August 5, 2025 • 49 mins
Ever wonder why large companies struggle to innovate despite having vast resources at their disposal? According to Andy Binns, co-founder of ChangeLogic and co-author of "Corporate Explorer," we've been looking at innovation all wrong.
The secret to corporate innovation isn't hiring outside entrepreneurs or creating flashy innovation labs. It's identifying and empowering the "corporate explorers" already within your organization. These individuals aren't necessarily the loudest or most charismatic people in the room. Often they're humble, introspective problem-solvers with deep institutional knowledge and the social capital to navigate complex organizational systems.
Binns challenges our assumptions about innovation, revealing that ideas aren't the problem—most organizations have plenty. The real challenge lies in properly incubating and scaling those ideas. He outlines a three-discipline approach: ideation (understanding customer problems), incubation (experimenting with data-driven learning), and scaling (converting experiments into revenue). While most companies obsess over ideation, the latter two disciplines determine success.
Creating separate systems for exploration is crucial. Corporate explorers need protection from the optimization-focused core business, which naturally squashes innovation for efficiency. This doesn't mean relocating to different buildings, but it does require distinct metrics, cultural norms, and management approaches. Surprisingly, special financial incentives aren't necessary to motivate these internal innovators—they're driven by impact, autonomy, and the opportunity to create meaningful change within organizations they care about.
For HR leaders, this means rethinking talent identification and development. The approach works for organizations of all sizes, not just corporate giants. By recognizing and empowering your internal explorers, you might discover that large companies actually have advantages over startups in the innovation game.
Ready to unleash the innovation potential of your organization? Start by looking within—your next breakthrough innovator is probably already on your payroll.
Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work. Please connect to continue the conversation!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And oh, by the way, ideas are addictive Human beings
.
Just we love it, we love it.
I'm going to let you and I jamdown on how we can solve HR.
We're going to come up with aton of ideas and we're going to
love what we do.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's going to feel good.
It's going to really feel good,so good.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we
talk to HR innovators about allthings people, leadership.
If you're looking for places tofind, about new ways to think
about the world of work, this isthe podcast for you.
Please subscribe to yourfavorite podcast listening
platform today and leave us areview.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
(00:35):
Welcome Rebel HR listeners.
Thank you for joining us foranother week.
This one is going to be funWith us.
Today we have Andy Binns.
He is co-founder of ChangeLogic, a Boston-based strategic
advisory firm.
He works with CEOs, boards,senior teams and tries to help
navigate allite the world withinnovation.
(00:57):
He has a guidebook called theCorporate Explorer that helps
with practices that enablemanagers to go from idea into
action and demonstrates howsuccess is not only possible but
(01:17):
may offer entrenched companiesbetter odds than venture
capital-backed startups.
Thanks for joining us, andy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hi there, carl, very nice to be with you.
Thank you for inviting me onyour show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, extremely excited, and it's one of those
things that this topic for mejust spoke to me, and when I got
the request to speak with youand I saw some of the work you
were doing, I said yes, we needto talk on the podcast.
So appreciate you joining ustoday and we are going to start
by talking about change.
So what got you interested inhelping organizations understand
(02:03):
how to innovate?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
in helping organizations understand how to
innovate.
Well, you know, I think whatgot me really interested in this
was I really am a bad employee.
I just hate being insideorganizations at some level, and
so you know, I think that Iwrestle with that issue, and the
(02:26):
one place that things seemed toclick for me was when I was
with IBM.
This was 20 years ago, so thatmeans I'd already had 10, 15
years of being a bad employeebefore I got this one and I got
assigned to work with um.
(02:47):
Ibm had these emerging businessopportunities and these were
like new businesses.
The idea was to um to create,from the assets the company had,
some new places that it couldexplore.
Right, and I was like, okay,I've not, I've not.
I've read stuff aboutinnovation.
I had done some stuff in myprevious consulting career
(03:09):
around innovation, but this wasthe moment in which my
imagination fired, because I sawa place where the the rebels,
to use your term could actuallylive in an organization, to use
your term could actually live inan organization, that there is
a role for those who want topush the boundaries and to take
(03:29):
organizations in different ways,and I just thought it was a
neat combination of innovationin large organizations.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I love that and you know it's really interesting
about that.
First of all, I love thatyou're like, yeah, I'm just not
a good employee.
Know what's really interestingabout that?
Um, first of all, I love thatyou're like, yeah, I'm just not
a good employee, um, but I Iwould.
I might, you know, flip that alittle bit and say you know, um,
maybe you're not a goodemployee in an organization that
doesn't let you be creative andinnovative is is that fair?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
well, so, so, so that that may be, but.
But the interesting thingthat's embedded in your question
about let you be right is thatit's the organization's job to
enable us and I don't thinkthat's very often the recipe of
success right book, corporateExplorer.
(04:21):
How corporations beat startupsat the innovation game is that
when we look at examples ofreally successful innovation in
large corporations, it has atthe center a rebel, somebody who
is going to seize anopportunity, seize a problem in
the world they want to solve.
(04:42):
And it's them who take, bringthe energy to bring the purpose,
bring the passion to convertthat into a business.
And they're very rarely giventhe opportunity.
Most of them take it Right, andthat, for me, is a little bit
of the same story.
So you've got to take theseopportunities and, yes,
organizations can enable.
(05:02):
I don't we can talk about howyou do that, but I just think
that's an important sort us tobuild the, you know, the, the
platform for innovation.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
But, um, what it sounds like to me in in what you
just described is it's moreabout us getting the right
people empowered to do the workand then, and then getting out
of their way.
Am I on the right track there?
I think I think you are.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I mean, I think that there's a little bit more we can
say.
But but the, the, the.
The notion is that within mostorganizations and after a while
this isn't true, right, they canget to the point where, where,
where, that you, you have a hardtime with this Most
organizations, there areexplorers.
(06:06):
There are people whose bias istowards how do I create, create,
create, how do I do new, new,new?
And then there are people whoare much more how do I optimize,
how do I bring stability, howdo I bring regimentation?
And what you need to do isfigure out how you set some
number of those explorers freenot all of them, because then
(06:27):
you just create a zoo, right,but allow some of these people
to really drive, give them alicense to explore, if you will,
and that is what will securethe sort of innovation outcomes
that many organizations arelooking for, innovation outcomes
(06:49):
that many organizations arelooking for, and that impulse
that they have is very similarto an entrepreneur.
So some of what they do isdifferent and some of what they
do is the same.
It's a matter of understandingthe difference between the two.
There's one other thing, oneother bubble I want to burst,
carl, if I may, which I think isimportant, and I'm afraid I'm
going to blame HR for this one,just for that we're fair game.
(07:14):
Go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, you asked me onyour show.
So here is what happened, and Iwill generalize this point in a
sec.
I'm in Germany in an unnamedlarge financial services company
and I'm with the head of globaltalent and we're discussing the
(07:34):
work we've done with them tothink about how to create an
innovation unit, to explore someopportunities that they see to
go after.
And this is maybe my third orfourth visit.
And I say to her so you know,leadership of this unit is
really important.
You know what progress have youmade?
Ah, yes, andy, we have come toa solution to this.
(07:55):
We've decided we'll hire fromoutside because that way, if we
fail, the consequences are less.
Way, if we fail, theconsequences are less.
In other words, it won't do anyharm to our talent succession
if somebody fails and we have toeject them from the system.
(08:16):
Outsiders have a really hardtime leading innovation inside
corporations because they haveno social capital, they have no
track record of performance,they don't have any favors they
can call on from other people,and so what we find is that ones
who are really successful atthis have a track record, people
(08:38):
know them and when they fail,because we can get onto this
innovation is often about thisnotion of rapid failing, learn
by testing and so on, that youdon't know.
Is it the person or is it theidea?
Did they learn something or isit just because they're not very
good?
But if they're an old timer,there's somebody who has that
track record, then you know totrust them.
(09:00):
This is somebody who they aredoing something new and we know
they've done one in the past.
Therefore, we can trust them,and so part of getting this
formula right is actuallytrusting the people you have
already.
It's not about always recruitingin the premier entrepreneurial
talent, or even entrepreneurs inresidence is very much in vogue
(09:22):
at the moment.
This can get you some part ofthe way and it's not.
It's not irrelevant, it's partof the formula.
But you've got.
The corporate explorers areoften high social capital, been
in the company a while, but justexploratory, build
relationships, know how to getthings done.
And you've got.
And the job is how do you setthem free?
Know how to get things done.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And the job is how do you set them free?
That's really interesting andit does go counter to what so
many organizations do.
Right, it's the well, we neednew ideas, or we need to come up
with a new go-to-marketstrategy, or whatever the
innovation need is, and it'slike the immediate default
(10:07):
choice is well, we better gohire from the outside, because
we probably don't have thatperson inside the organization.
That's the assumption, right,like that's like the base case
assumption.
But what you just described,it's really interesting.
I'm reflecting on innovation inthe HR space, which is
obviously one of my favoritethings to do.
But a great example in mycurrent organization.
(10:31):
I have been here for just aboutfour years now.
I didn't really start makingany traction until about two and
a half years in, and a lot ofthat had to do with exactly what
you described.
I didn't necessarily have anysocial capital.
I was an unproven resource.
People were like I don't knowif I want to give this guy any
(10:52):
any head count or invest, causeI don't know if the direction
that we're going here is is isworth it.
Right, it's like there was likethat, and so I didn't have,
really didn't have, manyresources, and you know,
fortunately now we're makingprogress, but it's slow.
It takes a long time, but it'sa really interesting point.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And I've seen that in HR as well.
One of my clients has had asuccession of HR leaders.
They're about to get anotherone and, unfortunately, the
initial reaction to the personcoming in will likely be well,
is it worth me spending my timewith this person?
Because the last two didn'tlast either and it's the same
(11:40):
phenomenon.
Yeah, and we just have torespect social networks, even in
, you know, modestly sizedorganizations, right, maybe,
especially in modestly sizedorganizations, because they look
, and often are, very, you know,friendly and affiliative.
But that that isn't.
People may like you, but thatdoesn't mean that they're going
to help you or that they'rewilling to put what they have
(12:02):
now at risk.
That's the challenge.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Absolutely so.
I think it's you know.
I think one of the reallyinteresting points you made is
we think about you know thingslike org design and talent
selection and where you knowwhere's the right seat on the
bus for this person was thepoint that you made about you
know that balance, like theoptimizers and the explorersers,
and you know, yeah, if you havetoo many explorers and it, it
is a zoo, right, it's like abunch of monkey monkeys swinging
(12:31):
from tree to tree and you'relike wait a minute, where's?
Where's the entrance to the zoo?
Again, like how do we get out?
And, uh, so, so, as you, as youwere, you know writing this
guidebook andbook and doing yourresearch, and just in your vast
experience with organizations,what tactics have you seen that
work as it relates to how do Istructure an organization to
(12:56):
empower the right people andoptimize the right roles?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Good, good, yeah.
So first, we think aboutinnovation as being about three
disciplines ideation, incubationand scaling.
And they're each.
You know they're obviouslyrelated and in real life they're
not quite as separate as thatmakes it sound.
You're often working on scalingeven as you're doing ideation,
(13:23):
but for the purposes ofunderstanding, think about them
as three separate disciplines.
And ideation is aboutunderstanding unsolved customer
problems.
What are the jobs that theywant to do that if you were to
solve for them, you coulddevelop strong customer loyalty
and attraction.
(13:44):
You know you could develop, youknow, strong customer loyalty
and attraction.
Incubation is aboutexperimenting, using data to
tell you which ideas to investin and avoiding the trap of
investing ahead of your learning.
So it's one of those great bigcorporate things.
Let's just spend money on it,right?
Rather than let's move slowly,incrementally, incrementally,
test and learn.
And then scaling is aboutconverting a successful
(14:07):
experiment into revenue, andit's a place where most
corporations or startups forthat matter really struggle,
right.
Corporations have particularstruggles, which is unfortunate
because they have most of theassets to do the scaling, but we
can talk about that One of thethings that.
So, if you've got that sense ofidea incubate, scale you're
(14:27):
going to treat each of thesedifferently.
Right Idea is about engagingmany people.
It's inside the company,outside the company, deep
customer insight.
It's an opportunity to turn thecompany outside so that you
drive as much outside ininnovation, not inside out.
It's not a matter of what youknow, what technologies,
(14:49):
processes, products you have.
It's a matter of what problemsyou solve.
So that's a big piece of whyideation, I think also why CEOs
often bring us back to ideation,because they see that
opportunity to connect us morewith customers.
So it's okay to make that amass involvement opportunity in
a company.
(15:10):
But you've got to select.
Not everything you decide on issomething that you're going to
progress.
At some point you've got to say, okay, there's a down select to
a set of opportunities thatyou're going to then incubate.
Now in the book we talk moreabout how do you set up ideation
so that that's easy, and wetalk about, even in ideation,
(15:33):
narrowing around areas that havethe most opportunity and things
like that.
But at some point you're goingto make a hard decision and then
you incubate and at this pointyou start to think about well,
we're ready to invest.
So I'm going to take some ofkyle's time and I'm going to
focus him on this innovation,right?
So you start to we.
We often set up um, a sort of asprint team, like an agile
(15:56):
process, um, and for the first90 days we've got people
sequestered to a team for maybeyou of their time to do this and
they're going to go throughthat first level of validation
of the business and then, afterthat first 90 days, you're going
to decide are you going to ponyup the investment to put people
(16:17):
on 100%?
And at that point you'recreating a venture that you're
going to separate away from thecore business.
You've got to separate andexplore unit from the core
business.
It doesn't have to be often adifferent building.
Some people do put it in adifferent building or a
different city but even if it'sjust on a different floor or if
there's a corner of the buildingthat you can give it to,
(16:40):
because often when you'reexploring into new areas, it
needs to work in a different way, have a different culture,
different working practices,because you might be addressing
a different customer set orbusiness model or whatever.
And then the scaling storyyou're definitely into this as a
separate organization with itsown routines and so on, and so
that sort of changes as theinnovation matures.
(17:04):
Essentially, is that getting atwhat you're thinking?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's very helpful and, I think, just the
systematic way to how innovationworks.
It's interesting because a lotof times you hear these stories,
right Like the light bulbmoments, and somebody was trying
to.
They was trying to, they weredoing something you know at 3M
and stumbled across scotch tape,right, and it was because
(17:31):
someone was trying to do someother random project that
absolutely didn't work, but youknow they stumbled into it and
and you hear about these.
But I mean, so often we're kindof, we're almost like paralyzed
, like okay, well, how how do I,how do I actually make that
happen in my organization?
Right, like like, how do we,how do we figure out scotch tape
on accident?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
and and and kyle.
I think this may be whereyou're going.
My reaction is we're solvingthe wrong problem, right that
that we're solving the how do Iget lots of ideas problem, and
and oh, by the way, ideas areaddictive.
Human beings just love it, welove it.
I'm going to let you and I jamdown on how we can solve HR.
(18:11):
We're going to come up with aton of ideas and we're going to
love what we do.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's going to feel good.
It's going to really feel good.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So good, but the problem is all about incubation
and scalability and it's notabout creativity.
I've got nothing againstcreativity, I've got nothing
about generating lots of ideas,but really we're focused in the
wrong place, and this is one ofthe challenges that corporations
get into.
So that's why we end up withinnovation schemes that just
(18:40):
have T-shirts or mugs or big,large-scale events or jamborees
of ideas, rather than doing thatcommitted stuff of actually
innovating.
And the energy can't come fromthe organization alone.
It's got to come from thesecorporate explorers.
That's why they're so important, because that is what works
(19:00):
externally.
You know, venture capitalistsrely on great entrepreneurs and
they look for serialentrepreneurs, right, people who
know how to do this, so thatit's in their bones to be an
explorer, and and that is whatwhat you see in corporate
explorers as well is people whojust have that passion,
commitment and also this may bedifferent to many entrepreneurs
(19:24):
selflessness.
They have to be ready to letother people make them
successful, and so that meanssometimes they're less showy,
less it's all about me thanwe're looking for.
So you might have explorers inyour organization you haven't
realized it because they don'tmake as much noise, but actually
(19:44):
their capacity to lead andtheir capacity to identify
opportunities may be outstanding, and that's certainly the case
that we see in some of thesestories in our book.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
That's a really interesting point and I'm
reflecting so my organization.
We make equipment,manufacturing, equipment capital
, big grinders and things likethat, and so we have a lot of
engineers, grinders and thingslike that, you know.
And so we have a lot ofengineers and it's, you know,
mechanical minded engineers,people who are just trying to
figure out okay, how do I makethis, how do I make this work a
(20:17):
little bit better, how do I helpout a customer?
And and and some of our bestinnovators, as you described
that, you know I'm I'm thinkingthrough some of the like.
We're talking like, literally,industry changing innovators.
They're super introverted, uh,they're not showing, they would
never take credit for anything,despite all the publications
that prove them wrong.
(20:38):
Yeah, and and but, but they arejust, they are churning out
that work and um, to the pointthat you know, the the industry
looks at them as innovators, notjust the organization, and if
we don't incubate those folksand allow them the opportunity
to scale, anybody in theindustry would hire them sight
(21:04):
unseen, at whatever salary theyasked for, which would not be
much, because they're humble andselfless, and you know, and and
and it's.
It's a really interesting point.
You know, a lot of times wethink about these flashy you
know, tesla drivingentrepreneurs.
Maybe that's not the rightprofile.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's right, and and and.
Many of these innovationprograms involve setting up, um,
you know, high profileinnovation labs and so on, which
I think, incidentally, have arole um, but they, they're not
the same as what you just talkedabout.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You know, I bet that none of these people had an
innovation lab they had anoffice with a, with a couple of
greasy parts and an idea,exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Now sometimes you need to think about how can I do
a dynamic duo right?
So maybe they're so introvertedthey can't commercialize or
they're not very customerconnected and actually if you
look at many successful startupslike Yahoo or Google, you
actually see a dynamic duo.
There's an insider and anoutsider and sometimes you have
(22:10):
to look at that kind ofcombination to get the right
sort of corporate explorereffect that you're looking for.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Absolutely, and you know, I think it's.
This is just really kind ofinteresting.
I think the thing that is is isis probably my favorite thing
about this conversation is it's.
It's turning so many things ontheir head that we kind of just
assumed, about innovation, and Ithink a lot of times we're
really reading, like some of theit's, it's almost like you're
reading the headline withoutreading the article about
(22:39):
innovation and you just assumelike, oh, this person's, this
person's a genius, nobody elsecould ever figure this out, you
know, and um, or this, this thisorganization has, you know, has
this figured out because theyjust they hired the smartest
people.
But you know, there, there'smore to it than that.
So, as you were, you know,putting this guidebook together,
(23:00):
um, I've got to believe thatyou probably um learned quite a
bit and through some of theresearch process, what were some
of the things that actuallysurprised you as you were
putting together this resource?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So one of the things that surprised me in a way is
just how many examples ofcorporate explorers are out
there.
I just, you know we startedwith the premise from our own
experience, but then the more welooked, the more we found.
And it's interesting, it's kindof like it's because it makes
the statement you know, bigcompany innovates in a new area.
(23:37):
It's just not a headline right,and so we don't see it and
therefore we believe the notionthat it doesn't exist Right, and
so we were.
It was extraordinary how many,and how many have actually
turned up since we wrote thebook People who reach out to me.
One of the ones I've enjoyedmost of all is this lady, Yoki
(24:00):
Matsuoka, at Panasonic, and Yokiwas on the founding team for
Nest, the thermostat, now ownedby Google.
So she's a serial entrepreneur,crazy smart AI person, mit PhD
and so on, and now she works forPanasonic.
(24:22):
She lived in America for manyyears, I think since her teenage
years, so she's got Japaneseand American, but now she set up
this thing called Yo Labs,working for Panasonic, an
executive officer of the company, creating new ventures for them
, and I was like wow, I had noidea that a big Japanese company
(24:45):
was making those kinds of steps, um uh, and we we've seen it
many other places as well, thatsort of so it's just the
surprise uh of the uh of theamount that's out there.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, it is.
It is funny because I I startedmy organ or my career in an
organization with, uh, with300,000 employees and everything
was a best practice, right,like so.
It's like you literally had aguidebook on oh, how do I what
binder in my office goes on whatshelf?
Right, and it was.
It was all about control andyou know, don't?
(25:21):
you're a cog in the wheel.
Don't step outside of it or youget smushed, you know, and so,
yeah, to me hearing the term,you know, large organization and
innovation, it's kind of likeyou know it's, it's okay, that's
a buzzword, right, it soundsgood, you put it on a recruiting
flyer, but what is it actuallylike, like to work there, Right?
So so, at those organizationsthat that have have kind of
(25:44):
figured this out, Do youconsider it a?
Is it the ability to spot thattalent as they're hiring people,
or do you consider it more ofan ability to develop people
that just kind of have thisnatural inclination?
Any insights there?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, I think we do need to make this identification
of of talent, probably whenthey've been recruited I don't
know that you you bake it into arecruitment process necessarily
, but certainly when you'verecruited people into the
company.
Are these explorers?
How many explorers have you got?
And?
And in your talent managementsystem, you know, tag them, be
(26:26):
aware of who they are, and andthere are good, um, you know,
tools that will, will tell youthis.
So there's one, uh, by a firmcalled human insight in the
netherlands.
Um, that does a great profileactually of a whole team that
says are they exploratory or arethey more stability oriented,
and so on.
We talk a lot about that, butit's a good tool, so, so, use
(26:47):
something like that.
There are others out there thatwill do something similar.
And then I think the otherthing you need to do is create
these opportunities where theyfeel they have the license to
explore.
So in one of our clients, itwas a particular project they
set up for the internet ofthings.
It's a technology firm.
(27:08):
They wanted to figure out howthey could connect more of their
devices to the cloud and use AIto add value-added services,
and so they just invited peopleto join a series of teams to go
explore those opportunities andset up processes like that, but
processes that have a cleardecision-making approach tied to
(27:32):
them, so you don't get into thezoo with ideas that never end.
And so you're going to doidentification of the explorers
and we're going to do, I'm goingto have a license to explore
and I'm going to have some wayof picking the winners out of
that process and then separatingthem out because, as you say,
(27:52):
this core business or exploitbusiness operating system will
kill them unless they've got aseparate explore business system
.
They need to have someseparation.
And this is, this is the.
You know, one of the two orthree biggest things that the
organization can do to make thiswork is create that separation
(28:14):
and allow them to operate in adifferent way, be measured
differently.
Not on you know the lag,outcome, results of revenue and
customer adoption, but on youknow how many milestones have
they hit, what have they learned?
Customer adoption but on youknow how many milestones have
they hit, what have they learned, how close are they to to the
sort of indicators that they're,that they're being successful?
And if you can do that pieceright then then you know you'll
(28:39):
be a long way forward toempowering your explorers.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
You know, what's interestingabout that is it's the, it's the
same idea as the largeorganization, who is very
structured, has, but it'sputting that structure into a
format that actually fosters theexploratory success.
Right, it's that we always talk, we talk about KPIs all the
(29:01):
time, right, and it's alwaysquality, delivery on time, et
cetera.
And but when you're talkingabout innovation, you know, yeah
, um, I can't remember theorganization now, but you know,
I know the organization thatthat actually tracks how much
failure do you have?
Um.
I think it's, I think it's um, Ithink it's Mars that they
(29:23):
actually track.
You know you have to have somany failures this month or
you're not successful.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well you must be sandbagging right.
If you never fail, it's becauseyou're too safe.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, so really, reallyfascinating and and I think you
know from my standpoint, I'mjust thinking geez, I don't know
.
I don't know that we do a goodenough job with that, right, you
know we're still trying to fitour explorers into the same box
as everybody else.
You know, one of the thingsthat I think through is, you
(29:59):
know, compensation and incentiveprograms, and so we're trying
to figure out right now what isan incentive program that makes
sense, that is controllable,that makes sense but also allows
for the you know, the kind ofthe entrepreneurial flexibility
that we need to innovate so whatare your thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
on that A chapter in our book is around rewards and
incentives, and so there's anassumption again that the best
way to get corporate explorersin your organization is to
figure out how to pay them in away that reflects what an
(30:42):
entrepreneur might get.
Yeah, right, and, and you know,in some cases that's led to
companies actually spinning outa company with employees in
Right and then buying them backagain and having them operate in
the company.
All that meant is that suddenlyyou're sitting next to a
(31:04):
millionaire and you know thatdidn't really help employee
engagement or or could be more,all reducing right, and you know
, the funny thing is that all ofthe really successful explorers
that we talk about in the booklike, uh, jim peck at lexus
nexus, right with an ohiocompany, right, uh, and they
(31:24):
built this um leNexis risksolutions.
Or we talk about ChristianKirtisch at Unica Insurance in
Hungary and now Austria, orKevin Carlin at Analog Devices,
creating this condition-basedmonitoring business they didn't
have any special incentives.
Yes, they benefited personally,and Jim is now on his third gig
(31:49):
as a CEO, right, so you know,their careers grew.
They've done well, you know,hopefully financially as well,
but there was no specialincentive scheme to allow them
to do that.
I think there are somemodifications you can make,
maybe to to put them on longerterm incentives rather than
anything that's shorter termincentives rather than anything
(32:10):
that's shorter term.
But this sort of shadow stockand all these other kinds of
ways of giving specialincentives, I think you know
could lead to some veryunfortunate outcomes and there's
no evidence that they're needed.
What's needed is, you know this, giving them the license,
putting them in a position thatthey can succeed.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know, I think that's really interesting and it
reminds me of you know all theresearch around incentives.
You know especially monetaryincentives or you know
short-term incentives.
You know that a lot of times weput this goal in place or this
metric and we think, okay, ifthis metric is achieved, here's
(32:47):
the incentive and that is goingto impact human behavior in a
positive way, because this is adriver.
But I can only assume that inyour research and in your work
with corporate explorers, thatmany of them are probably not as
driven by money, but they'remore driven by the opportunity
(33:08):
to make a change or make animpact or innovate.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That's right.
I mean one of the corporateexplorers that we talk about.
He had this idea.
So this is Christian Curtis inHungary.
He had this idea for anentirely new insurance business
model and in the book we tellthe story of how he gets
agreement from his managers togo forward with it.
But he also took it to venturecapitalists.
(33:33):
He had two firms ready to backhim to spin it out as his own
firm, and he makes the choice tostay inside, knowing that the
financial rewards would bedifferent.
But it's about his tolerance ofrisk, the sorts of risks he
wants to take.
Right, we often miss.
We think of risk as just beingone kind of risk.
There's lots of different riskswe take, and he was willing to
(33:56):
take the risk of moving.
You know being unpopular withhis colleagues, right.
But he wanted to stay within acorporate environment because he
liked the assets and theability to get things done and
he liked the people.
He's a part of a system heactually likes where he is and
the people that he's with.
(34:16):
He's a part of that community,and so for him the finance
wasn't important.
Well, it wasn't as important.
I'm sure he cares about money,um, but what mattered was that
he could do this and reinventhis own firm, because he's a
part of that firm, he's a partof that community.
It matters to him, it's part ofhis values to be there.
(34:36):
It's part of his value.
He did this from hungary, butthis is now moving across europe
and it matters to him to be aproud hungarian as well.
You know, and, and, and thesame is true of you know, in in
ohio, I'm sure you know.
It's just like what thedifference you make to your
community, to your city, to yourcompany, actually, for some
folks, is a big motivator in allof this.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, just take a look at how many people wear
like college football teams ontheir yes, on their clothes,
right, sometimes that, sometimesthat drive is is as important,
um, or or very important, yes,so I do want to talk.
I have one more question andkind of in the same vein, and I
think it's about organizationswho are changing rapidly and
(35:22):
becoming more corporate.
So going through a growthjourney corporate, so you know,
going through a growth journeyand and, and you know, naturally
when you get bigger, you startto put in more stuff, more
bureaucracy, more controls, moreyou know more of a corporate
mass to make sure that thingsare checking and out and
everything.
So so how, how do organizationsretain what got them there,
(35:48):
that entrepreneurial edge, thatinnovative spirit?
You know what?
What are the strategies to makesure you don't lose your kind
of your core purpose there?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
this is.
This is really important, carland and, and.
We've been um.
We've consulted to a couple offirms that you know we would
call unicorns, and you knowthey've both gone public in, in,
uh, in the last um, in the lastyear, through, you know, the
SPAC route to going public andand and it's exactly the story.
(36:18):
We've always beenentrepreneurial.
We're now, you know, um, one ofthem a billion dollars in value
in, in revenue as well as invalue, and more and more value,
and um, and and there's newthings we want to do, but as we
started to try to do them, westruggled, we couldn't do the
thing, and and it comes backdown to the founding team, right
(36:39):
?
So in both of these stories,what we find is that the
entrepreneur that started itdidn't have a system for
replicating what he did right,and it is both he and these
instances and that theirresponse was to want to continue
(37:01):
to control as much as possible,on the grounds that you know
they're the smartest people inthe room, right, and they
structured the organization andits innovation in such a way
that everything came back tothem.
Contrast that with jeff bezosright, maybe not our poster
child and everything he doeshave a spaceship.
(37:23):
He does have a spaceship, yeahyeah, corporate explorer how to
innovate without the spaceshipthat's what I should have called
it.
But Bezos has a recipe, right.
He has a everybody gets theright to propose new ideas.
And he's got this PR FAQ systemone page press release, what
(37:44):
the customers get out of myinnovation FAQ, frequently asked
questions, my backup as to thekinds of questions you might
have about how we're going toget it done right System for how
that can get proposed, and ifyou have an idea that people
like, okay, well, I'll give youa two pizza team.
In other words, only so manypeople can be fed by two pizzas.
(38:06):
Right To go, work that up intoan MVP and we'll take it into
trial and find out.
This is the incubate piece thatI talked about.
And then, when he scales,Amazon has all these separate
units that operate with somehigh degree of autonomy, but
they're all linked by two thingsthey're linked by APIs, so
(38:26):
everything is interoperable, andsecondly, by a management
system that is consistent, soall of their performance is
transparent and the comparisonto others is transparent.
Personality, or do I put inplace some minimal system that
allows ideas to come up and givethem the autonomy without
(38:51):
sacrificing the access to theassets of the core business, if
you will.
So does that make sense?
What?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
do you think yeah, yeah, it's a really interesting
example and I'm just reflectingon you know, your, you know kind
of your comment that thatcorporate innovators have an
advantage over some of these VCfirms and it sounds like to me,
(39:19):
I mean, it's the systems, it'sthe structure that can enable
the scaling and the incubating,and not just the, not just the
light bulb ideas.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And the fallacy that many of us sit with is that it's
the ideas that matter.
We all think that Polaroid andKodak and Nokia and these other
firms that they got disruptedand kicked out of, you know and
sent into bankruptcy becausethey didn't see digital
(39:53):
technologies coming, they didn'tsee digital photography or they
didn't see app stores andtouchscreens and smartphones.
It's totally untrue.
They all had the technology,they all had the insights.
Polaroid had the world's firstmegapixel camera in the market
in the 90s.
The issue is they couldn'texecute.
(40:13):
It's about how do you use theseassets.
That makes the difference, notwhether you have the ideas, and
that is the hard part of it.
I portrayed a very positivestory.
I've written this book with twoprofessors, and you know um
mike tushman from the harvardbusiness school, charles
(40:33):
o'reilly from stanford, and soI've got another story about
what it's like to have, you know, a harvard and stanford
professor marking your workevery week sounds a little
intimidating yeah, but but um,um, I forgot what I was going to
say.
That, um, what did I say beforethat?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
yeah, you were talking about um, the uh, um
execution and uh, and then we'vehad a positive slant on this oh
, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
So mike my tushman.
My tushman always says what arethe counterfactuals?
And it's all very well to havethese great stories, but it has
to be a counterfactual.
And there are counterfactualsin the book and the biggest is
GE right and how it pursued GEDigital and what killed it was
the social network right and soa lot of the sort of.
(41:24):
There's a lot of view that ifyou have the CEO's support you
must succeed.
Well, he had all the supportJeff Immelt, the CEO of GE,
could possibly give him.
The guy stuck his future onthis strategy to be a software
company.
But those weren't the thingsthat killed Bill Rue, the leader
(41:48):
of GE Digital.
It was the sort of silentkillers in the organization,
like the system of optimizationand so on.
So I do need to to to highlightthat this can be tough as well.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That sounds like everything in HR, you know you
start with these greatintentions and then, oh wow,
this is a lot harder than wethought it was going to be.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
And HR has a core explore problem the whole time
because I want to get paid, Idon't want to and, if I'm
managing, I don't want to end upin prison for some breach of
regulation.
There is a core business of HRthat you cannot screw up and
then there has to be an explore.
You have to again see these asseparate, and I think this
(42:33):
notion of separating the two maybe appropriate in HR as well,
rather than trying to makeeverything.
I personally hugely dislike theUlrich model of the HR
generalist, Because thegeneralist it's in that name.
(42:55):
I don't think this is well.
I think it's open to challengeas to whether that really is the
role of HR, and because theskills of delivering the
repeatable results on payconditions, employment law, are
completely different to I'mgoing to figure out how to do
(43:18):
innovation.
I'm going to figure out how tocontribute strategic skills.
I'm going to figure out how tomake hires and refresh our
leadership team or board.
So I just think that these aretwo different things as well.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
I actually, I agree 100% and it's and maybe this is
just you know, I'm just happythat you said that because
that's how I've structured mydepartment.
But you know, it's, it's the.
You know, I agreewholeheartedly and I think it
comes down to the.
The competencies that they haveare very different than the
(44:11):
competencies that I have, whichis strategy and cultural
sensitivity, and, you know,being flexible to change and and
and dealing with dynamicsituations and really emotional
situations.
And you know it's just there'sa dichotomy.
You know a human can't be allthose things Right.
It's just the reality of thesituation.
So I agree Now for all you HRpeople of one out there and you
(44:33):
got an entire department and youare a true generalist.
You know, I feel you, I've beenthere too.
But if at all possible, if you,you know, if you can be aware
of that and as you think aboutyour organization, if there are
things that you can structure toallow for a little bit of a
diversion of how you measuresuccess, depending upon the
(44:58):
actual task, that would be myrecommendation there.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yeah, no, that's fair .
I should say it's easy to thinkabout this Corporate Explorer
story as only being about thelargest organizations, but I can
give you quite smallorganizations that have done
this as well, certainly onesbelow 100 employees.
There will be a point at whichit's hard because you can't
split an individual.
I get that.
So there is a point at whichit's difficult, but certainly in
(45:26):
the 20s, 30s and upwards, I canpoint to organizations with
corporate explorers who renewthemselves.
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Well, this has been just a wonderful conversation.
Unfortunately, we are coming tothe end of our time together,
so I do want to get through theRebel HR flash round questions.
Yes, go for it Fascinated tohear these answers All right
(45:57):
Question number one what is yourfavorite people book?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yes, the sort of way in which he, you know, with his
HR leader, deliberatelyconstructs the culture at
Netflix.
But I also love that it startswith a sort of humility of you
know, we didn't get here with abrilliant like oh, I was always
going to do this.
We realized we were screwing up, we had a problem we had to
(46:26):
solve and if we were going toscale this business, we needed
to change.
I thought that was a tremendous, really fun book and very
insightful because of thathumility.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Absolutely, and talk about an innovator, right?
I mean from mailing DVDs toyour house to, yeah, you just
push a button on your remote andyou can watch whatever you want
.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
That's right, and they have reinvented themselves
several times and there's aHarvard case that will tell you
how they could never make a movefrom DVDs to streaming.
People bet against them at thatpoint.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
I wish I would have bought that stock a while ago.
Oh well, all right.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
So I have to say that I don't listen to a lot of
business podcasts.
So I listen a lot to agentleman called Mike Duncan who
has done a bunch of podcasts,one of them the History of Rome.
But I'm an addict of his verylong running sequence of
revolutions podcasts and he'sgone through the British
Revolution, the English CivilWar Revolution, the American
(47:35):
Revolution.
Until I became a citizen I'dcall that the rebellion, but now
I recognize it as therevolution.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
You're not allowed to be a citizen, if you call it
that.
I think that's on the test.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That's right, the French Revolution, and so on.
And that's on the test, that'sright, the french revolution,
and so on.
And and what's reallyinteresting is that when you
listen to like these 10revolutions, you get a few
things.
And revolutions happen when,when people resist change, when
they try to stop renewal right,when they don't explore into the
future adequately or learntheir way into the future, and
(48:08):
so in this, in in these stories,history, you get the same
stories of what happens tocompanies that don't renew
themselves, and I just love theway he presents it.
So Mike Duncan is who peopleshould listen to Awesome.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
All right.
Last question Greatconversation today, just
wonderful content.
How can our listeners connectwith you and get their hands on
the Corporate Explorer?
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Well, please go to Amazon or your favorite
e-commerce vendor and look forCorporate Explorer by Andrew
Binns, mike Tushman and CharlesO'Reilly.
Thecorporateexplorercom.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Awesome, Absolutely Just wonderful, wonderful
conversation today.
Really appreciate you coming onand sharing a different
perspective from kind of theconventional wisdom and really
really kind of stretching ourminds here a little bit.
So thank you, Andy.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Thank you, kyle.
I enjoyed it enormously andthanks to all of your listeners.
And if people buy the book,read the book.
Love your feedback.
Perfect Thanks.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR Podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
Guy, or see our website atrebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(49:39):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
And oh, by the way, ideas are addictive Human beings
.
Just we love it, we love it.
I'm going to let you and I jamdown on how we can solve HR.
We're going to come up with aton of ideas and we're going to
love what we do.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's going to feel good.
It's going to really feel good,so good.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we
talk to HR innovators about allthings people, leadership.
If you're looking for places tofind, about new ways to think
about the world of work, this isthe podcast for you.
Please subscribe to yourfavorite podcast listening
platform today and leave us areview.
Rebel on HR Rebels.
(00:35):
Welcome Rebel HR listeners.
Thank you for joining us foranother week.
This one is going to be funWith us.
Today we have Andy Binns.
He is co-founder of ChangeLogic, a Boston-based strategic
advisory firm.
He works with CEOs, boards,senior teams and tries to help
navigate allite the world withinnovation.
(00:57):
He has a guidebook called theCorporate Explorer that helps
with practices that enablemanagers to go from idea into
action and demonstrates howsuccess is not only possible but
(01:17):
may offer entrenched companiesbetter odds than venture
capital-backed startups.
Thanks for joining us, andy.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Hi there, carl, very nice to be with you.
Thank you for inviting me onyour show.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, extremely excited, and it's one of those
things that this topic for mejust spoke to me, and when I got
the request to speak with youand I saw some of the work you
were doing, I said yes, we needto talk on the podcast.
So appreciate you joining ustoday and we are going to start
by talking about change.
So what got you interested inhelping organizations understand
(02:03):
how to innovate?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
in helping organizations understand how to
innovate.
Well, you know, I think whatgot me really interested in this
was I really am a bad employee.
I just hate being insideorganizations at some level, and
so you know, I think that Iwrestle with that issue, and the
(02:26):
one place that things seemed toclick for me was when I was
with IBM.
This was 20 years ago, so thatmeans I'd already had 10, 15
years of being a bad employeebefore I got this one and I got
assigned to work with um.
(02:47):
Ibm had these emerging businessopportunities and these were
like new businesses.
The idea was to um to create,from the assets the company had,
some new places that it couldexplore.
Right, and I was like, okay,I've not, I've not.
I've read stuff aboutinnovation.
I had done some stuff in myprevious consulting career
(03:09):
around innovation, but this wasthe moment in which my
imagination fired, because I sawa place where the the rebels,
to use your term could actuallylive in an organization, to use
your term could actually live inan organization, that there is
a role for those who want topush the boundaries and to take
(03:29):
organizations in different ways,and I just thought it was a
neat combination of innovationin large organizations.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I love that and you know it's really interesting
about that.
First of all, I love thatyou're like, yeah, I'm just not
a good employee.
Know what's really interestingabout that?
Um, first of all, I love thatyou're like, yeah, I'm just not
a good employee, um, but I Iwould.
I might, you know, flip that alittle bit and say you know, um,
maybe you're not a goodemployee in an organization that
doesn't let you be creative andinnovative is is that fair?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
well, so, so, so that that may be, but.
But the interesting thingthat's embedded in your question
about let you be right is thatit's the organization's job to
enable us and I don't thinkthat's very often the recipe of
success right book, corporateExplorer.
(04:21):
How corporations beat startupsat the innovation game is that
when we look at examples ofreally successful innovation in
large corporations, it has atthe center a rebel, somebody who
is going to seize anopportunity, seize a problem in
the world they want to solve.
(04:42):
And it's them who take, bringthe energy to bring the purpose,
bring the passion to convertthat into a business.
And they're very rarely giventhe opportunity.
Most of them take it Right, andthat, for me, is a little bit
of the same story.
So you've got to take theseopportunities and, yes,
organizations can enable.
(05:02):
I don't we can talk about howyou do that, but I just think
that's an important sort us tobuild the, you know, the, the
platform for innovation.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
But, um, what it sounds like to me in in what you
just described is it's moreabout us getting the right
people empowered to do the workand then, and then getting out
of their way.
Am I on the right track there?
I think I think you are.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I mean, I think that there's a little bit more we can
say.
But but the, the, the.
The notion is that within mostorganizations and after a while
this isn't true, right, they canget to the point where, where,
where, that you, you have a hardtime with this Most
organizations, there areexplorers.
(06:06):
There are people whose bias istowards how do I create, create,
create, how do I do new, new,new?
And then there are people whoare much more how do I optimize,
how do I bring stability, howdo I bring regimentation?
And what you need to do isfigure out how you set some
number of those explorers freenot all of them, because then
(06:27):
you just create a zoo, right,but allow some of these people
to really drive, give them alicense to explore, if you will,
and that is what will securethe sort of innovation outcomes
that many organizations arelooking for, innovation outcomes
(06:49):
that many organizations arelooking for, and that impulse
that they have is very similarto an entrepreneur.
So some of what they do isdifferent and some of what they
do is the same.
It's a matter of understandingthe difference between the two.
There's one other thing, oneother bubble I want to burst,
carl, if I may, which I think isimportant, and I'm afraid I'm
going to blame HR for this one,just for that we're fair game.
(07:14):
Go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, you asked me onyour show.
So here is what happened, and Iwill generalize this point in a
sec.
I'm in Germany in an unnamedlarge financial services company
and I'm with the head of globaltalent and we're discussing the
(07:34):
work we've done with them tothink about how to create an
innovation unit, to explore someopportunities that they see to
go after.
And this is maybe my third orfourth visit.
And I say to her so you know,leadership of this unit is
really important.
You know what progress have youmade?
Ah, yes, andy, we have come toa solution to this.
(07:55):
We've decided we'll hire fromoutside because that way, if we
fail, the consequences are less.
Way, if we fail, theconsequences are less.
In other words, it won't do anyharm to our talent succession
if somebody fails and we have toeject them from the system.
(08:16):
Outsiders have a really hardtime leading innovation inside
corporations because they haveno social capital, they have no
track record of performance,they don't have any favors they
can call on from other people,and so what we find is that ones
who are really successful atthis have a track record, people
(08:38):
know them and when they fail,because we can get onto this
innovation is often about thisnotion of rapid failing, learn
by testing and so on, that youdon't know.
Is it the person or is it theidea?
Did they learn something or isit just because they're not very
good?
But if they're an old timer,there's somebody who has that
track record, then you know totrust them.
(09:00):
This is somebody who they aredoing something new and we know
they've done one in the past.
Therefore, we can trust them,and so part of getting this
formula right is actuallytrusting the people you have
already.
It's not about always recruitingin the premier entrepreneurial
talent, or even entrepreneurs inresidence is very much in vogue
(09:22):
at the moment.
This can get you some part ofthe way and it's not.
It's not irrelevant, it's partof the formula.
But you've got.
The corporate explorers areoften high social capital, been
in the company a while, but justexploratory, build
relationships, know how to getthings done.
And you've got.
And the job is how do you setthem free?
Know how to get things done.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And the job is how do you set them free?
That's really interesting andit does go counter to what so
many organizations do.
Right, it's the well, we neednew ideas, or we need to come up
with a new go-to-marketstrategy, or whatever the
innovation need is, and it'slike the immediate default
(10:07):
choice is well, we better gohire from the outside, because
we probably don't have thatperson inside the organization.
That's the assumption, right,like that's like the base case
assumption.
But what you just described,it's really interesting.
I'm reflecting on innovation inthe HR space, which is
obviously one of my favoritethings to do.
But a great example in mycurrent organization.
(10:31):
I have been here for just aboutfour years now.
I didn't really start makingany traction until about two and
a half years in, and a lot ofthat had to do with exactly what
you described.
I didn't necessarily have anysocial capital.
I was an unproven resource.
People were like I don't knowif I want to give this guy any
(10:52):
any head count or invest, causeI don't know if the direction
that we're going here is is isworth it.
Right, it's like there was likethat, and so I didn't have,
really didn't have, manyresources, and you know,
fortunately now we're makingprogress, but it's slow.
It takes a long time, but it'sa really interesting point.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And I've seen that in HR as well.
One of my clients has had asuccession of HR leaders.
They're about to get anotherone and, unfortunately, the
initial reaction to the personcoming in will likely be well,
is it worth me spending my timewith this person?
Because the last two didn'tlast either and it's the same
(11:40):
phenomenon.
Yeah, and we just have torespect social networks, even in
, you know, modestly sizedorganizations, right, maybe,
especially in modestly sizedorganizations, because they look
, and often are, very, you know,friendly and affiliative.
But that that isn't.
People may like you, but thatdoesn't mean that they're going
to help you or that they'rewilling to put what they have
(12:02):
now at risk.
That's the challenge.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Absolutely so.
I think it's you know.
I think one of the reallyinteresting points you made is
we think about you know thingslike org design and talent
selection and where you knowwhere's the right seat on the
bus for this person was thepoint that you made about you
know that balance, like theoptimizers and the explorersers,
and you know, yeah, if you havetoo many explorers and it, it
is a zoo, right, it's like abunch of monkey monkeys swinging
(12:31):
from tree to tree and you'relike wait a minute, where's?
Where's the entrance to the zoo?
Again, like how do we get out?
And, uh, so, so, as you, as youwere, you know writing this
guidebook andbook and doing yourresearch, and just in your vast
experience with organizations,what tactics have you seen that
work as it relates to how do Istructure an organization to
(12:56):
empower the right people andoptimize the right roles?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Good, good, yeah.
So first, we think aboutinnovation as being about three
disciplines ideation, incubationand scaling.
And they're each.
You know they're obviouslyrelated and in real life they're
not quite as separate as thatmakes it sound.
You're often working on scalingeven as you're doing ideation,
(13:23):
but for the purposes ofunderstanding, think about them
as three separate disciplines.
And ideation is aboutunderstanding unsolved customer
problems.
What are the jobs that theywant to do that if you were to
solve for them, you coulddevelop strong customer loyalty
and attraction.
(13:44):
You know you could develop, youknow, strong customer loyalty
and attraction.
Incubation is aboutexperimenting, using data to
tell you which ideas to investin and avoiding the trap of
investing ahead of your learning.
So it's one of those great bigcorporate things.
Let's just spend money on it,right?
Rather than let's move slowly,incrementally, incrementally,
test and learn.
And then scaling is aboutconverting a successful
(14:07):
experiment into revenue, andit's a place where most
corporations or startups forthat matter really struggle,
right.
Corporations have particularstruggles, which is unfortunate
because they have most of theassets to do the scaling, but we
can talk about that One of thethings that.
So, if you've got that sense ofidea incubate, scale you're
(14:27):
going to treat each of thesedifferently.
Right Idea is about engagingmany people.
It's inside the company,outside the company, deep
customer insight.
It's an opportunity to turn thecompany outside so that you
drive as much outside ininnovation, not inside out.
It's not a matter of what youknow, what technologies,
(14:49):
processes, products you have.
It's a matter of what problemsyou solve.
So that's a big piece of whyideation, I think also why CEOs
often bring us back to ideation,because they see that
opportunity to connect us morewith customers.
So it's okay to make that amass involvement opportunity in
a company.
(15:10):
But you've got to select.
Not everything you decide on issomething that you're going to
progress.
At some point you've got to say, okay, there's a down select to
a set of opportunities thatyou're going to then incubate.
Now in the book we talk moreabout how do you set up ideation
so that that's easy, and wetalk about, even in ideation,
(15:33):
narrowing around areas that havethe most opportunity and things
like that.
But at some point you're goingto make a hard decision and then
you incubate and at this pointyou start to think about well,
we're ready to invest.
So I'm going to take some ofkyle's time and I'm going to
focus him on this innovation,right?
So you start to we.
We often set up um, a sort of asprint team, like an agile
(15:56):
process, um, and for the first90 days we've got people
sequestered to a team for maybeyou of their time to do this and
they're going to go throughthat first level of validation
of the business and then, afterthat first 90 days, you're going
to decide are you going to ponyup the investment to put people
(16:17):
on 100%?
And at that point you'recreating a venture that you're
going to separate away from thecore business.
You've got to separate andexplore unit from the core
business.
It doesn't have to be often adifferent building.
Some people do put it in adifferent building or a
different city but even if it'sjust on a different floor or if
there's a corner of the buildingthat you can give it to,
(16:40):
because often when you'reexploring into new areas, it
needs to work in a different way, have a different culture,
different working practices,because you might be addressing
a different customer set orbusiness model or whatever.
And then the scaling storyyou're definitely into this as a
separate organization with itsown routines and so on, and so
that sort of changes as theinnovation matures.
(17:04):
Essentially, is that getting atwhat you're thinking?
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, that's very helpful and, I think, just the
systematic way to how innovationworks.
It's interesting because a lotof times you hear these stories,
right Like the light bulbmoments, and somebody was trying
to.
They was trying to, they weredoing something you know at 3M
and stumbled across scotch tape,right, and it was because
(17:31):
someone was trying to do someother random project that
absolutely didn't work, but youknow they stumbled into it and
and you hear about these.
But I mean, so often we're kindof, we're almost like paralyzed
, like okay, well, how how do I,how do I actually make that
happen in my organization?
Right, like like, how do we,how do we figure out scotch tape
on accident?
Speaker 1 (17:49):
and and and kyle.
I think this may be whereyou're going.
My reaction is we're solvingthe wrong problem, right that
that we're solving the how do Iget lots of ideas problem, and
and oh, by the way, ideas areaddictive.
Human beings just love it, welove it.
I'm going to let you and I jamdown on how we can solve HR.
(18:11):
We're going to come up with aton of ideas and we're going to
love what we do.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's going to feel good.
It's going to really feel good.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
So good, but the problem is all about incubation
and scalability and it's notabout creativity.
I've got nothing againstcreativity, I've got nothing
about generating lots of ideas,but really we're focused in the
wrong place, and this is one ofthe challenges that corporations
get into.
So that's why we end up withinnovation schemes that just
(18:40):
have T-shirts or mugs or big,large-scale events or jamborees
of ideas, rather than doing thatcommitted stuff of actually
innovating.
And the energy can't come fromthe organization alone.
It's got to come from thesecorporate explorers.
That's why they're so important, because that is what works
(19:00):
externally.
You know, venture capitalistsrely on great entrepreneurs and
they look for serialentrepreneurs, right, people who
know how to do this, so thatit's in their bones to be an
explorer, and and that is whatwhat you see in corporate
explorers as well is people whojust have that passion,
commitment and also this may bedifferent to many entrepreneurs
(19:24):
selflessness.
They have to be ready to letother people make them
successful, and so that meanssometimes they're less showy,
less it's all about me thanwe're looking for.
So you might have explorers inyour organization you haven't
realized it because they don'tmake as much noise, but actually
(19:44):
their capacity to lead andtheir capacity to identify
opportunities may be outstanding, and that's certainly the case
that we see in some of thesestories in our book.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
That's a really interesting point and I'm
reflecting so my organization.
We make equipment,manufacturing, equipment capital
, big grinders and things likethat, and so we have a lot of
engineers, grinders and thingslike that, you know.
And so we have a lot ofengineers and it's, you know,
mechanical minded engineers,people who are just trying to
figure out okay, how do I makethis, how do I make this work a
(20:17):
little bit better, how do I helpout a customer?
And and and some of our bestinnovators, as you described
that, you know I'm I'm thinkingthrough some of the like.
We're talking like, literally,industry changing innovators.
They're super introverted, uh,they're not showing, they would
never take credit for anything,despite all the publications
that prove them wrong.
(20:38):
Yeah, and and but, but they arejust, they are churning out
that work and um, to the pointthat you know, the the industry
looks at them as innovators, notjust the organization, and if
we don't incubate those folksand allow them the opportunity
to scale, anybody in theindustry would hire them sight
(21:04):
unseen, at whatever salary theyasked for, which would not be
much, because they're humble andselfless, and you know, and and
and it's.
It's a really interesting point.
You know, a lot of times wethink about these flashy you
know, tesla drivingentrepreneurs.
Maybe that's not the rightprofile.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's right, and and and.
Many of these innovationprograms involve setting up, um,
you know, high profileinnovation labs and so on, which
I think, incidentally, have arole um, but they, they're not
the same as what you just talkedabout.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You know, I bet that none of these people had an
innovation lab they had anoffice with a, with a couple of
greasy parts and an idea,exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Now sometimes you need to think about how can I do
a dynamic duo right?
So maybe they're so introvertedthey can't commercialize or
they're not very customerconnected and actually if you
look at many successful startupslike Yahoo or Google, you
actually see a dynamic duo.
There's an insider and anoutsider and sometimes you have
(22:10):
to look at that kind ofcombination to get the right
sort of corporate explorereffect that you're looking for.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Absolutely, and you know, I think it's.
This is just really kind ofinteresting.
I think the thing that is is isis probably my favorite thing
about this conversation is it's.
It's turning so many things ontheir head that we kind of just
assumed, about innovation, and Ithink a lot of times we're
really reading, like some of theit's, it's almost like you're
reading the headline withoutreading the article about
(22:39):
innovation and you just assumelike, oh, this person's, this
person's a genius, nobody elsecould ever figure this out, you
know, and um, or this, this thisorganization has, you know, has
this figured out because theyjust they hired the smartest
people.
But you know, there, there'smore to it than that.
So, as you were, you know,putting this guidebook together,
(23:00):
um, I've got to believe thatyou probably um learned quite a
bit and through some of theresearch process, what were some
of the things that actuallysurprised you as you were
putting together this resource?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
So one of the things that surprised me in a way is
just how many examples ofcorporate explorers are out
there.
I just, you know we startedwith the premise from our own
experience, but then the more welooked, the more we found.
And it's interesting, it's kindof like it's because it makes
the statement you know, bigcompany innovates in a new area.
(23:37):
It's just not a headline right,and so we don't see it and
therefore we believe the notionthat it doesn't exist Right, and
so we were.
It was extraordinary how many,and how many have actually
turned up since we wrote thebook People who reach out to me.
One of the ones I've enjoyedmost of all is this lady, Yoki
(24:00):
Matsuoka, at Panasonic, and Yokiwas on the founding team for
Nest, the thermostat, now ownedby Google.
So she's a serial entrepreneur,crazy smart AI person, mit PhD
and so on, and now she works forPanasonic.
(24:22):
She lived in America for manyyears, I think since her teenage
years, so she's got Japaneseand American, but now she set up
this thing called Yo Labs,working for Panasonic, an
executive officer of the company, creating new ventures for them
, and I was like wow, I had noidea that a big Japanese company
(24:45):
was making those kinds of steps, um uh, and we we've seen it
many other places as well, thatsort of so it's just the
surprise uh of the uh of theamount that's out there.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Yeah, it is.
It is funny because I I startedmy organ or my career in an
organization with, uh, with300,000 employees and everything
was a best practice, right,like so.
It's like you literally had aguidebook on oh, how do I what
binder in my office goes on whatshelf?
Right, and it was.
It was all about control andyou know, don't?
(25:21):
you're a cog in the wheel.
Don't step outside of it or youget smushed, you know, and so,
yeah, to me hearing the term,you know, large organization and
innovation, it's kind of likeyou know it's, it's okay, that's
a buzzword, right, it soundsgood, you put it on a recruiting
flyer, but what is it actuallylike, like to work there, Right?
So so, at those organizationsthat that have have kind of
(25:44):
figured this out, Do youconsider it a?
Is it the ability to spot thattalent as they're hiring people,
or do you consider it more ofan ability to develop people
that just kind of have thisnatural inclination?
Any insights there?
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, I think we do need to make this identification
of of talent, probably whenthey've been recruited I don't
know that you you bake it into arecruitment process necessarily
, but certainly when you'verecruited people into the
company.
Are these explorers?
How many explorers have you got?
And?
And in your talent managementsystem, you know, tag them, be
(26:26):
aware of who they are, and andthere are good, um, you know,
tools that will, will tell youthis.
So there's one, uh, by a firmcalled human insight in the
netherlands.
Um, that does a great profileactually of a whole team that
says are they exploratory or arethey more stability oriented,
and so on.
We talk a lot about that, butit's a good tool, so, so, use
(26:47):
something like that.
There are others out there thatwill do something similar.
And then I think the otherthing you need to do is create
these opportunities where theyfeel they have the license to
explore.
So in one of our clients, itwas a particular project they
set up for the internet ofthings.
It's a technology firm.
(27:08):
They wanted to figure out howthey could connect more of their
devices to the cloud and use AIto add value-added services,
and so they just invited peopleto join a series of teams to go
explore those opportunities andset up processes like that, but
processes that have a cleardecision-making approach tied to
(27:32):
them, so you don't get into thezoo with ideas that never end.
And so you're going to doidentification of the explorers
and we're going to do, I'm goingto have a license to explore
and I'm going to have some wayof picking the winners out of
that process and then separatingthem out because, as you say,
(27:52):
this core business or exploitbusiness operating system will
kill them unless they've got aseparate explore business system
.
They need to have someseparation.
And this is, this is the.
You know, one of the two orthree biggest things that the
organization can do to make thiswork is create that separation
(28:14):
and allow them to operate in adifferent way, be measured
differently.
Not on you know the lag,outcome, results of revenue and
customer adoption, but on youknow how many milestones have
they hit, what have they learned?
Customer adoption but on youknow how many milestones have
they hit, what have they learned, how close are they to to the
sort of indicators that they're,that they're being successful?
And if you can do that pieceright then then you know you'll
(28:39):
be a long way forward toempowering your explorers.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
You know, what's interestingabout that is it's the, it's the
same idea as the largeorganization, who is very
structured, has, but it'sputting that structure into a
format that actually fosters theexploratory success.
Right, it's that we always talk, we talk about KPIs all the
(29:01):
time, right, and it's alwaysquality, delivery on time, et
cetera.
And but when you're talkingabout innovation, you know, yeah
, um, I can't remember theorganization now, but you know,
I know the organization thatthat actually tracks how much
failure do you have?
Um.
I think it's, I think it's um, Ithink it's Mars that they
(29:23):
actually track.
You know you have to have somany failures this month or
you're not successful.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
Well you must be sandbagging right.
If you never fail, it's becauseyou're too safe.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, so really, reallyfascinating and and I think you
know from my standpoint, I'mjust thinking geez, I don't know
.
I don't know that we do a goodenough job with that, right, you
know we're still trying to fitour explorers into the same box
as everybody else.
You know, one of the thingsthat I think through is, you
(29:59):
know, compensation and incentiveprograms, and so we're trying
to figure out right now what isan incentive program that makes
sense, that is controllable,that makes sense but also allows
for the you know, the kind ofthe entrepreneurial flexibility
that we need to innovate so whatare your thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
on that A chapter in our book is around rewards and
incentives, and so there's anassumption again that the best
way to get corporate explorersin your organization is to
figure out how to pay them in away that reflects what an
(30:42):
entrepreneur might get.
Yeah, right, and, and you know,in some cases that's led to
companies actually spinning outa company with employees in
Right and then buying them backagain and having them operate in
the company.
All that meant is that suddenlyyou're sitting next to a
(31:04):
millionaire and you know thatdidn't really help employee
engagement or or could be more,all reducing right, and you know
, the funny thing is that all ofthe really successful explorers
that we talk about in the booklike, uh, jim peck at lexus
nexus, right with an ohiocompany, right, uh, and they
(31:24):
built this um leNexis risksolutions.
Or we talk about ChristianKirtisch at Unica Insurance in
Hungary and now Austria, orKevin Carlin at Analog Devices,
creating this condition-basedmonitoring business they didn't
have any special incentives.
Yes, they benefited personally,and Jim is now on his third gig
(31:49):
as a CEO, right, so you know,their careers grew.
They've done well, you know,hopefully financially as well,
but there was no specialincentive scheme to allow them
to do that.
I think there are somemodifications you can make,
maybe to to put them on longerterm incentives rather than
anything that's shorter termincentives rather than anything
(32:10):
that's shorter term.
But this sort of shadow stockand all these other kinds of
ways of giving specialincentives, I think you know
could lead to some veryunfortunate outcomes and there's
no evidence that they're needed.
What's needed is, you know this, giving them the license,
putting them in a position thatthey can succeed.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
You know, I think that's really interesting and it
reminds me of you know all theresearch around incentives.
You know especially monetaryincentives or you know
short-term incentives.
You know that a lot of times weput this goal in place or this
metric and we think, okay, ifthis metric is achieved, here's
(32:47):
the incentive and that is goingto impact human behavior in a
positive way, because this is adriver.
But I can only assume that inyour research and in your work
with corporate explorers, thatmany of them are probably not as
driven by money, but they'remore driven by the opportunity
(33:08):
to make a change or make animpact or innovate.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
That's right.
I mean one of the corporateexplorers that we talk about.
He had this idea.
So this is Christian Curtis inHungary.
He had this idea for anentirely new insurance business
model and in the book we tellthe story of how he gets
agreement from his managers togo forward with it.
But he also took it to venturecapitalists.
(33:33):
He had two firms ready to backhim to spin it out as his own
firm, and he makes the choice tostay inside, knowing that the
financial rewards would bedifferent.
But it's about his tolerance ofrisk, the sorts of risks he
wants to take.
Right, we often miss.
We think of risk as just beingone kind of risk.
There's lots of different riskswe take, and he was willing to
(33:56):
take the risk of moving.
You know being unpopular withhis colleagues, right.
But he wanted to stay within acorporate environment because he
liked the assets and theability to get things done and
he liked the people.
He's a part of a system heactually likes where he is and
the people that he's with.
(34:16):
He's a part of that community,and so for him the finance
wasn't important.
Well, it wasn't as important.
I'm sure he cares about money,um, but what mattered was that
he could do this and reinventhis own firm, because he's a
part of that firm, he's a partof that community.
It matters to him, it's part ofhis values to be there.
(34:36):
It's part of his value.
He did this from hungary, butthis is now moving across europe
and it matters to him to be aproud hungarian as well.
You know, and, and, and thesame is true of you know, in in
ohio, I'm sure you know.
It's just like what thedifference you make to your
community, to your city, to yourcompany, actually, for some
folks, is a big motivator in allof this.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
Yeah, just take a look at how many people wear
like college football teams ontheir yes, on their clothes,
right, sometimes that, sometimesthat drive is is as important,
um, or or very important, yes,so I do want to talk.
I have one more question andkind of in the same vein, and I
think it's about organizationswho are changing rapidly and
(35:22):
becoming more corporate.
So going through a growthjourney corporate, so you know,
going through a growth journeyand and, and you know, naturally
when you get bigger, you startto put in more stuff, more
bureaucracy, more controls, moreyou know more of a corporate
mass to make sure that thingsare checking and out and
everything.
So so how, how do organizationsretain what got them there,
(35:48):
that entrepreneurial edge, thatinnovative spirit?
You know what?
What are the strategies to makesure you don't lose your kind
of your core purpose there?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
this is.
This is really important, carland and, and.
We've been um.
We've consulted to a couple offirms that you know we would
call unicorns, and you knowthey've both gone public in, in,
uh, in the last um, in the lastyear, through, you know, the
SPAC route to going public andand and it's exactly the story.
(36:18):
We've always beenentrepreneurial.
We're now, you know, um, one ofthem a billion dollars in value
in, in revenue as well as invalue, and more and more value,
and um, and and there's newthings we want to do, but as we
started to try to do them, westruggled, we couldn't do the
thing, and and it comes backdown to the founding team, right
(36:39):
?
So in both of these stories,what we find is that the
entrepreneur that started itdidn't have a system for
replicating what he did right,and it is both he and these
instances and that theirresponse was to want to continue
(37:01):
to control as much as possible,on the grounds that you know
they're the smartest people inthe room, right, and they
structured the organization andits innovation in such a way
that everything came back tothem.
Contrast that with jeff bezosright, maybe not our poster
child and everything he doeshave a spaceship.
(37:23):
He does have a spaceship, yeahyeah, corporate explorer how to
innovate without the spaceshipthat's what I should have called
it.
But Bezos has a recipe, right.
He has a everybody gets theright to propose new ideas.
And he's got this PR FAQ systemone page press release, what
(37:44):
the customers get out of myinnovation FAQ, frequently asked
questions, my backup as to thekinds of questions you might
have about how we're going toget it done right System for how
that can get proposed, and ifyou have an idea that people
like, okay, well, I'll give youa two pizza team.
In other words, only so manypeople can be fed by two pizzas.
(38:06):
Right To go, work that up intoan MVP and we'll take it into
trial and find out.
This is the incubate piece thatI talked about.
And then, when he scales,Amazon has all these separate
units that operate with somehigh degree of autonomy, but
they're all linked by two thingsthey're linked by APIs, so
(38:26):
everything is interoperable, andsecondly, by a management
system that is consistent, soall of their performance is
transparent and the comparisonto others is transparent.
Personality, or do I put inplace some minimal system that
allows ideas to come up and givethem the autonomy without
(38:51):
sacrificing the access to theassets of the core business, if
you will.
So does that make sense?
What?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
do you think yeah, yeah, it's a really interesting
example and I'm just reflectingon you know, your, you know kind
of your comment that thatcorporate innovators have an
advantage over some of these VCfirms and it sounds like to me,
(39:19):
I mean, it's the systems, it'sthe structure that can enable
the scaling and the incubating,and not just the, not just the
light bulb ideas.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And the fallacy that many of us sit with is that it's
the ideas that matter.
We all think that Polaroid andKodak and Nokia and these other
firms that they got disruptedand kicked out of, you know and
sent into bankruptcy becausethey didn't see digital
(39:53):
technologies coming, they didn'tsee digital photography or they
didn't see app stores andtouchscreens and smartphones.
It's totally untrue.
They all had the technology,they all had the insights.
Polaroid had the world's firstmegapixel camera in the market
in the 90s.
The issue is they couldn'texecute.
(40:13):
It's about how do you use theseassets.
That makes the difference, notwhether you have the ideas, and
that is the hard part of it.
I portrayed a very positivestory.
I've written this book with twoprofessors, and you know um
mike tushman from the harvardbusiness school, charles
(40:33):
o'reilly from stanford, and soI've got another story about
what it's like to have, you know, a harvard and stanford
professor marking your workevery week sounds a little
intimidating yeah, but but um,um, I forgot what I was going to
say.
That, um, what did I say beforethat?
Speaker 3 (40:53):
yeah, you were talking about um, the uh, um
execution and uh, and then we'vehad a positive slant on this oh
, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
So mike my tushman.
My tushman always says what arethe counterfactuals?
And it's all very well to havethese great stories, but it has
to be a counterfactual.
And there are counterfactualsin the book and the biggest is
GE right and how it pursued GEDigital and what killed it was
the social network right and soa lot of the sort of.
(41:24):
There's a lot of view that ifyou have the CEO's support you
must succeed.
Well, he had all the supportJeff Immelt, the CEO of GE,
could possibly give him.
The guy stuck his future onthis strategy to be a software
company.
But those weren't the thingsthat killed Bill Rue, the leader
(41:48):
of GE Digital.
It was the sort of silentkillers in the organization,
like the system of optimizationand so on.
So I do need to to to highlightthat this can be tough as well.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
That sounds like everything in HR, you know you
start with these greatintentions and then, oh wow,
this is a lot harder than wethought it was going to be.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
And HR has a core explore problem the whole time
because I want to get paid, Idon't want to and, if I'm
managing, I don't want to end upin prison for some breach of
regulation.
There is a core business of HRthat you cannot screw up and
then there has to be an explore.
You have to again see these asseparate, and I think this
(42:33):
notion of separating the two maybe appropriate in HR as well,
rather than trying to makeeverything.
I personally hugely dislike theUlrich model of the HR
generalist, Because thegeneralist it's in that name.
(42:55):
I don't think this is well.
I think it's open to challengeas to whether that really is the
role of HR, and because theskills of delivering the
repeatable results on payconditions, employment law, are
completely different to I'mgoing to figure out how to do
(43:18):
innovation.
I'm going to figure out how tocontribute strategic skills.
I'm going to figure out how tomake hires and refresh our
leadership team or board.
So I just think that these aretwo different things as well.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
I actually, I agree 100% and it's and maybe this is
just you know, I'm just happythat you said that because
that's how I've structured mydepartment.
But you know, it's, it's the.
You know, I agreewholeheartedly and I think it
comes down to the.
The competencies that they haveare very different than the
(44:11):
competencies that I have, whichis strategy and cultural
sensitivity, and, you know,being flexible to change and and
and dealing with dynamicsituations and really emotional
situations.
And you know it's just there'sa dichotomy.
You know a human can't be allthose things Right.
It's just the reality of thesituation.
So I agree Now for all you HRpeople of one out there and you
(44:33):
got an entire department and youare a true generalist.
You know, I feel you, I've beenthere too.
But if at all possible, if you,you know, if you can be aware
of that and as you think aboutyour organization, if there are
things that you can structure toallow for a little bit of a
diversion of how you measuresuccess, depending upon the
(44:58):
actual task, that would be myrecommendation there.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yeah, no, that's fair .
I should say it's easy to thinkabout this Corporate Explorer
story as only being about thelargest organizations, but I can
give you quite smallorganizations that have done
this as well, certainly onesbelow 100 employees.
There will be a point at whichit's hard because you can't
split an individual.
I get that.
So there is a point at whichit's difficult, but certainly in
(45:26):
the 20s, 30s and upwards, I canpoint to organizations with
corporate explorers who renewthemselves.
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Well, this has been just a wonderful conversation.
Unfortunately, we are coming tothe end of our time together,
so I do want to get through theRebel HR flash round questions.
Yes, go for it Fascinated tohear these answers All right
(45:57):
Question number one what is yourfavorite people book?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Yes, the sort of way in which he, you know, with his
HR leader, deliberatelyconstructs the culture at
Netflix.
But I also love that it startswith a sort of humility of you
know, we didn't get here with abrilliant like oh, I was always
going to do this.
We realized we were screwing up, we had a problem we had to
(46:26):
solve and if we were going toscale this business, we needed
to change.
I thought that was a tremendous, really fun book and very
insightful because of thathumility.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Absolutely, and talk about an innovator, right?
I mean from mailing DVDs toyour house to, yeah, you just
push a button on your remote andyou can watch whatever you want
.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
That's right, and they have reinvented themselves
several times and there's aHarvard case that will tell you
how they could never make a movefrom DVDs to streaming.
People bet against them at thatpoint.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
I wish I would have bought that stock a while ago.
Oh well, all right.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (47:12):
So I have to say that I don't listen to a lot of
business podcasts.
So I listen a lot to agentleman called Mike Duncan who
has done a bunch of podcasts,one of them the History of Rome.
But I'm an addict of his verylong running sequence of
revolutions podcasts and he'sgone through the British
Revolution, the English CivilWar Revolution, the American
(47:35):
Revolution.
Until I became a citizen I'dcall that the rebellion, but now
I recognize it as therevolution.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
You're not allowed to be a citizen, if you call it
that.
I think that's on the test.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
That's right, the French Revolution, and so on.
And that's on the test, that'sright, the french revolution,
and so on.
And and what's reallyinteresting is that when you
listen to like these 10revolutions, you get a few
things.
And revolutions happen when,when people resist change, when
they try to stop renewal right,when they don't explore into the
future adequately or learntheir way into the future, and
(48:08):
so in this, in in these stories,history, you get the same
stories of what happens tocompanies that don't renew
themselves, and I just love theway he presents it.
So Mike Duncan is who peopleshould listen to Awesome.
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
All right.
Last question Greatconversation today, just
wonderful content.
How can our listeners connectwith you and get their hands on
the Corporate Explorer?
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Well, please go to Amazon or your favorite
e-commerce vendor and look forCorporate Explorer by Andrew
Binns, mike Tushman and CharlesO'Reilly.
Thecorporateexplorercom.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Awesome, Absolutely Just wonderful, wonderful
conversation today.
Really appreciate you coming onand sharing a different
perspective from kind of theconventional wisdom and really
really kind of stretching ourminds here a little bit.
So thank you, Andy.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
Thank you, kyle.
I enjoyed it enormously andthanks to all of your listeners.
And if people buy the book,read the book.
Love your feedback.
Perfect Thanks.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR Podcast, twitter at Rebel HR
Guy, or see our website atrebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by Rebel HR podcast
are those of the authors and donot necessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(49:39):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
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