If you are a founder or executive staring down disruption, this conversation is a practical playbook for building a culture of innovation that actually ships. AJ Bubb, founder of MXP Studios and host of Facing Disruption, breaks down how human plus AI accelerates results only when leaders fix the hidden blockers inside their teams. You will learn how to create psychological safety, design real experiments, and replace yes-people dynamics with honest feedback loops that move the business. Come for the innovation strategy. Stay for the leadership coaching, mindset frameworks, and the story of a global CEO who traded a silver fork dinner for a paper plate to hear the truth.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Innovation that Works in the Real World: What innovation means beyond buzzwords and how to mash ideas together to solve meaningful customer problems that create value fast.
Human + AI for Speed: Why AI is the cause and the customer experience is the effect, and how to aim your team at the effect first so technology choices follow strategy.
From Frameworks to Outcomes: Why “installing a framework” is not enough and how a leader, player, or coach model builds confidence, momentum, and ownership inside cross-functional teams.
Culture as a Performance System: How agency and psychological safety unlock creativity, experimentation, and faster delivery across product, engineering, and leadership.
Avoiding the Yes People Trap: How homogeneous mental models and go-along behavior wall leaders off from reality and how to invite dissent and get to the truth.
The Feedback Flywheel: A simple rule to stress test discovery work. If you only hear praise, keep interviewing until you collect constructive criticism, then build from that signal.
Leadership Presence that Listens: A memorable story from Accenture on how a CEO earned honest answers by sitting with analysts and asking three simple questions.
EQ x Tech x Team: Why personal growth and emotional resilience matter as much as tools, and how life and work feed each other for better or worse.
The Experimenter’s Mindset: Think big and act small through repeatable experiments, measurable wins, and a visible journal that compounds momentum over time.
Core Values that Guide Focus: How AJ uses Play and Passion to choose projects, say no quickly, and bring full energy to the work that matters.
Guest
AJ Bubb is the founder of MXP Studios, where he helps leaders and executives implement innovation at speed. He also hosts Facing Disruption, a podcast exploring the future of industries, rockstar product teams, and the experimenter’s mindset.
Episode Highlights
Innovation is a process of combining ideas to solve a real problem for a specific end user.
Teams accelerate when they share a clear vision, practice in real scenarios, and feel safe to test and learn.
Leaders who assume they know the answer often hire alignment over honesty, which silently slows everything down.
Cross-functional “player-coach” leadership builds team courage, capability, and handoff readiness.
Human plus AI creates leverage when the team starts from customer effect, not technology first.
Personal work and executive EQ remove control patterns that block innovation at the team level.
Small wins tracked in a simple journal compound into meaningful change.
This episode originally aired on iHeart Radio 710 WOR The Voice of New York
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