September 29, 2025 • 33 mins
Get ready for a practical and energizing conversation with Lisa Levy, founder of Lcubed Consulting and author of "Future Proofing Cubed." In this episode of Count Me In, host Adam Larson sits down with Lisa to talk all things adaptive transformation—what it is, why it matters, and how any organization (big or small) can break down silos, empower teams, and actually make change stick. Lisa shares her proven framework that borrows from the best of big business but is tailored for smaller, agile companies—including a smart mix of people, process, and technology.
You’ll hear real-world examples of process documentation, lessons from failed projects, and the critical role of innovation in keeping companies nimble and competitive. Lisa also reveals her "Innovation Engine" approach, offering actionable steps for creating a culture where anyone can contribute new ideas—without going on lengthy retreats or burning hours in meetings. If you’re a leader ready to move from firefighting to future-focused, don’t miss Lisa’s insights, stories, and practical takeaways you can use today. Plus, she shares a special offer for Count Me In listeners at the end!
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Episode Transcript
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Adam Larson (00:05):
Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam
Larsen, and today I'm talkingwith Lisa Levy, founder of
Lcubed Consulting and author ofFuture Proofing Cubed. We're
diving into the concept ofadaptive transformation, how
organizations of any size canuse proven strategies from
project management and processimprovement to boost efficiency
and break down silos. Lisashares practical advice on
(00:26):
documenting processes,encouraging continuous
improvement, and building aculture where innovation
thrives. Plus, she'll introduceher innovation engine, a simple
yet powerful approach that anyteam can use to generate ideas
and drive meaningful change.
So if you want actual ways tohelp your team adapt and future
proof your business, you're inthe right place. Let's dive
right in. Lisa, thanks so muchfor coming on. Count me in.
(00:55):
Today, we're going to be talkingabout a number of things like
adaptive transformation.
And I figure the first place wecould start is could you explain
the concept of adaptivetransformation and how does it
benefit businesses?
Lisa Levy (01:07):
Absolutely. So adaptive transformation is the
framework that we've developedwith L Cubed Consulting over the
last sixteen years. Theframework itself relies on best
practices that largecorporations build teams of
people around, but smaller andmid sized businesses don't have
the ability necessarily toinvest the millions of dollars
it takes to stand up a practicein project management, in
(01:30):
process performance management,internal controls or
organizational changemanagement. So with our adaptive
transformation frameworks, we'vetaken the key pieces of those
best practices and built theminto a cross functional tool set
that any business can use. Themain point behind the framework,
(01:52):
right, is to allow businesses tobecome effective and efficient
in the work that they do.
Let's talk about the payrolldepartment. Every employee
should understand the work thatthey do and the value and
benefit that it has to otherteams around them. But important
in that is what I do and what itmeans to the next person in the
process flow, and what it meansthrough that and understanding
(02:13):
all of those touch points,process management. And when
we're looking at processes andwanting to know if they're
performing right, want tounderstand points of risk inside
of a process. And that's wherewe can put and track our
controls.
Some of them may be manualcontrols where it's a checklist
or something that a human beingis observing to make sure that
(02:34):
it's working. And sometimesthey're automated controls. In a
procurement process, right, areally simple example of an
automated control is a three waymatch. So, person needs to buy
something, they create arequisition in a system. That
requisition goes to thepurchasing department who
sources whatever it is thatthey're going to procure.
They create a purchase orderthat they send to a vendor who
(02:55):
then ships the widgets back.When that comes in, there's a
receiving document on the boxthat says X number of items were
ordered, the price was this, andif all of that matches the
requisition amount, the POamount, and the receivable,
right, we now have a three waymatch that means the system can
pay that invoice and no humanintervention is required. So
(03:18):
those are system or automaticcontrols that we can put in
place. And in our businessestoday, we use lots of them. In
the IT space, there are tons ofcontrols for access that are
just everywhere, and we don'teven know about them.
They're just there, and theyjust work. But with the adaptive
transformation framework, aswe're going through and we're
understanding what the processis and how it works, what
(03:39):
happens when it needs to change?And how do we explain to people
the importance of the change?And that's where the
organizational change managementcomponent comes in. Because
human beings are inherently andnaturally resistant to change.
We like to do the things we knowhow to do, and we like to do
them over and over again. It'scomfortable. And we get into
(04:01):
that routine of work. So changeis an ever present reality in
business today, and some of itis planned and some of it takes
us by surprise. I won't belaborthe pandemic as the something
that took us by surprise andeverybody had to respond to that
change.
But we do, we have this everyday. And I built this framework
(04:22):
after years and years and yearsof having really good projects
fail because we didn't take thepeople through the journey so
that they would understand whatthe change is, why it's
beneficial, what it means tothem in their job, and even more
importantly, right, what itmeant to the customer of that
business. And so, corporationsuse these four best practices
(04:47):
all day, every day, and theywork as silos, and they
reinforce silos in largeenterprise companies. I
genuinely believe that breakingthe silos is critical, and using
these four very specific skillsand disciplines collectively
across functions empowersbusinesses to grow and scale,
(05:07):
become more efficient, moreeffective, and be encouraged
that they want to change becausethey understand the why behind
it. And it changes the entireculture.
It's a totally different kind ofbusiness operating model.
Adam Larson (05:22):
That's really interesting because you're
right, the bigger theorganization, the more the
taller the silo becomes. I feellike that's what it kind of goes
through and being able to breakdown those siloed walls. But
even in small and medium sizedbusinesses, sometimes you have
one person doing 20 things andthat's that in itself is a silo.
So how do you kind of break downthose silos, especially when the
(05:44):
smaller the business, the moremore things people are in charge
of? How can you break down someof those silos?
Because maybe one component isaffected by this other person or
another one was only affected bythat one person. Like I'm doing
5090% of the work and the oneperson doing 10%. You know, how
do you kind of break down thosesilos to make sure it flows
smoothly? And also just avoidsome of the risks that can
happen when one person's doing20 jobs.
Lisa Levy (06:06):
So that's a great scenario because every growing
business experiences this insome way, shape or form,
somewhere along the line. AndI'll give a little key secret,
and as that business grows, oneof the roles that is most likely
to be in this situation ofhaving that kind of risk is the
(06:27):
administrative support staff,the executive assistants, the
admin assistants. They workmagic every day, and we don't
always understand everythingthat they do. And if one of them
leaves unexpectedly, wheels falloff of businesses very quickly.
So, let's talk about the actualquestion, right?
You start to break that down?The first thing I work from is
(06:47):
an equation, and it really ispeople plus process, times
technology, equals growth andscale, or it equals
effectiveness and efficiency.But that equation is really
important because it has to workin order. You need good people
who are doing the right work.That right work needs to be
(07:08):
documented and understood as aprocess so that it's actually
repeatable.
You do not have a process if itis not documented and it is not
repeatable by somebody who isnot you. That's the number one
thing that starts to take apartthe scenario that you posed for
me, Adam, right? We have to putthese things on paper so that
when I win the lottery, and Irun out the door, and move to
(07:31):
Mexico, and never to be seen orheard from again, people can
come behind me and pick up theprocess documentation and
understand that Lisa was doingquite a lot of stuff, but we can
continue to do it because weknow what it is and how it was
done. People plus process. Wecan talk about technology, but
the people in the process iscritical.
Understanding what is beingdone, how it's being done. And
(07:54):
for me, I like therepresentation of cross
functional flowcharts. So whatam I doing? What are the other
teams or individuals thatsupport me in the process? What
are those handoffs andtouchpoints?
So we have those swim lanes. Andso it's not all about me, right?
It's all, or my role, it's allabout the process. And if I'm
that person who's doing 20different things and with my
(08:17):
superhuman, my superperson capeon, once I start putting those
down on paper, I am nowmitigating risk to the
organization holistically.Because any capable person who's
been hired into thisorganization should be able to
read those steps and work theirway through it.
(08:38):
May not be perfect the firsttime, but they can get through
it.
Adam Larson (08:42):
Yeah, they can. And it's interesting because when it
comes to process documents, youknow, people can get really up
in arms like, I don't have timeto create this thing. I don't
want to do this thing. But likeyou said, no one's going to stay
at a job forever. At some point,you're going to move on or
somebody's going to move on andyou have to help look because if
(09:02):
you're running down your steps,you can find better ways to do
things, too.
Lisa Levy (09:06):
Well, a great point. So, right, first step. It isn't
a process until it's on paperand can be repeated by other
people, right? It has to be onpaper, has to be something that
other people can reproduce. Andthen that third piece of that
process is continuousimprovement.
I was having a conversation witha gentleman the other day who is
(09:28):
on the board of the TQMassociation, and the statistics
that they're working with todaysay that a really good, well
tuned process should be modifiedand updated four times every
month. That is how fast thingsare changing in business today.
Adam Larson (09:45):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (09:46):
My face looked a lot like yours just did when he said
that, and I stopped, and Ireally thought through that, and
I was like, you know what? It'sprobably true. Not every process
is going to fit into thatmindset, but when most companies
may touch their processes, maytouch them once a year, maybe
(10:07):
four times a month, once a year,somewhere in between. There is a
sweet spot where you're actuallyimproving with purpose and on
purpose and actually makingthings better.
Adam Larson (10:18):
When you when I was thinking about that, sometimes
we do update our process on thego, but we don't update our
process documentation becauseyou're like, Oh, I did that
process document six months ago,but actually I've changed this
step, this step, this step andthis step. You are constantly
improving because if you find abetter way to do something, you
can slightly tweak it. But it'sremembering that you have
(10:39):
documentation that needs to beupdated, that needs to be
reviewed. And so that's aninteresting, you know, thought
process.
Lisa Levy (10:44):
And it is, right? And it goes back to and I know, I'm
sure that there are people inthe audience are thinking, Oh my
God, updating that documentationis just a pain.
Adam Larson (10:53):
Yeah,
Lisa Levy (10:53):
and okay, it kind of is, but if you actually do it in
real time when you're makingdecisions and making changes
happen, that pain you're talkingabout is five or ten minutes,
Right? It's when you touch itonce a year or once every other
year or something like that andyou go back through how much has
changed. Yeah, it hurts. It's achunk of time. But if you really
(11:17):
are thinking about process inthe mindset of being in this
continuous improvement mode andthat we should always be
improving and that change isgood, and that somebody takes
five minutes to go and say, Hey,we realize that step three is
stupid and it's wasting time andenergy, and if we get rid of it,
oh, we also can shortcut how weget to step seven, eight, and
(11:39):
nine.
We've just created efficiency,and what did that take me?
Thirty seconds to talk about it,but five minutes to delete some
things from a flowchart, it'snot actually that big of a deal.
Adam Larson (11:52):
Yeah. No, that's a great point. Yeah. So when you
and I first spoke, mentioned abook that you had written,
Future Proofing Cubed. And Ilooked at it and I was like,
this is really interesting,especially the idea of future
proofing within an organization.
And I was thinking, wondering ifyou could share a little bit of
some insights from it and justtell us a little bit more about
it.
Lisa Levy (12:13):
Absolutely. So Future Proofing Cubed is explores the
adaptive transformationframework. It takes you through
all of the best practices thatI've talked about project
management, process management,organizational change, internal
controls. And it takes usthrough those experiences
through the voice of people whohave done these things. Some of
the stories are leaders who arevery naturally think this way,
(12:35):
and it was something that wasvery organic for them to do, and
there are definitely leaders outthere who just are capable of
being adaptive and understandthe value of process and
controls and really mostimportantly people.
But right then there's somestories in there about, you
know, things that didn't go theway anybody was expecting and
right, because that's where welearn things. Yeah. And so the
(12:58):
book is kind of that quick startguide to understanding what the
adaptive transformationframework is, and the book is
something that's been out for acouple of years, but it is still
very much the cornerstone ofwhat we do in our consulting
practice and everything tiesback to that framework. But one
of the things that we hinted atin the book was the need to
(13:19):
innovate and the power thatinnovation has for a business.
And it was hinted at it in thebook, but over time I've
realized that that really issort of a foundational mindset
that we need to explore andbuild into the model.
There's research that's beendone over the last twenty years
(13:41):
and there's been touch points onit, and that when CEOs of
Fortune 500 companies are askedif innovation is important to
their business, 94% of them saythat innovation is key for their
businesses to be able to surviveinto the future. Not actually a
surprising statistic, innovationimportant. When the follow-up
(14:04):
question, how confident are youthat you have teams of people
who can lead innovation and leadyour business into the future?
6% were confident. Wow.
When I saw those numbers, Iwent, Okay, yes, that is huge
and that is terrifying. But thenI also thought about the fact
that the Fortune 500 companiesare really big, and change is
(14:25):
hard, and it's slow to do it inthat environment. And I, you
know, I was like, Okay, how dowe leverage this in small
businesses in the mid market inplaces where the businesses are
naturally a tad bit more agile?And we created the idea of
something that I call theinnovation engine. And it's
something that anybody can doand it doesn't require
(14:47):
education, right?
This is a thought exercise thatteams can do inside of any
business. And it's a three stepprocess, and it's really simple.
One, we have to generate newideas. We have to brainstorm. We
have to get people together,groups of people together to
play with the ideas of whatcould the future look like.
(15:09):
What could we do differently?What new products? What new
services? What things do we dotoday that we should figure out
how to sunset and retire becausethey're past their prime? What
are the things operationallythat we do that we've always
done them this way, but we'venever asked why?
We need to ideate on a regularand ongoing basis inside of
(15:30):
every business. We need to have,in the simplest definition of
how to run this process, adedicated whiteboard in a
conference room. And it is wherepeople walk by and say, I think
we should, and they write downan idea, right? And then we have
a running log of ideas that arecoming to play on a day to day
basis. And once a month, once aquarter, once a whatever time
(15:53):
interval makes sense in yourbusiness, bring a group of
people to stand in front of thatwhiteboard and play with those
ideas.
And when I mean play, I meanplay. This is not trying to sit
there and go, that's stupid,that'll never work. No, the play
is how do we make this ideareal? And as a group, do the
(16:13):
thought exercise, bounce itaround from different
perspectives inside of thebusiness, from a customer
perspective, from sales, fromoperations, from manufacturing,
whatever it is, lots ofdifferent perspectives on how
could we actually make it work.When you go through this thought
exercise, a few of those ideas,one, two, maybe, are going to
(16:33):
sound really interesting andpeople are going to go, Hey,
this could actually work.
So now we've done a conferenceroom prototype and we have an
idea or two that we might wantto spend a little bit more time
with. So now it's time toexperiment and figure out if
it's going to work or not. Sothis is that stage where
somebody is going to say, Yes,invest some actual time into
(16:56):
this. Again, I'm not talkingabout R and D, I'm not talking
about building physicalprototypes. This is still a
thought exercise, but it'staking it out of the room, and
it's taking it to a largeraudience.
It's taking it to customers, andactually starting to map out
what would it take to make theidea real, and if it's real,
what is the value in terms ofrevenue to the business? What is
(17:20):
the value in terms ofoperational effectiveness? What
are the things, right, what doesit do for the business? What
value does it provide yourcustomers? Do you want to take
this forward?
So, you get a little thirty daywindow of time to experiment in
a larger space and see if it'sviable. Then it can go on to
(17:41):
the, is this a project that thecompany wants to invest real
time, real money, and createthis process, this product, this
service, this efficiencyinternally. What we get when we
do this on a regular and ongoingbasis is continuous growth
cycles. Every product, everyservice that exists has a
(18:02):
natural life expectancy. Andwhen we go to market, we have
rapid growth and we're sellingthings and it's really good and
we're experiencing great things,but at some point in time we're
going to hit a plateau.
And that line of business isgoing to level out. And
sometimes we can level out thereand we can be there for a long
time, but from that levelingout, the natural next step is
decline. And if we don't haveanother product or service or
(18:26):
efficiency right in the hopper,that decline is a decline in
business and that's a bad thing.And being able to continuously
innovate and have differentideas in different stages of
experimentation, we have theability as one product, service,
process offering, whatever itis, plateaus, we can switch
(18:47):
focus into something else thatis in its growth cycle and we
can manage the plateau. We canmitigate the decline.
Right? We actually then make thedecision to retire before
decline happens. We can makedifferent choices along the way
because we always have somethingelse happening. When we have
(19:10):
disruption that's external, aneconomic downturn, a pandemic,
or anything that we weren'texpecting, we're future proofed
for that because we havedifferent things in the hopper
that we can play with and offsetsome of those negative impacts
that we weren't planning for.Innovation as part of the
(19:32):
culture feeding into a businessthat runs in an adaptive
transformation mindset, thesebusinesses can grow and scale.
They can respond to marketconditions far more nimbly than
those that don't. And part of ithas to do with that connection
at the beginning, right? Thepeople doing the right work,
they understand why they'redoing it. And when we've gotten
(19:54):
really good at accepting andembracing change, when change
presents itself, people face ithead on with enthusiasm rather
than sticking their heads in thesand and playing la la la la la
la, please, you know, I want itto go away. We've changed
everything.
Adam Larson (20:09):
How long does that change take? Because going from
la la la la la to yay change,that's not a just a one, two,
three step process.
Lisa Levy (20:20):
No. And it does take time, right? And so the
obnoxious answer to yourquestion, Adam, it depends.
Adam Larson (20:27):
Of course.
Lisa Levy (20:28):
It depends on the company, it depends on how many
people, it depends on howquickly you get to some
successes, right? So we learnfrom the things that we do that
don't turn out the way that wewanted to. We build enthusiasm
and buy in on success. And so, Iam not going to pretend that
this is an easy journey, and I'mnot going to pretend that every
(20:50):
experiment is a raging success.They aren't.
And when the experiments fail,acknowledge the failure,
document what you learned fromit so that you don't make the
same choice again in the futureand move on to the next thing.
But this starts at the top ofthe organization. The tone at
the top, the leadership team,the leader, depending on the
(21:13):
size of the organization, has tounderstand that through this
whole experience, we're going todo some things that don't work
out well, and that's okay,because we're doing them as
thought experiments, and so it'sa small, it's time, right? And
it's thinking work that may havebeen invested, but it is about
building momentum over time. Andso it's one next win to this
(21:35):
experiment isn't going to goanywhere, but what we learned
from us let us jump three stepsahead in something else.
And so it is about buildingmomentum. It is about leaders
creating the safety for thethought experiments to fail, so
that people can learn, and thatit is okay to admit we've given
(21:58):
it all we can, any more time,effort or money in this endeavor
is sunk and there's no goodreason to continue, we stop and
we move on to the next thing. Itis a mindset change for a lot of
people, and it is not a commandand control environment. This is
decentralized decision making.This is believing that you have
(22:20):
hired people who have the skillsand the capabilities to perform
in the role that they're in, andhopefully grow into new roles,
right, as their experienceexpands.
But it is acknowledging thatthey are capable. And if as a
leader, you look around at youremployees and you go, I don't
feel that we can do what Lisa'sdescribing, that's a different
(22:43):
problem and it's big. But thatis a cultural weakness and that
is a capability gap. And that issomething that, you know, that
is a totally different scenariothan we're talking about here.
Adam Larson (22:58):
So, when you're describing that decentralized
management style, it's kind oflike you're creating a leader
who's kind of more self reliant,is able to make actions and do
things more on the fly asopposed to jump through red
tape. How do you how do you gofrom like your more traditional
where like, oh, better ask myboss for everything to that
style? Because like you said, itrequires the amount of certain
(23:20):
amount of trust. You have tokind of build it. It's not
something that you turn on overa day, but it seems like that's
a better way of actuallytrusting your people as opposed
to having to micromanageeverything.
Lisa Levy (23:30):
Well, who wants to be responsible for every decision?
It's exhausting. Yeah. And as abusiness grows, I mean, you can
sustain that for a while and youcould create a team around you
who can sustain that for aslightly longer while. And but
it is not actually sustainable.
And when you look at largecorporations where they pretend
(23:53):
that they still have the totalcontrol at the top, I challenge
that. I just I don't believe it,right? Because there's just too
much that happens. But thoseleaders don't trust their
people. And the innovationengine practice builds that
trust and it builds the autonomyand it builds the confidence in
individuals because anybody canhave an idea and anybody can
(24:16):
want to champion experiment andfigure out what's possible and
what's not.
And so, it really sort of flipsthings around to a perspective
of, we're going to ask ouremployees to perform at their
best and highest level and theirbest capabilities and
demonstrate what they want toaccomplish. When they find
(24:36):
things that are going to addvalue, we're going to reward
that behavior and we're going toraise people up because of the
contributions that they'remaking, rather than telling them
what to do and how to do it anddiminishing their sense of
purpose and value to theorganization. This mindset puts
all of the power for the futurein everybody's hands.
Adam Larson (24:59):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (24:59):
So what does that get you as a leader? That gets you
freedom from day to dayoperations. That gets you
freedom to be strategic. If youare a founder business owner,
that gets you the ability totake a thirty day vacation and
sit on a beach and not checkyour email because your business
can operate without you. This ispowerful, and it changes the
(25:20):
focus so that I talk aboutcompanies at kind of three
levels, right?
Strategically, operationally,tactically. You are empowering
operations and the individualcontributors to think big and to
dream what the future of thisbusiness can look like and
giving them the opportunity tohelp drive that. So as a
(25:43):
leadership team, as a CEO,right, you can be looking at the
next things and empowering andinvesting time, money, and
effort into those things thatare working and know that
operations is happening, all ofthose other pieces are running
because you have peopleperforming at their highest
level because they want to.
Adam Larson (26:04):
Yeah, that sounds amazing. I wonder, how do you
create that innovative space?You know, because you said there
needs to be a safe place, safespace to fail. And in many
organizations, they've beenhaving to tighten their belt.
There's a lot of differingthings.
Industries are feeling theweight of different things like
tariffs and other decisions thatare happening. And so there's a
(26:25):
lot of pressure onorganizations. So obviously you
need to innovate so you cancreate new products, you can get
things out there. But what aboutthe day to day jobs and trying
to like, you know, how do youhow do you find that balance?
Because you need to control someaspects and you need to be
actual and make sure people aredoing their jobs to the bottom
line continues forward.
But you also need to have thatcreate that space that you're
talking about. There's got to bea middle ground that you can
(26:48):
meet somewhere.
Lisa Levy (26:49):
Sure. And so let's not over exaggerate the
investment into innovationengine. This can be it needs to
be to function and do what itneeds to be, right? Part of the
rhythm of the business on anIt's annual there. Is it taking
a person away from their jobfor, you know, a month at a
(27:09):
time?
No. Right? This is a couple ofhours here and a couple of hours
there, and some thinking timeand a couple of conversations
with other people, right?Investing in exploring an idea,
we might be talking about fortyhours over two months. Right?
So it's not like we're takingthem away from their actual job.
(27:30):
We're giving them something toexplore and to play with and to
develop and to design. And, youknow, in moments when they're
frustrated with the other thingsthat they're doing and they need
to step away. And, you know, wecould talk about, you know, it's
water cooler conversation kindof time. But instead of, you
(27:50):
know, sitting somewhere and, youknow, talking about what's going
on, it's actually now thinkingtime and playing with something
that is intriguing to them, thatis creative, that is something
that they can feed off of andgrow off of.
It's it's kind of right. It's alittle bit of that professional
development time, but it's notsaying, Adam, I am taking you
off of your job as the linemanager for the next two months,
(28:12):
and you're going to go do thisinnovation engine thing. That's
not the idea, right? But it's,Adam, you had this idea, and why
don't you talk with your peers,and why don't you talk with your
teams and why don't you talk,right, what does it look like to
put a draft outline of thebusiness case? What does the
business case look like forthis?
And that's what we're trying toget to. But it's not just Adam
(28:36):
sitting and writing a businesscase because we can all do that.
It's getting multipleperspectives to make it a little
bit more fully baked, thinkingabout from a sales perspective
and operations perspective,manufacturing if it's a product,
distribution, customer, gettinga group of customers on a Zoom
call and saying, Hey, we havethis idea. What do you think if?
We can call that a customer, wecan call that a focus group, we
(28:58):
can just call that an ad hocconversation, because we all
have customers that we have goodrelationships with and we just
want to query them.
I personally like to suggestthat you find customers that
were very dissatisfied withsomething that they did with
you. They didn't like a product,they didn't like the service,
and you're now asking them fortheir input and feedback because
you're going to try and dosomething different. Way to win
some customer loyalty, right?Even if they dislike the idea,
(29:22):
you sought out their opinion andthat will resonate with them and
that you will have earned someloyalty points in their mind
just by inviting them to theconversation.
Adam Larson (29:31):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (29:32):
So again, we're not taking people away from their
day to day responsibilities, butthis is sort of an addition to.
But it's the in addition to thatthey're opting in to participate
because they want to. If theydon't want to work on an idea,
they don't have to work on anidea. Those who do are going to
make a bigger impact to thecompany. I would wager a nickel
(29:55):
if I had one in my hand thatthey're all going to have better
career progression if they'reactively participating in
designing the future.
But, you know, that's somethingthat time will tell inside of
each individual company.
Adam Larson (30:06):
Yeah, I think that's helpful to kind of put it
in the perspective of, hey,you're not taking like a bunch
of people say, Okay, we're goingon to an off-site retreat and
we're going to spend three daysdoing like and and sometimes
when you think because it, youknow, just just probably like
what, ten years or eight, tenyears ago, innovation was like
the the hot topic word inbusinesses, You know, it had all
(30:27):
those books that were ininnovation and, you know, and
everybody was like, I'm goingstart an innovation group. And
people spend a lot of time doingthings that probably didn't go
anywhere because it wasimpractical. It was that I'm
going to go into a bubble andthen when we come out of the
bubble, none of the stuff wesaid makes any sense. And so I
like what you're saying is is amuch more practical way of kind
(30:47):
of, hey, this is how you canit's the little innovations that
we do every day that reallycreate the big things that
happen in an organization.
Lisa Levy (30:54):
And in this practice, and I'll use the phrase
practice, right? Because we'repracticing through all of this.
This as organizations get betterat it, the innovation ideas get
bigger, and the impact can getbigger. And the crazy idea that,
you know, in year one wassitting on that whiteboard, and
(31:15):
everybody just kind of shiedaway from it because that's big
and it's crazy, and we're nevergoing to be able to do something
like that. Five years into thiskind of an experience, a company
might be able to tackle that bigthing, right?
Because they are a moreefficient and effective
organization overall. There isless wasted time and effort
because processes are bettercontrolled. There are things
(31:36):
that lead to that thing thatseems so impossible becomes
absolutely achievable as thebusiness itself is tuning. We're
using an engine analogy. Let'stune this engine, this business
operating engine, and it's moreeffective and more efficient and
can then do more.
Adam Larson (31:54):
Yeah, for sure. Lisa, this has been a great
conversation. I feel like it'sbeen really great talking
through this with you, and Ireally encourage everybody to
check out Lisa's website in theshow notes if you want to learn
more and understand more aboutwhat she's been talking about.
And just thank you so much forcoming on again.
Lisa Levy (32:12):
Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. And Adam, I would
love to make an offer to theaudience, if I may.
Adam Larson (32:18):
Of course.
Lisa Levy (32:20):
Find me on LinkedIn, Lisa L. Levy. The middle initial
is important. Levy, L E V Y. Andif this conversation resonated
for you, if you're a leader whofeels like you are making every
decision and you are just sortof stuck in this place, your
team around you isn't quitedelivering yet, and you know
that they want to, drop the wordinnovation in a message to me,
(32:40):
and I will give you theinnovation engine blueprint,
which sort of explains all ofthe things we've been talking
about in a nice sort of articleformat.
And if that resonates for you, Iam happy to spend an hour doing
what I call an innovationclarity call, and we can talk
specifically about yourbusiness, your team, and what
those problems are, and come upwith some actionable things that
you can take away from that callthat will make a difference in
(33:01):
your business.
Announcer (33:04):
This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing
you with the latest perspectivesof thought leaders from the
accounting and financeprofession. If you like what you
heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
at www.imanet.org.
Welcome back to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam
Larsen, and today I'm talkingwith Lisa Levy, founder of
Lcubed Consulting and author ofFuture Proofing Cubed. We're
diving into the concept ofadaptive transformation, how
organizations of any size canuse proven strategies from
project management and processimprovement to boost efficiency
and break down silos. Lisashares practical advice on
(00:26):
documenting processes,encouraging continuous
improvement, and building aculture where innovation
thrives. Plus, she'll introduceher innovation engine, a simple
yet powerful approach that anyteam can use to generate ideas
and drive meaningful change.
So if you want actual ways tohelp your team adapt and future
proof your business, you're inthe right place. Let's dive
right in. Lisa, thanks so muchfor coming on. Count me in.
(00:55):
Today, we're going to be talkingabout a number of things like
adaptive transformation.
And I figure the first place wecould start is could you explain
the concept of adaptivetransformation and how does it
benefit businesses?
Lisa Levy (01:07):
Absolutely. So adaptive transformation is the
framework that we've developedwith L Cubed Consulting over the
last sixteen years. Theframework itself relies on best
practices that largecorporations build teams of
people around, but smaller andmid sized businesses don't have
the ability necessarily toinvest the millions of dollars
it takes to stand up a practicein project management, in
(01:30):
process performance management,internal controls or
organizational changemanagement. So with our adaptive
transformation frameworks, we'vetaken the key pieces of those
best practices and built theminto a cross functional tool set
that any business can use. Themain point behind the framework,
(01:52):
right, is to allow businesses tobecome effective and efficient
in the work that they do.
Let's talk about the payrolldepartment. Every employee
should understand the work thatthey do and the value and
benefit that it has to otherteams around them. But important
in that is what I do and what itmeans to the next person in the
process flow, and what it meansthrough that and understanding
(02:13):
all of those touch points,process management. And when
we're looking at processes andwanting to know if they're
performing right, want tounderstand points of risk inside
of a process. And that's wherewe can put and track our
controls.
Some of them may be manualcontrols where it's a checklist
or something that a human beingis observing to make sure that
(02:34):
it's working. And sometimesthey're automated controls. In a
procurement process, right, areally simple example of an
automated control is a three waymatch. So, person needs to buy
something, they create arequisition in a system. That
requisition goes to thepurchasing department who
sources whatever it is thatthey're going to procure.
They create a purchase orderthat they send to a vendor who
(02:55):
then ships the widgets back.When that comes in, there's a
receiving document on the boxthat says X number of items were
ordered, the price was this, andif all of that matches the
requisition amount, the POamount, and the receivable,
right, we now have a three waymatch that means the system can
pay that invoice and no humanintervention is required. So
(03:18):
those are system or automaticcontrols that we can put in
place. And in our businessestoday, we use lots of them. In
the IT space, there are tons ofcontrols for access that are
just everywhere, and we don'teven know about them.
They're just there, and theyjust work. But with the adaptive
transformation framework, aswe're going through and we're
understanding what the processis and how it works, what
(03:39):
happens when it needs to change?And how do we explain to people
the importance of the change?And that's where the
organizational change managementcomponent comes in. Because
human beings are inherently andnaturally resistant to change.
We like to do the things we knowhow to do, and we like to do
them over and over again. It'scomfortable. And we get into
(04:01):
that routine of work. So changeis an ever present reality in
business today, and some of itis planned and some of it takes
us by surprise. I won't belaborthe pandemic as the something
that took us by surprise andeverybody had to respond to that
change.
But we do, we have this everyday. And I built this framework
(04:22):
after years and years and yearsof having really good projects
fail because we didn't take thepeople through the journey so
that they would understand whatthe change is, why it's
beneficial, what it means tothem in their job, and even more
importantly, right, what itmeant to the customer of that
business. And so, corporationsuse these four best practices
(04:47):
all day, every day, and theywork as silos, and they
reinforce silos in largeenterprise companies. I
genuinely believe that breakingthe silos is critical, and using
these four very specific skillsand disciplines collectively
across functions empowersbusinesses to grow and scale,
(05:07):
become more efficient, moreeffective, and be encouraged
that they want to change becausethey understand the why behind
it. And it changes the entireculture.
It's a totally different kind ofbusiness operating model.
Adam Larson (05:22):
That's really interesting because you're
right, the bigger theorganization, the more the
taller the silo becomes. I feellike that's what it kind of goes
through and being able to breakdown those siloed walls. But
even in small and medium sizedbusinesses, sometimes you have
one person doing 20 things andthat's that in itself is a silo.
So how do you kind of break downthose silos, especially when the
(05:44):
smaller the business, the moremore things people are in charge
of? How can you break down someof those silos?
Because maybe one component isaffected by this other person or
another one was only affected bythat one person. Like I'm doing
5090% of the work and the oneperson doing 10%. You know, how
do you kind of break down thosesilos to make sure it flows
smoothly? And also just avoidsome of the risks that can
happen when one person's doing20 jobs.
Lisa Levy (06:06):
So that's a great scenario because every growing
business experiences this insome way, shape or form,
somewhere along the line. AndI'll give a little key secret,
and as that business grows, oneof the roles that is most likely
to be in this situation ofhaving that kind of risk is the
(06:27):
administrative support staff,the executive assistants, the
admin assistants. They workmagic every day, and we don't
always understand everythingthat they do. And if one of them
leaves unexpectedly, wheels falloff of businesses very quickly.
So, let's talk about the actualquestion, right?
You start to break that down?The first thing I work from is
(06:47):
an equation, and it really ispeople plus process, times
technology, equals growth andscale, or it equals
effectiveness and efficiency.But that equation is really
important because it has to workin order. You need good people
who are doing the right work.That right work needs to be
(07:08):
documented and understood as aprocess so that it's actually
repeatable.
You do not have a process if itis not documented and it is not
repeatable by somebody who isnot you. That's the number one
thing that starts to take apartthe scenario that you posed for
me, Adam, right? We have to putthese things on paper so that
when I win the lottery, and Irun out the door, and move to
(07:31):
Mexico, and never to be seen orheard from again, people can
come behind me and pick up theprocess documentation and
understand that Lisa was doingquite a lot of stuff, but we can
continue to do it because weknow what it is and how it was
done. People plus process. Wecan talk about technology, but
the people in the process iscritical.
Understanding what is beingdone, how it's being done. And
(07:54):
for me, I like therepresentation of cross
functional flowcharts. So whatam I doing? What are the other
teams or individuals thatsupport me in the process? What
are those handoffs andtouchpoints?
So we have those swim lanes. Andso it's not all about me, right?
It's all, or my role, it's allabout the process. And if I'm
that person who's doing 20different things and with my
(08:17):
superhuman, my superperson capeon, once I start putting those
down on paper, I am nowmitigating risk to the
organization holistically.Because any capable person who's
been hired into thisorganization should be able to
read those steps and work theirway through it.
(08:38):
May not be perfect the firsttime, but they can get through
it.
Adam Larson (08:42):
Yeah, they can. And it's interesting because when it
comes to process documents, youknow, people can get really up
in arms like, I don't have timeto create this thing. I don't
want to do this thing. But likeyou said, no one's going to stay
at a job forever. At some point,you're going to move on or
somebody's going to move on andyou have to help look because if
(09:02):
you're running down your steps,you can find better ways to do
things, too.
Lisa Levy (09:06):
Well, a great point. So, right, first step. It isn't
a process until it's on paperand can be repeated by other
people, right? It has to be onpaper, has to be something that
other people can reproduce. Andthen that third piece of that
process is continuousimprovement.
I was having a conversation witha gentleman the other day who is
(09:28):
on the board of the TQMassociation, and the statistics
that they're working with todaysay that a really good, well
tuned process should be modifiedand updated four times every
month. That is how fast thingsare changing in business today.
Adam Larson (09:45):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (09:46):
My face looked a lot like yours just did when he said
that, and I stopped, and Ireally thought through that, and
I was like, you know what? It'sprobably true. Not every process
is going to fit into thatmindset, but when most companies
may touch their processes, maytouch them once a year, maybe
(10:07):
four times a month, once a year,somewhere in between. There is a
sweet spot where you're actuallyimproving with purpose and on
purpose and actually makingthings better.
Adam Larson (10:18):
When you when I was thinking about that, sometimes
we do update our process on thego, but we don't update our
process documentation becauseyou're like, Oh, I did that
process document six months ago,but actually I've changed this
step, this step, this step andthis step. You are constantly
improving because if you find abetter way to do something, you
can slightly tweak it. But it'sremembering that you have
(10:39):
documentation that needs to beupdated, that needs to be
reviewed. And so that's aninteresting, you know, thought
process.
Lisa Levy (10:44):
And it is, right? And it goes back to and I know, I'm
sure that there are people inthe audience are thinking, Oh my
God, updating that documentationis just a pain.
Adam Larson (10:53):
Yeah,
Lisa Levy (10:53):
and okay, it kind of is, but if you actually do it in
real time when you're makingdecisions and making changes
happen, that pain you're talkingabout is five or ten minutes,
Right? It's when you touch itonce a year or once every other
year or something like that andyou go back through how much has
changed. Yeah, it hurts. It's achunk of time. But if you really
(11:17):
are thinking about process inthe mindset of being in this
continuous improvement mode andthat we should always be
improving and that change isgood, and that somebody takes
five minutes to go and say, Hey,we realize that step three is
stupid and it's wasting time andenergy, and if we get rid of it,
oh, we also can shortcut how weget to step seven, eight, and
(11:39):
nine.
We've just created efficiency,and what did that take me?
Thirty seconds to talk about it,but five minutes to delete some
things from a flowchart, it'snot actually that big of a deal.
Adam Larson (11:52):
Yeah. No, that's a great point. Yeah. So when you
and I first spoke, mentioned abook that you had written,
Future Proofing Cubed. And Ilooked at it and I was like,
this is really interesting,especially the idea of future
proofing within an organization.
And I was thinking, wondering ifyou could share a little bit of
some insights from it and justtell us a little bit more about
it.
Lisa Levy (12:13):
Absolutely. So Future Proofing Cubed is explores the
adaptive transformationframework. It takes you through
all of the best practices thatI've talked about project
management, process management,organizational change, internal
controls. And it takes usthrough those experiences
through the voice of people whohave done these things. Some of
the stories are leaders who arevery naturally think this way,
(12:35):
and it was something that wasvery organic for them to do, and
there are definitely leaders outthere who just are capable of
being adaptive and understandthe value of process and
controls and really mostimportantly people.
But right then there's somestories in there about, you
know, things that didn't go theway anybody was expecting and
right, because that's where welearn things. Yeah. And so the
(12:58):
book is kind of that quick startguide to understanding what the
adaptive transformationframework is, and the book is
something that's been out for acouple of years, but it is still
very much the cornerstone ofwhat we do in our consulting
practice and everything tiesback to that framework. But one
of the things that we hinted atin the book was the need to
(13:19):
innovate and the power thatinnovation has for a business.
And it was hinted at it in thebook, but over time I've
realized that that really issort of a foundational mindset
that we need to explore andbuild into the model.
There's research that's beendone over the last twenty years
(13:41):
and there's been touch points onit, and that when CEOs of
Fortune 500 companies are askedif innovation is important to
their business, 94% of them saythat innovation is key for their
businesses to be able to surviveinto the future. Not actually a
surprising statistic, innovationimportant. When the follow-up
(14:04):
question, how confident are youthat you have teams of people
who can lead innovation and leadyour business into the future?
6% were confident. Wow.
When I saw those numbers, Iwent, Okay, yes, that is huge
and that is terrifying. But thenI also thought about the fact
that the Fortune 500 companiesare really big, and change is
(14:25):
hard, and it's slow to do it inthat environment. And I, you
know, I was like, Okay, how dowe leverage this in small
businesses in the mid market inplaces where the businesses are
naturally a tad bit more agile?And we created the idea of
something that I call theinnovation engine. And it's
something that anybody can doand it doesn't require
(14:47):
education, right?
This is a thought exercise thatteams can do inside of any
business. And it's a three stepprocess, and it's really simple.
One, we have to generate newideas. We have to brainstorm. We
have to get people together,groups of people together to
play with the ideas of whatcould the future look like.
(15:09):
What could we do differently?What new products? What new
services? What things do we dotoday that we should figure out
how to sunset and retire becausethey're past their prime? What
are the things operationallythat we do that we've always
done them this way, but we'venever asked why?
We need to ideate on a regularand ongoing basis inside of
(15:30):
every business. We need to have,in the simplest definition of
how to run this process, adedicated whiteboard in a
conference room. And it is wherepeople walk by and say, I think
we should, and they write downan idea, right? And then we have
a running log of ideas that arecoming to play on a day to day
basis. And once a month, once aquarter, once a whatever time
(15:53):
interval makes sense in yourbusiness, bring a group of
people to stand in front of thatwhiteboard and play with those
ideas.
And when I mean play, I meanplay. This is not trying to sit
there and go, that's stupid,that'll never work. No, the play
is how do we make this ideareal? And as a group, do the
(16:13):
thought exercise, bounce itaround from different
perspectives inside of thebusiness, from a customer
perspective, from sales, fromoperations, from manufacturing,
whatever it is, lots ofdifferent perspectives on how
could we actually make it work.When you go through this thought
exercise, a few of those ideas,one, two, maybe, are going to
(16:33):
sound really interesting andpeople are going to go, Hey,
this could actually work.
So now we've done a conferenceroom prototype and we have an
idea or two that we might wantto spend a little bit more time
with. So now it's time toexperiment and figure out if
it's going to work or not. Sothis is that stage where
somebody is going to say, Yes,invest some actual time into
(16:56):
this. Again, I'm not talkingabout R and D, I'm not talking
about building physicalprototypes. This is still a
thought exercise, but it'staking it out of the room, and
it's taking it to a largeraudience.
It's taking it to customers, andactually starting to map out
what would it take to make theidea real, and if it's real,
what is the value in terms ofrevenue to the business? What is
(17:20):
the value in terms ofoperational effectiveness? What
are the things, right, what doesit do for the business? What
value does it provide yourcustomers? Do you want to take
this forward?
So, you get a little thirty daywindow of time to experiment in
a larger space and see if it'sviable. Then it can go on to
(17:41):
the, is this a project that thecompany wants to invest real
time, real money, and createthis process, this product, this
service, this efficiencyinternally. What we get when we
do this on a regular and ongoingbasis is continuous growth
cycles. Every product, everyservice that exists has a
(18:02):
natural life expectancy. Andwhen we go to market, we have
rapid growth and we're sellingthings and it's really good and
we're experiencing great things,but at some point in time we're
going to hit a plateau.
And that line of business isgoing to level out. And
sometimes we can level out thereand we can be there for a long
time, but from that levelingout, the natural next step is
decline. And if we don't haveanother product or service or
(18:26):
efficiency right in the hopper,that decline is a decline in
business and that's a bad thing.And being able to continuously
innovate and have differentideas in different stages of
experimentation, we have theability as one product, service,
process offering, whatever itis, plateaus, we can switch
(18:47):
focus into something else thatis in its growth cycle and we
can manage the plateau. We canmitigate the decline.
Right? We actually then make thedecision to retire before
decline happens. We can makedifferent choices along the way
because we always have somethingelse happening. When we have
(19:10):
disruption that's external, aneconomic downturn, a pandemic,
or anything that we weren'texpecting, we're future proofed
for that because we havedifferent things in the hopper
that we can play with and offsetsome of those negative impacts
that we weren't planning for.Innovation as part of the
(19:32):
culture feeding into a businessthat runs in an adaptive
transformation mindset, thesebusinesses can grow and scale.
They can respond to marketconditions far more nimbly than
those that don't. And part of ithas to do with that connection
at the beginning, right? Thepeople doing the right work,
they understand why they'redoing it. And when we've gotten
(19:54):
really good at accepting andembracing change, when change
presents itself, people face ithead on with enthusiasm rather
than sticking their heads in thesand and playing la la la la la
la, please, you know, I want itto go away. We've changed
everything.
Adam Larson (20:09):
How long does that change take? Because going from
la la la la la to yay change,that's not a just a one, two,
three step process.
Lisa Levy (20:20):
No. And it does take time, right? And so the
obnoxious answer to yourquestion, Adam, it depends.
Adam Larson (20:27):
Of course.
Lisa Levy (20:28):
It depends on the company, it depends on how many
people, it depends on howquickly you get to some
successes, right? So we learnfrom the things that we do that
don't turn out the way that wewanted to. We build enthusiasm
and buy in on success. And so, Iam not going to pretend that
this is an easy journey, and I'mnot going to pretend that every
(20:50):
experiment is a raging success.They aren't.
And when the experiments fail,acknowledge the failure,
document what you learned fromit so that you don't make the
same choice again in the futureand move on to the next thing.
But this starts at the top ofthe organization. The tone at
the top, the leadership team,the leader, depending on the
(21:13):
size of the organization, has tounderstand that through this
whole experience, we're going todo some things that don't work
out well, and that's okay,because we're doing them as
thought experiments, and so it'sa small, it's time, right? And
it's thinking work that may havebeen invested, but it is about
building momentum over time. Andso it's one next win to this
(21:35):
experiment isn't going to goanywhere, but what we learned
from us let us jump three stepsahead in something else.
And so it is about buildingmomentum. It is about leaders
creating the safety for thethought experiments to fail, so
that people can learn, and thatit is okay to admit we've given
(21:58):
it all we can, any more time,effort or money in this endeavor
is sunk and there's no goodreason to continue, we stop and
we move on to the next thing. Itis a mindset change for a lot of
people, and it is not a commandand control environment. This is
decentralized decision making.This is believing that you have
(22:20):
hired people who have the skillsand the capabilities to perform
in the role that they're in, andhopefully grow into new roles,
right, as their experienceexpands.
But it is acknowledging thatthey are capable. And if as a
leader, you look around at youremployees and you go, I don't
feel that we can do what Lisa'sdescribing, that's a different
(22:43):
problem and it's big. But thatis a cultural weakness and that
is a capability gap. And that issomething that, you know, that
is a totally different scenariothan we're talking about here.
Adam Larson (22:58):
So, when you're describing that decentralized
management style, it's kind oflike you're creating a leader
who's kind of more self reliant,is able to make actions and do
things more on the fly asopposed to jump through red
tape. How do you how do you gofrom like your more traditional
where like, oh, better ask myboss for everything to that
style? Because like you said, itrequires the amount of certain
(23:20):
amount of trust. You have tokind of build it. It's not
something that you turn on overa day, but it seems like that's
a better way of actuallytrusting your people as opposed
to having to micromanageeverything.
Lisa Levy (23:30):
Well, who wants to be responsible for every decision?
It's exhausting. Yeah. And as abusiness grows, I mean, you can
sustain that for a while and youcould create a team around you
who can sustain that for aslightly longer while. And but
it is not actually sustainable.
And when you look at largecorporations where they pretend
(23:53):
that they still have the totalcontrol at the top, I challenge
that. I just I don't believe it,right? Because there's just too
much that happens. But thoseleaders don't trust their
people. And the innovationengine practice builds that
trust and it builds the autonomyand it builds the confidence in
individuals because anybody canhave an idea and anybody can
(24:16):
want to champion experiment andfigure out what's possible and
what's not.
And so, it really sort of flipsthings around to a perspective
of, we're going to ask ouremployees to perform at their
best and highest level and theirbest capabilities and
demonstrate what they want toaccomplish. When they find
(24:36):
things that are going to addvalue, we're going to reward
that behavior and we're going toraise people up because of the
contributions that they'remaking, rather than telling them
what to do and how to do it anddiminishing their sense of
purpose and value to theorganization. This mindset puts
all of the power for the futurein everybody's hands.
Adam Larson (24:59):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (24:59):
So what does that get you as a leader? That gets you
freedom from day to dayoperations. That gets you
freedom to be strategic. If youare a founder business owner,
that gets you the ability totake a thirty day vacation and
sit on a beach and not checkyour email because your business
can operate without you. This ispowerful, and it changes the
(25:20):
focus so that I talk aboutcompanies at kind of three
levels, right?
Strategically, operationally,tactically. You are empowering
operations and the individualcontributors to think big and to
dream what the future of thisbusiness can look like and
giving them the opportunity tohelp drive that. So as a
(25:43):
leadership team, as a CEO,right, you can be looking at the
next things and empowering andinvesting time, money, and
effort into those things thatare working and know that
operations is happening, all ofthose other pieces are running
because you have peopleperforming at their highest
level because they want to.
Adam Larson (26:04):
Yeah, that sounds amazing. I wonder, how do you
create that innovative space?You know, because you said there
needs to be a safe place, safespace to fail. And in many
organizations, they've beenhaving to tighten their belt.
There's a lot of differingthings.
Industries are feeling theweight of different things like
tariffs and other decisions thatare happening. And so there's a
(26:25):
lot of pressure onorganizations. So obviously you
need to innovate so you cancreate new products, you can get
things out there. But what aboutthe day to day jobs and trying
to like, you know, how do youhow do you find that balance?
Because you need to control someaspects and you need to be
actual and make sure people aredoing their jobs to the bottom
line continues forward.
But you also need to have thatcreate that space that you're
talking about. There's got to bea middle ground that you can
(26:48):
meet somewhere.
Lisa Levy (26:49):
Sure. And so let's not over exaggerate the
investment into innovationengine. This can be it needs to
be to function and do what itneeds to be, right? Part of the
rhythm of the business on anIt's annual there. Is it taking
a person away from their jobfor, you know, a month at a
(27:09):
time?
No. Right? This is a couple ofhours here and a couple of hours
there, and some thinking timeand a couple of conversations
with other people, right?Investing in exploring an idea,
we might be talking about fortyhours over two months. Right?
So it's not like we're takingthem away from their actual job.
(27:30):
We're giving them something toexplore and to play with and to
develop and to design. And, youknow, in moments when they're
frustrated with the other thingsthat they're doing and they need
to step away. And, you know, wecould talk about, you know, it's
water cooler conversation kindof time. But instead of, you
(27:50):
know, sitting somewhere and, youknow, talking about what's going
on, it's actually now thinkingtime and playing with something
that is intriguing to them, thatis creative, that is something
that they can feed off of andgrow off of.
It's it's kind of right. It's alittle bit of that professional
development time, but it's notsaying, Adam, I am taking you
off of your job as the linemanager for the next two months,
(28:12):
and you're going to go do thisinnovation engine thing. That's
not the idea, right? But it's,Adam, you had this idea, and why
don't you talk with your peers,and why don't you talk with your
teams and why don't you talk,right, what does it look like to
put a draft outline of thebusiness case? What does the
business case look like forthis?
And that's what we're trying toget to. But it's not just Adam
(28:36):
sitting and writing a businesscase because we can all do that.
It's getting multipleperspectives to make it a little
bit more fully baked, thinkingabout from a sales perspective
and operations perspective,manufacturing if it's a product,
distribution, customer, gettinga group of customers on a Zoom
call and saying, Hey, we havethis idea. What do you think if?
We can call that a customer, wecan call that a focus group, we
(28:58):
can just call that an ad hocconversation, because we all
have customers that we have goodrelationships with and we just
want to query them.
I personally like to suggestthat you find customers that
were very dissatisfied withsomething that they did with
you. They didn't like a product,they didn't like the service,
and you're now asking them fortheir input and feedback because
you're going to try and dosomething different. Way to win
some customer loyalty, right?Even if they dislike the idea,
(29:22):
you sought out their opinion andthat will resonate with them and
that you will have earned someloyalty points in their mind
just by inviting them to theconversation.
Adam Larson (29:31):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (29:32):
So again, we're not taking people away from their
day to day responsibilities, butthis is sort of an addition to.
But it's the in addition to thatthey're opting in to participate
because they want to. If theydon't want to work on an idea,
they don't have to work on anidea. Those who do are going to
make a bigger impact to thecompany. I would wager a nickel
(29:55):
if I had one in my hand thatthey're all going to have better
career progression if they'reactively participating in
designing the future.
But, you know, that's somethingthat time will tell inside of
each individual company.
Adam Larson (30:06):
Yeah, I think that's helpful to kind of put it
in the perspective of, hey,you're not taking like a bunch
of people say, Okay, we're goingon to an off-site retreat and
we're going to spend three daysdoing like and and sometimes
when you think because it, youknow, just just probably like
what, ten years or eight, tenyears ago, innovation was like
the the hot topic word inbusinesses, You know, it had all
(30:27):
those books that were ininnovation and, you know, and
everybody was like, I'm goingstart an innovation group. And
people spend a lot of time doingthings that probably didn't go
anywhere because it wasimpractical. It was that I'm
going to go into a bubble andthen when we come out of the
bubble, none of the stuff wesaid makes any sense. And so I
like what you're saying is is amuch more practical way of kind
(30:47):
of, hey, this is how you canit's the little innovations that
we do every day that reallycreate the big things that
happen in an organization.
Lisa Levy (30:54):
And in this practice, and I'll use the phrase
practice, right? Because we'repracticing through all of this.
This as organizations get betterat it, the innovation ideas get
bigger, and the impact can getbigger. And the crazy idea that,
you know, in year one wassitting on that whiteboard, and
(31:15):
everybody just kind of shiedaway from it because that's big
and it's crazy, and we're nevergoing to be able to do something
like that. Five years into thiskind of an experience, a company
might be able to tackle that bigthing, right?
Because they are a moreefficient and effective
organization overall. There isless wasted time and effort
because processes are bettercontrolled. There are things
(31:36):
that lead to that thing thatseems so impossible becomes
absolutely achievable as thebusiness itself is tuning. We're
using an engine analogy. Let'stune this engine, this business
operating engine, and it's moreeffective and more efficient and
can then do more.
Adam Larson (31:54):
Yeah, for sure. Lisa, this has been a great
conversation. I feel like it'sbeen really great talking
through this with you, and Ireally encourage everybody to
check out Lisa's website in theshow notes if you want to learn
more and understand more aboutwhat she's been talking about.
And just thank you so much forcoming on again.
Lisa Levy (32:12):
Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. And Adam, I would
love to make an offer to theaudience, if I may.
Adam Larson (32:18):
Of course.
Lisa Levy (32:20):
Find me on LinkedIn, Lisa L. Levy. The middle initial
is important. Levy, L E V Y. Andif this conversation resonated
for you, if you're a leader whofeels like you are making every
decision and you are just sortof stuck in this place, your
team around you isn't quitedelivering yet, and you know
that they want to, drop the wordinnovation in a message to me,
(32:40):
and I will give you theinnovation engine blueprint,
which sort of explains all ofthe things we've been talking
about in a nice sort of articleformat.
And if that resonates for you, Iam happy to spend an hour doing
what I call an innovationclarity call, and we can talk
specifically about yourbusiness, your team, and what
those problems are, and come upwith some actionable things that
you can take away from that callthat will make a difference in
(33:01):
your business.
Announcer (33:04):
This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast, providing
you with the latest perspectivesof thought leaders from the
accounting and financeprofession. If you like what you
heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
at www.imanet.org.
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