.
And, I to me, I love that because it's oneperson has a small can do a small thing,
but that can turn a huge ocean liner.
And in a way it's the power ofthe people who know how to move
an organization or move peoplethat can move the organization.
(48:11):
man.
That's, going in the blog someday.
that's another one I'vesearched, and I don't know if
I found it on the ocean liner.
That's the way I heard the story.
But he-- I know he, heidentified as trim tab at times.
It might even be on his,tombstone, his grave marker.
"I am
-trim tab,"
made me think of the gaffe the scale.
(48:32):
You're, you wanna tip the s- oddsin your favor, actually tip the odds
in the favor of the organization.
That's ultimately what you're doing.
This is the great tragedy of it.
I found a quote byChuck House, by the way.
He said, "I wasn't tryingto be defiant or..."
H- I'm not gonna be able to say thisword, 'cause I've never even heard of it.
"Ostreporous."
(48:52):
Yeah.
Ostreporous.
trying to be a jerk.
" Yeah, I just wanted s- success for HP.
It never occurred to me that it couldcost me my job." that's the thing.
You're... Like, I talked toyou about this before, and I
said it on that first episode.
You're, getting punished fordoing the right thing, and that's
actually the most hurtful thing.
(49:13):
When you do get a slap on the wrist,you're going away kinda going, "I
actually care in th- in..." And ifyou were to actually zoom out, you'd
go, more than most people insidethe organization, 'cause I'm risking
a lot to do what I think is thebest thing for this organization.
And I have to go and go out to the outlawarea, get customers to send in requests
(49:36):
for this product, whatever, f- cajolingand trying to influence the trim tab,
and it's a, dangerous and lonely place.
moving stories?
When I hear what you just des-described, not to sound corny, my heart
soars when I hear things like that.
And to me it's this-- it goesback to being a very personal
(49:59):
human endeavor that innovation is.
It's-- We take it out of the... Again,not that these, processes are bad,
but we take it out of the processand return it to the fact that it's a
human very personal act of discovery.
Absolutely, and the verylistener to this show as well.
Bruce, I thought we'd finish with thediagram, . gonna share on the screen,
(50:21):
for those who've been joining us thewhole time this diagram, which is
Navigating Organizational Politics,and I'm just gonna hand it over to
you, Bruce, to take us through it
thank you.
You start in the upper left,and this is this naive view.
And I should quickly add this,combines elements of time
evolution and also activity.
(50:43):
So there's a lot going on in thischart, but it does combine a lot
of things, I think, in one place.
Almost everybody comes withthis naive view, "It's not my,
it's not my job," basically.
they get to the point where theyrealize if they're-- if they wanna have
impact, as we've said, they cross thebridge and they accept, and they're
(51:03):
willing to try to influence people.
So that's the first upper left tothe second upper left sphere, moving
from upper left to one sphere in.
once they accept that they'rewilling to influence, they'll apply
just various influence techniques,and they apply them flexibly.
They use discernment when theyapply them, so they might as we've
(51:26):
talked about, they engage otherpeople, they position the project.
uge-use what we refer toas hard and soft influence.
And by hard and soft, we meant morequantitative versus qualitative.
Not hard in terms of clubbingpeople, but hard in terms of,
providing data, if you will.
they apply these as thesituation dictat-dictates.
(51:49):
And as they do that, this is howthey build they build trust they,
they develop their network of people.
They're very often seenwidely in the organization.
And by doing that, at the very top ofthis, you have the organization and
you're moving the organization forward.
And so it's this, flow, if youwill, of, "It's not my job," to, "I
(52:15):
have to take ownership," to, "I'mgonna learn and develop how to do
this in a very appropriate way,organizationally appropriate way.
gonna begin to build and develop moretrust with others, and I'm gonna move
the organization forward." And itencapsules all of this in one chart.
And as I said, I was embarrassed asI was going back through my notes.
(52:37):
I've used this chart for years.
I thought this chart was this wayin the book, and it's not one of the
figures, but it combines aspects of twofigures, and then it adds to it as well.
And someday I'll talk to Ray and Abby tofind out why we didn't use this, image,
but that's a whole separate conversation,
special, unique, unique chartfor the Innovation Show.
I, I was comparing this one in myhead to the previous chart that we
(52:59):
did, and the other one goes downwards.
It's,
It's
it's a birthing.
A birthing, as you said.
This one's more of a transcendence.
It is.
Yeah.
I like that.
That's good.
I-- You're adding new visuals and,thoughts to this, so I appreciate that.
Absolutely.
Bruce, so we're gonna come back forpart three of our, fuller pieces.
(53:21):
What are we gonna discuss on part three?
What, have we got ahead for our audience?
time we talked about who are these people?
How do we begin tounderstand who they are?
How do they operate?
Today, we talked really entirely about howthese people navigate the organization,
Fantastic.
They are and how they succeed.
(53:43):
time we're gonna talk about itfrom a managerial perspective.
And what I wanna begin to if you will,tease you and your listeners with is
that, the people who are doing thismuch rely on executive management,
they rely on good executive management.
And I'll probably mentionthis again next time.
(54:04):
Sometimes the more the-- it's moredifficult to find somebody who knows
how to manage these people thanit is to find a serial innovator.
And that's a pretty, it's apretty powerful statement.
And we'll talk a bit about how to the,best identify and develop the people.
So this is again, the complimentary viewof, the innovator and their manager.
(54:27):
We'll talk about how they identifyand develop them, and then how
they manage them for success.
And you a little teaser, too, thaton the cover of the book and Ray and
I and Abby did-- Ray and Abby and Idid not come up with this, but the
cover of the book a bunch of birdsflying, and one is a different color.
One of the quotes we heard was,"The best managers let the birds
fly." these self-motivated people.
(54:49):
saw the cover, we're like, "Oh, manwhy didn't we think of that?" and
I gotta hand it to the people atStanford University Press for, just
grasping that and running with it.
And so we'll talk aboutthe manager's perspective.
I wanna leave you with today, andI wanna come back to next time, is
that you're an innovator and you'relistening to this and you want to be
(55:11):
encouraged for what to look for, andif you want your manager to listen to
something, them to the next episode.
Because I think there's a different--an additional audience that will
benefit from that episode as well.
And I totally got the cover, by the way.
I was gonna ask you about thecover 'cause one of the things you
(55:32):
could've done with the cover is hadthe orange bird facing the different
way could the, from the bluebirds.
And I was like going, "Well,that's not the goal. The goal
is actually to bring them withyou," and that's what we discussed
today in the Navigating Politics.
Bruce,
absolute pleasure.
Author of Serial Innovators, BruceVojak, thank you for joining us.
Thank you
Thanks again to our sponsor, Kyndryl,who run and reimagine the technology
(55:56):
systems that drive advantage forthe 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 about Kyndrylat K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L, kyndryl.com.
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