Bruce Vojak — The Hourglass Model of Breakthrough Innovation

Most companies think innovation is a straight line. Bruce Vojak spent years studying the people who prove otherwise.

Bruce Vojak is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Oxford University Press). In this bonus episode of The Innovation Show, he joins Aidan McCullen for a focused look at the Hourglass Innovation Model — the descriptive framework that maps how serial innovators actually move from an interesting problem to a flawless product launch.

In this conversation, Bruce reveals:

• Why the Hourglass Model is descriptive, not prescriptive — and why that matters
• How serial innovators often redefine the problem before they solve it
• The Tom Osborne story — how reframing a feminine hygiene brief from diaper to garment changed everything
• Why serial innovators can appear completely unproductive for months — and why that is actually the work
• How they were practising customer empathy and design thinking before those ideas had names
• Why Execute — the stage most firms obsess over — is just one of five tasks
• How to use the model as an honest self-diagnostic: am I doing these things, or is it really the organisation?

Chapter topics 

00:00 Hourglass Model Intro

00:31 Stage Gate vs Hourglass

01:15 Redefining the Problem

04:16 Pragmatism and Empathy

06:27 Deep Dive Understanding

07:49 Experiment and Iterate

08:39 Nonlinear Flow Explained

10:02 Org Maturity and Politics

11:47 Normalize and Self Assess

12:53 Wrap Up and Sponsor

About The Innovation Show The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners on disruption, innovation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.

About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/

Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms
https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q

This episode is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more at https://www.kyndryl.com.

Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com

Listen and follow: https://theinnovationshow.io

Apple Podcasts: 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This is the Hourglass Model suggestedby Bruce and his co-authors in
the book, Serial Innovators.
Welcome back, Bruce Vojak.
It's great to be back, Aidan.
It's great to have you back, man.
We could have created several episodesout of the conversations we had off-air
I know.
I know.
So let's get stuck in here, and we'regonna give it a short little episode here.

(00:22):
, I wanted to just offer people ashorter episode for those people
, with limited attention spans.
Maybe you'll give a littleintroduction, Bruce, to what this
we're seeing on the screen is.
basically this is presented, , incontrast to what a phase gate
or stage gate model might Be.
Whereas a phase gate, a stage gate is avery linear model starting with this idea

(00:43):
of having some concept or an insight.
The insight's bought into, and then youdevelop it sequentially or stepwise.
In the hourglass model, it'snot prescriptive the way a
stage gate or phase gate is.
It's descriptive.
It describes really the, basicplaces where innovators reside

(01:05):
as they move through this ideaof creating some new business
model or a new product or process.
And it begins at the upper left.
As we had already talked a bitabout the, people who are very
successful at innovating, the serialinnovators who succeed well, become
motivated to solve customer problems.
They're motivated to solve not onlycustomer problems, but to advance

(01:28):
the company, to to make the companyprofitable and to really help
everybody in their environment.
they're usually initially assigned somekind of a problem, but in the process
of being assigned it, sometimes, notalways, but often they'll go back and
they'll redefine the problem so theydeeply understand the problem, and

(01:50):
they may change the way it's framed.
I had shared a bit about Tom Osbornewith with the Always Ultra product,
and he was looking to make a feminine
hygiene product.
It was designed and functioned like adiaper, it turned out a lot of people
in that organization came fromthat product area, so that was a

(02:11):
mindset that was appropriate and itworked, and it was actually a very
successful product at the time.
But he began to look at it morecarefully and more deeply, and he
changed the definition of the problem.
So the innovation in his case was reallythe redefining of the problem to say,
"No, it shouldn't necessarily looklike a diaper. It should look like a
garment. It should conform to the bodyand have all these other functions as

(02:34):
a result." Be comfortable, if you will.
But that's really this upper leftphase where, the innovator often but
not always will really in the processof coming into the proj- project
have an assigned problem, but thenreally maybe redefine it in some way.
I thought about this as well, thatthere's a famous goalkeeper for

(02:59):
Manchester United, his name was PeterSchmeichel, and I used to call our
organization Sch- Schmeichel sometimesbecause nothing would get past it.
And then I thought of, I can'tremember who the quote is by, but it
was, like, some quip by somebody whosaid, "Ideas, we don't ship ideas

(03:20):
here. They're lucky if they escape."
And r- that's the context for whatI'm about to say, so sometimes I found
when you get an idea that has leastresistance, even if it's not the right
problem to solve you'll, go with it.

(03:41):
And actually, that's theorigin of the Innovation Show.
I worked for an organization,it was worse than Schmeichel.
It was the best goalkeeper in the world.
And the Innovation Show was one ofthose ideas that escaped from it,
and I kept it going afterwards, afterthat, that, left that organization.
But I just wondered what you foundwith that in your studies and research

(04:04):
on people, because I know you'vedone deep research on innovators.
And sometimes it's not exactly the problemyou wanna solve, but it's a problem,
and it gives you a bit of progress.
I want to be really clear that theserial innovators were an interesting
mix of being pragmatic and idealisticAnd in this case, I'd say there

(04:28):
is a certain level of pragmatism.
I'd have to be-- I'd have toreally think to give you a couple
of crisp, clear stories on it.
But it's not like they all had tochange and redefine the problem.
And that's why I wanna, step lightly onthat, that upper left circle because they
really would look to change it if it's, ifit really solved customer problems better.

(04:52):
not everybody has the luxury ofthat, of find the right problem.
And it links to something we're gonnatalk in the next episode about this
navigating the corporate politics, thatsometimes they have to have a really
good relationship, with the customer inorder to solve the right problem, and
actually to get people who are boredof their jobs engaged to be working on
these things in their spare time as well.

(05:16):
But we'll talk aboutthat in the next episode.
I'll quickly follow on that.
You think about this wholearea of design thinking and
empathy of customers.
the innovators and this alittle bit, a step or a half
step away but I think
it's a good place to mention this atleast that, the serial innovators were
doing things like being empathic andreally doing, I'll say, aspects of

(05:41):
design thinking before a lot of thesethings were ever really even concepts.
And I know I've alluded to this inthe past, but this is a good example.
They, don't do things just for the sakeof saying, "I have to really redefine the
problem." They say, "What's necessary tobe successful in the organization?" as
you said, there can be times where yougo with what you've got, and other times

(06:02):
where you say, "No, this other conceptis so important to pursue that if we
don't do it the competition might do it.
So we have to pursue these things.
And so they apply thesethings really flexibly.
and we'll cover that in depth becausethat very much comes to the fore in
the next episode on navigating thepolitics of breakthrough innovation

(06:26):
Yeah.
So, then moving from defining the problem,they move to the upper right where this is
where you deeply understand the problem.
I always like to qualify this andsay it's not an academic study,
but it is a very deep dive.
say this upper right in particular, I'mI find is very appealing because it's

(06:47):
counter to the idea that we're, alltightly h- well, it's counter to the
idea that we just have to let loose.
We have to be free thinkers, and Thepattern that we saw wasn't, just being
crazy and, again, I-- there's this,view that we just have to have beanbag

(07:07):
chairs and foosball tables, and wecan be innovators, no, it's this deep
understanding, it's a beautiful thing tolook at because because these are people
who really understand the problem at hand.
They understand the customer need deeply.
They deeply understand the technology,not only the customer, but the market,
the financial aspects, the manufacturing.

(07:30):
They understand what's acceptable inthe organization at different levels.
And it's through that deep understandingthat they begin to collect enough dots
that they can begin to connect them.
And that's when they begin tosee, okay, there's a pattern here.
I think I see something worth trying.
And they drop down intothat middle section.
And that middle section is thecusp between what we might call the

(07:53):
fuzzy front end and the actual stagegate itself in a, linear model.
section is where they try things, theymaybe do some small sample studies.
They'll go talk in morespecifics with customers.
If it's a, if it's a B2B sale, they'llgo to purchasing agents and influencers

(08:14):
in the customer organization, maybe withprototypes or other types of examples.
really begin to try things anditerate and learn from that.
And then they drop down tothe lower section that's much
more the implement lower left.
Lower right, the idea there is muchmore of of not letting go entirely,

(08:34):
but influencing the marketplace itself.
and really this, model, if you will, ismore of a state diagram, if we look at
it in terms of using computer language.
You have to pretty much touch onall of these five states in the
process, there's really no orderthat they have to appear in.

(08:56):
and these arrows suggest wherewe more often saw a flow.
So we might flow from upper leftto upper right, then we might flow
from upper right back to upper left.
Oh we've, learned all this.
Maybe we've got the wrong problem.
And then sometimes they'lldrop down to the middle.

(09:17):
Sometimes they'll be in the middle,and they'll be learning things
and say "We're, trying things, andthis isn't even the right problem,"
to go back to the upper left.
So those arrows are meant to suggestthese are ways we might see the flow.
And so again, it describes the innovatorsthat are most successful, and and it
suggests that if you're doing thisand you recognize this, you're not

(09:43):
as crazy as you might think you are.
And I think that's an importantstatement to make sometimes too,
because I don't want to say theywere all plagued with self-doubt.
Later I hope to share a story of someonewho began to really understand that
she really was doing what was right.
But It took a while to really accept that.
one of the things that dawned on me,again, looking at this diagram in

(10:06):
the greater context of the book, andparticularly in the next episode about
the politics is it also probably dependson the maturity of your organization,
the skill set, the capability, theunderstanding of the organization in
a innovation cycle, and also where theorganization is on its own S-curve, where

(10:27):
is it on its own maturity, and has itgot other people in R&D, other people
in innovation, and also leadership.
a leadership team nearing retirementwho doesn't want to take on a big change
is gonna be l- more resistant of thiskind of back and forth, et cetera.

(10:48):
And I wondered- sometimes about that,is that why you could jump stages
here and not even know that you arejumping stages, and just be lucky
because the organization you're in
Yeah I've, got to say that there aresome organizations, and maybe this is
because I'm an engineer I'll say this.
The ones that rely, and we'll getto this in the next session more,

(11:10):
but the ones that rely more on thedata and,and facts, it's a little
bit, I think anecdotally, it's alittle bit easier to navigate those.
The ones that even if they say they valuedata and facts, but actually it's not
a, virtue to believe in that there it'stougher because then it, can be a more,

(11:32):
decisions can be based more on whims.
And I've, seen that, I've experiencedit, and yeah, there's only so
much any individual can truly do.
I don't want to say that, if youdropped any of these people into any
organization they'd be successful.
But what it does tell me at least isthat if you're someone who's behaving

(11:54):
in a way that's consistent with thismodel, consistent with that MP3 or MP5,
excuse me, that we spoke about earlierif you're doing all these things and
you're doing it right and you continuallyhit a wall, maybe it is okay to leave.
And if you're not doing thesethings, maybe you better try these
things before you say, "It's them,not me." And I think that, that to

(12:18):
me is part of the value of this.
It, not only, as I said a moment ago,normalizes your behavior, it also
gives you a template against whichto say, "Am I doing these things?"
a funny little thing for you, lastwhen I was looking at this diagram, I
kinda thought it looked like a humanbody, and when the product launches,

(12:38):
I'm not gonna say where it goes.
It's a birthing process.
Ex- oh, even better.
Well, that's that's more, more positivethan I thought, man, when I looked at it.
until after I said it and you laughed.
I thought, "Oh man, sorry."
Brilliant.
All right, Bruce let's, leave it there.
And,
uh, for those people who have just joinedus for this little nugget, this little

(12:59):
short episode, thank you for joining us.
And Bruce Vojak, author of SerialInnovators, thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
I gotta love
it
this short episode was brought to youby the Kyndryl Institute, so I'll keep
the sponsorship message short also.
You can find Kyndryl and theKyndryl Institute and a plethora
of brilliant thinkers and speakerswho've been on the innovation

(13:22):
show at K-Y-N-D-R-Y-L, kyndryl.com