Category Archives: Leadership

Good Intentions Pave the Way to Innovation Hell

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and nowhere is that more true than in innovation.

Good Intentions Pave the Way to Innovation Hell

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

That’s one of the insights I took away from InnoLead’s Q1 report on corporate innovation priorities.  The report is an eye-opening look at the impact of AI on corporate innovation as experienced by corporate entrepreneurs themselves.  But before deep diving into that topic, the report’s authors shared intriguing data about member companies’ innovation structure, leadership engagement, organizational connections, and results. Nestled amongst the charts were several that, when taken together, got my Spidey senses tingling.

61.0% of innovation teams are “directly under a high-visibility leader with a broad company focus.”

This is great because innovation needs senior leaders’ support and active engagement to survive, let alone survive for long enough to produce meaningful results. Add this to the fact that 45% of senior leadership teams frequently discuss the “progress and value of the innovation program,” and all signs point to innovation as a strategic priority.

But (you knew there was a but, didn’t you)…

If “broad company focus” means “no P&L responsibility,” we have a problem.  In every for-profit company I’ve worked for and with, people with P&L responsibility have greater power, influence, and access to resources than people without a P&L.  This division may not feel fair, but it makes sense – the people who bring in profit and revenue will always be more influential than people who represent “cost centers.”

You can see the impact of P&L owners who are, understandably, focused entirely on delivering short-term results throughout the report – 75% of companies have shifted their focus more towards near-term priorities, and 61% shifted their innovation portfolio away from Horizon 3 (also known as radical, breakthrough, or disruptive innovation).

As for all those discussions, it’d be great if they focused on walking the talk of innovation. But suppose it’s only innovation platitudes or, worse, questioning innovation’s ROI. That doesn’t bode well for the “high-visibility leader with broad company focus,” the innovation team, or the company’s culture.

71.2% of innovation teams’ customers or business partners are unaware of the team’s existence, don’t engage, or engage only occasionally.

Welcome to Innovation Island!  Where the cool people work on cool things in cool offices while all you drones slave away doing the same thing you’ve always done and making the money that pays for the cool people to do cool things in their cool offices.

I’m sure this isn’t the message the innovation team intends to send, but it’s the one received by most organizations.

When arguing for Innovation Island, managers often point to the organizational antibodies likely to swarm and kill H3/radical/breakthrough innovation and even some H2/adjacent innovations.  They’re right, and those innovations must be “protected.” But not every innovation needs protection.  H2 and certainly H1 innovations, where most portfolios are now, should be shared with the core business because the core business will eventually run them.

The bigger problem, in my opinion, is that innovation teams don’t seem to be reaching out to others in the organization.  Like the P&L owners they report to, people in the core business are busy running the business and generating revenue.  Very few have the time or energy to seek out the innovation team to discuss and explore innovation.  Companies that want to build a culture of innovation need to turn their innovators into evangelists, not residents of an island connected to the mainland by a single drawbridge.

23.4% of innovation teams are considered outsiders or actively undermined by other functions and business units.

This may not sound bad, but add to it the 55.0% that are “somewhat integrated with occasional collaboration” with other departments and business units, and you may be tempted to believe that Innovation Island would be wise to invest in a surface-to-air missile defense system.

Sadly, this perception of the innovation team as “The Others” isn’t surprising when considering that the most important tactic for building a relationship between innovation and the functions or business units is already having strong relationships and interpersonal trust (75.3% of respondents).  The least effective (4.7% of respondents) is “writing down shared objectives and expectations.”  So, no, the email you sent is not enough to win friends and influence people.

Bottom line

Well-intended companies appoint a senior executive to lead the innovation team because they’ve been told that doing so is powerful proof that innovation is a strategic priority.  They hire outsiders to inject new thinking into the organization because they know that “what got you here won’t get you there.”  They cordon the team and their work off from the rest of the organization because they read that separation is essential to preserving innovation’s disruptive nature. 

But if the senior executive doesn’t have the organizational power and influence that comes with P&L ownership, the team doesn’t have strong personal relationships with others in the business, and other functions and business units don’t know the team exists or how to interact with it, innovation will go nowhere.

But that’s better than where it could go.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Transformation is Human Not Digital

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Transformation is Human Not Digital

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

A decade ago, many still questioned the relevance of digital technology. While Internet penetration was already significant, e-commerce made up less than 6% of retail sales. Mobile and cloud computing were just getting started and artificial intelligence was still more science fiction than reality.

Yet today, all of those things are not only viable technologies, but increasingly key to effectively competing in the marketplace. Unfortunately, implementing these new technologies can be a thorny process. In fact, research by McKinsey found that fewer than one third of digital transformation efforts succeed.

For the most part, these failures have less to do with technology and more to do with managing the cultural and organizational challenges that a technological shift creates. It’s relatively easy to find a vendor that can implement a system for you, but much harder to prepare your organization to adapt to new technology. Here’s what you need to keep in mind:

Start With Business Objectives

Probably the most common trap that organizations fall into is focusing on technology rather than on specific business objectives. All too often, firms seek to “move to the cloud” or “develop AI capabilities.” That’s a sure sign you’re headed down the wrong path.

“The first question you have to ask is what business outcome you are trying to drive,” Roman Stanek, CEO at GoodData, told me. “Projects start by trying to implement a particular technical approach and not surprisingly, front-line managers and employees don’t find it useful. There’s no real adoption and no ROI.”

So start by asking yourself business related questions, such as “How could we better serve our customers through faster, more flexible technology?” or “How could artificial intelligence transform our business?” Once you understand your business goals, you can work your way back to the technology decisions.

Automate The Most Tedious Tasks First

Technological change often inspires fear. One of the most basic mistakes many firms make is to try to use new technology to try and replace humans and save costs rather than to augment and empower them to improve performance and deliver added value. This not only kills employee morale and slows adoption, it usually delivers worse results.

A much better approach is to use technology to improve the effectiveness of human employees. For example, one study cited by a White House report during the Obama Administration found that while machines had a 7.5 percent error rate in reading radiology images and humans had a 3.5% error rate, when humans combined their work with machines the error rate dropped to 0.5%.

The best way to do this is to start with the most boring and tedious tasks first. Those are what humans are worst at. Machines don’t get bored or tired. Humans, on the other hand, thrive on interaction and like to solve problems. So instead of looking to replace workers, look instead to make them more productive.

Perhaps most importantly, this approach can actually improve morale. Factory workers actively collaborate with robots they program themselves to do low-level tasks. In some cases, soldiers build such strong ties with robots that do dangerous jobs that they hold funerals for them when they “die.”

Shift Your Organization And Your Business Model

Another common mistake is to think that you can make a major technological shift and keep the rest of your business intact. For example, shifting to the cloud can save on infrastructure costs, but the benefits won’t last long if you don’t figure out how to redeploy those resources in some productive way.

For example, when I talked to Barry Libenson, Global CIO of the data giant, Experian, about his company’s shift to the cloud, he told me that “The organizational changes were pretty enormous. We had to physically reconfigure how people were organized. We also needed different skill sets in different places so that required more changes and so on.”

The shift to the cloud made Experian more agile, but more importantly it opened up new business opportunities. Its shift to the cloud allowed the company to create Ascend, a “data on demand” platform that allows its customers to make credit decisions based on near real time data, which is now its fastest growing business.

“All of the shifts we made were focused on opening up new markets and serving our customers better,” Libenson says, and that’s what helped make the technological shift so successful. Because it was focused on business results, it was that much easier to get everybody behind it, gain momentum and create a true transformation.

Humans Collaborating With Machines

Consider how different work was 20 years ago, when Windows 95 was still relatively new and only a minority of executives regularly used programs like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. We largely communicated by phone and memos typed up by secretaries. Data analysis was something you did with a pencil, paper and a desk calculator.

Clearly, the nature of work has changed. We spend far less time quietly working away at our desks and far more interacting with others. Much of the value has shifted from cognitive skills to social skills as collaboration increasingly becomes a competitive advantage. In the future, we can only expect these trends to strengthen and accelerate.

To understand what we can expect, look at what’s happened in the banking industry. When automatic teller machines first appeared in the early 1970s, most people thought it would lead to less branches and tellers, but actually just the opposite happened. Today, there are more than twice the number of bank tellers employed as in the 1970s, because they do things that machines can’t do, like solve unusual problems, show empathy and up-sell.

That’s why we need to treat any technological transformation as a human transformation. The high value work of the future will involve humans collaborating with other humans to design work for machines. Get the human part right and the technology will take care of itself.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Dall-E via Bing

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The Innovation Enthusiasm Gap

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The Innovation Enthusiasm Gap

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

Getting new innovations launched within companies of any significant size typically requires buy-in from a number of different people and groups around the organization.

And moving towards a “culture” of innovation that the most successful companies create definitely requires that there be a critical mass of people with common understanding of the value of innovation.

Different Attitudes Towards Innovation

In any given enterprise there are generally many people who are hungry for the excitement of innovation and at the same time there are often many people who are resistant. Innovation, after all, inherently means change. And while change is viewed by some as exciting, challenging and fun, others view change as risky, scary and something to be avoided wherever possible.

Understanding how to segment your key stakeholders at all levels of an organization based on their appetite and attitude towards change is very helpful in devising a plan to “bring along” as many people as possible on the innovation bandwagon. All people are unique and hold certain beliefs and attitudes for a variety of reasons including their personality, past experiences, and reward constructs. But we’ll talk about one high level trend that we have found to apply in most cases regarding how to gauge the likelihood that people will have initial enthusiasm for innovation based on their level in the organization. This is not the only way of slicing the onion to predict who will favor vs resist innovation, this is just one model, but it’s the one we’ll focus on in this article.

The Innovation Enthusiasm Inverted Bell Curve

The Inverted Bell Curve

While we have no quantitative research to support this, we have generally observed an inverted bell curve trend as it applies to “Innovation Enthusiasm.” Let’s consider three basic groups:

  1. The company leadership team: Primarily the CEO, but also the other members of the leadership team (CFO, COO, COO etc) who are held directly responsible for the company’s success.
  2. The “troops”: The bottom couple of tiers of the organization that typically make up 90% of the employees
  3. The managers: Specifically the middle to upper level managers. These may be department heads, marketing executives, product managers — people who have achieved some level of status and success within the organization’s hierarchy but who are not at the top level.

So lets take these groups one at a time.

CEOs Like Innovation

The vast majority of CEOs of large enterprises recognize that innovation is essential to their company’s success and consequently essential to their success and continued tenure as CEO.

Why is this the case? A CEO’s job is to grow a company. In most cases, A CEO whose company is not growing is a CEO who is soon to be fired. And growth almost always requires innovation. Why? Well let’s be a bit simplistic and say there are two primary market conditions in which a company can find itself — a market which is not fundamentally growing and one which is.

In a market that is fundamentally not growing, the three main ways that a company can grow would be for it to:

  1. Out-innovate competitors so as to take their share
  2. Move into new product categories or businesses
  3. Acquire competitors

All three of these require some level of innovation. Number one is obviously about innovation. Number two requires a healthy amount of innovation around creation of new capabilities. And even number three, the seeming least innovative of the three, still usually requires innovation from a scale management perspective.

In a market that is fundamentally growing, sitting back and riding the “rising tide” is not necessarily the key to growth. Innovation is also critical for a company to grow in the midst of a strong market. Successfully riding the rising tide requires innovation. Why?

  • Substantial scaling requires innovation – As markets increase in size, a company may find that in order to take full advantage of the scale of the opportunity they need to be able to serve 2x, 10x, even 100x the customers or orders they did previously. That level of scaling generally requires a substantial change to how business is done. Apple has had to be just as innovative in their supply chain and distribution approach as they have had to be with their product development in order to capitalize on the success in the growing market for mobile devices.
  • Growing markets attract disruptors – If the market demand for a product or service is surging, that tends to attract investment and competitive innovation. If the market is growing but a competitor out-innovates you, you might find yourself shrinking even though the market is growing. Consider Research in Motion.

So a CEO has every reason to like innovation. Does a CEO have any reason to fear innovation? Not much. Innovation isn’t always successful, however most boards are far more patient with a CEO who is innovating and not finding success than they are with a CEO who isn’t innovating at all. Furthermore, even unsuccessful innovation gives a CEO something to tell his board and investors to keep them optimistic about the future, so even innovations that are unsuccessful in the market can, for a while at least, keep a stock price up which is, after all, a CEO’s main performance metric.

The Troops Like Innovation

We’ll call the 90%+ of employees of a given company, the “troops”. While of course nothing is absolute, troops, on the whole, tend to like innovation. Why?

  • They want the company to be successful – They can see that changing with the times and bringing new products to market will help the company. They take pride in the brand and they know that financial success and growth means job security and raises, and that their long term job security will be in danger if the company doesn’t keep up with the times.
  • It can help them serve the customer better – Troops who face customers directly most of the time want to do their job as well as possible since part of their job satisfaction can be the direct and immediate feedback they get when interacting with the end-customers.
  • It creates opportunity – For ambitious people lower down in the organization, change creates new needs and new opportunities which could accelerate their rise.
  • Its exciting and interesting – Lots of jobs are boring. Change creates interest.

There are certain types of change that can be threatening to the Troops; such as innovation via overseas outsourcing or automation that eliminates employees, so those are exceptions. There definitely are also members of the troops who tend to fear and resist change as a first reaction, however at most companies these are the minority. Properly communicated innovation initiatives that don’t have an obvious or direct threat to employees job security is generally embraced by the majority of the troops.

Managers Don’t Really Like Innovation

So if The CEO’s like innovation, and the troops like it, whats the problem? You have both the top leadership of the company and the overwhelming majority of the employees ready to embrace innovation, surely that should be enough, right? It’s not. We see over and over again CEOs who feel stuck because they are asking their “people” to innovate and its just not happening. What we find at many companies is that despite being encouraged by the CEO and top management, most middle and upper-level managers have limited reasons to be motivated to truly innovate in a dramatic way. Why is this the case?

Change creates risk. Middle and upper-level managers have the most “stake” in the status quo – they have the most to lose. Middle and upper-level managers tend to own processes and products. When new processes and products arise to potentially replace their existing fiefdom, managers will often do their best to ensure that they wind up with the same scope of responsibility, the same budget and the same number of direct reports. While its possible for managers to move up in a new order, very often a “bird in the hand” mentality among managers encourages a stance which is about defending the status quo and supporting “innovations” which inherently work within the existing structure. Ultimately, this often means only very incremental innovations.

One might think that middle and upper managers have the same loyalty to the company and shared interest in the company’s overall success, but in our experience this is not quite so. Individuals generally rise to these ranks because they are fairly savvy and that savviness generally extends to the recognition that their personal career success is not necessarily tied to the company overall. For example a product manager with a successful product at a company which overall is going down the tubes can, at the right moment, jump ship and leverage their demonstrated track record of success. However an individual who becomes marginalized by change at their current company (or simply winding up with reduced responsibilities), while they certainly can still move to another position, is all of the sudden playing defense.

Furthermore, that mindset of innovation “within the current structure” is then telegraphed to their team members. Its common for the troops to realize that the CEO wants dramatic improvements based on his communications, however if lower level employees also perceive that the head of their department is looking to not rock the boat too much, the troops may ultimately shift their loyalty to the manager who conducts their performance evaluation, decides their increases and determines promotions.

The truth is that collectively within an organization, while the CEO might be the single most powerful individual in terms of influencing the organization, the middle and upper-level managers are the most powerful layer, so if they are not embracing of innovation, they can stifle it fairly easily, no matter what the CEO’s and troops’ wishes may be.

Rogues

However, we do see in most organizations that there are “rogue” upper and middle managers who buck the trend. They are either passionate about the company or just turned on by the new and innovative to such an extent that it makes sense for them to take the risk and go “all in” in support of massive innovation. We see that typically about one in twenty middle and upper-level managers are of this type. These individuals can be a key to turning the tide, however there is great risk that these mavericks will face such pressure from their peers in an organization that they either stifle their own tendencies, or more likely, leave for an organization where the culture is more welcoming of innovation. By allowing this “weeding out” of the true innovators at the middle and upper-level management layer, the ratio of rogues can drop from one in twenty to one in a hundred or even less.

Summary

Here is a summary of the attitudinal tendencies. Remember, there are always outliers, this model is only meant to help provide understanding around how different circumstances and levels of risk and reward from change influence people differently at different levels.

CEO + Leadership Team​

Leadership TeamAttitude: Favor innovation that drives up stock price. Often has sense of urgency.

Risk: The risk is not innovating. CEOs must drive growth which usually requires innovation. If the CEO does not drive growth he, and his immediate reports, are likely to be looking for new jobs.

Reward: Even the appearance of innovation (say, an improved product pipeline) can give a CEO room to breathe with a board and investors as it creates optimism. True innovation at the Apple or WalMart level of course creates superstar CEOs.

Troops

TroopsAttitude: Tend to be open to the idea of innovation except when it is targeting outsourcing, staff reductions, or automation which risks their job.

Risk: The biggest risk in typical organizations is that “getting involved” with innovation projects might be seen as negative by the middle and upper managers by whom troops are evaluated.

Reward: The rewards are greater job security if innovation is successful as it helps the whole company as well as the ability to better serve customers an

Middle-Upper Management

ManagersAttitude: Tend to resist innovation or seek to compartmentalize innovations that do not jeopardize the organizational structure

Risk: The risk is that true innovation might change the organization so completely that their current position or its level of power, budget or scope would be jeopardized.

Reward: The potential exists for a middle/upper manager to “break out” and prove themselves a superstar by innovating. However most innovation requires collaboration with peers and if they cannot find willing partners in their peers their likelihood of failure is so high that the rewards seems unattainable. For middle/upper managers who are naturally inclined towards innovation despite the risks, the rewards are more emotional—they thrive on either improving things, helping their company or being a part of something new and exciting.

This article originally appeared on the Howard Tiersky blog
Image Credits: Howard Tiersky

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Do What’s Right, Even if It is Not Expected

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Do What's Right, Even if It is Not Expected

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Often, it’s just a tiny bit more effort.

Not long ago, I wrote an article and created a video on Doing More Than Expected – even when it’s not included in your job description. I used the example of the server at a restaurant who ran outside during a storm to move the outdoor furniture blowing across the patio to a safer, more secure spot. He returned to the restaurant, drenched from the rain, to applause from the guests. I jokingly asked him, “Was moving patio furniture included in your job description?” He said, “I just do what it takes.”

That’s a great attitude to have. First, you have to be the kind of person who innately knows you should do something right, even if it isn’t expected. Second, you have to be empowered to make those choices and act on them.

I’m reminded of an employee who fixed things around the office. If he saw something that wasn’t right, he made it right. For example, we had a frame with a motivational quote that we changed every week. One week later, the quote and picture frame were crooked. I noticed it, and while it bothered me a bit, it wasn’t worth saying anything about it. By the end of the day, it was fixed.

If I don’t do it, who will?

I knew who did it, but I still asked loud enough for others to hear, “Who fixed the weekly quote?” The answer, of course, was the same guy who fixed everything around the office. I thanked him and asked him why he handles things like this. He said, “If I don’t do it, who will?”

I love those seven words. “If I don’t do it, who will?” is right up there with “I just do what it takes.” These are the mindsets of people who go the extra mile, and by the way, it’s not really an extra mile. Often, it’s just a tiny bit more effort, if any. It’s just doing it because, “If they don’t, who will?”

When someone comes to work for you, whatever their role and responsibility, you hope they are good at it. If all they do is that role and don’t care to do anything else, such as fixing a crooked piece of art in a frame, you would still be happy with their work. But what if another employee did the same and, in addition, was willing to fix the metaphorical piece of art in a frame, even without being asked? Who would you rather have working for you?

Your answer is most likely the second option. That employee is the type of team member who will do whatever they can to take care of their internal and external customers. Why? Because they do what it takes and know, “If I don’t do it, who will?”

Image Credits: Shep Hyken, Unsplash

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Five Ways to Make People Feel Heard

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Five Ways to Make People Feel Heard

GUEST POST from David Burkus

One of the most common complaints among disengaged employees is about not feeling heard, not being seen or recognized for what they do, who they are and what they are experiencing. As a leader, a lot of this frustration may stem from you. When people approach you with their problems and you jump right to give advice, you may feel you’re helping their problem…but you’re not helping them feel heard. And if they don’t feel heard, they’re not really hearing your advice anyway. Other times people speak up to share a new idea and get met with a quick retort about lack of budget or previous, similar ideas that didn’t work. You may think you’re helping move the conversation along, but you’re more likely causing team members to want to move along to find a new leader.

In this article, we’ll outline how to make people feel heard through five actions leaders can take to send the message that they are listening and respecting the contribution every member of their team is making.

1. Model Active Listening

The first way to make people feel heard is to model active listening. There’s no faster way to make someone feel ignored than to…ignore them. But in an era of constant distractions fighting for our attention, it can be difficult to focus in on someone sharing, and even more difficult to communicate that you are focused. That’s where active listening comes in. Make sure you’re truly centering your attention on them, receiving what they have to say. In addition, demonstrate your attention through non-verbals like nodding and gesturing. Before you take a turn responding, try to summarize what you heard and check for understanding. As you demonstrate active listening, you’ll find your team members feel more heard, but also that they hear each other better as well.

2. Praise The Contribution

The second way to make people feel heard is to praise their contribution, even if you disagree with their idea. Recognizing and appreciating their willingness to share their thoughts fosters a sense of validation and encourages continued participation. Highlighting the positive aspects of their contribution is crucial in creating an inclusive environment. By focusing on what they did well, you acknowledge their effort and encourage them to further develop their ideas. Moreover, praising contributions can also inspire others to share their thoughts and opinions. When individuals witness positive reinforcement, they are more likely to feel comfortable expressing their own ideas, leading to a more diverse and innovative team dynamic.

3. Challenge Assumptions, Not Ideas

The third way to make people feel heard is to challenge assumptions, not ideas. There may well be ideas shared in team meetings you want to push back on or challenge. But it’s important to maintain that feeling that you’re hearing and considering those ideas. So instead of criticizing the person or the idea directly, a more constructive approach is to question the assumptions behind their ideas. This allows for a deeper understanding of their thought process and encourages open-mindedness. Avoiding personal criticism is essential in maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment. By focusing on the assumptions, you shift the conversation towards exploring different perspectives and finding common ground. Asking questions to delve into the assumptions behind the idea not only demonstrates a genuine interest in understanding their viewpoint but also encourages critical thinking and fosters a culture of collaboration.

4. Questions Before Advice

The fourth way to make people feel heard is to ask questions before offering advice. Before providing advice, it is crucial to focus on understanding the problem at hand. By asking questions, you allow the person to feel heard and understood, creating a safe space for them to share their thoughts and concerns. Asking follow-up questions helps to delve deeper into the situation, uncovering underlying factors that may not be immediately apparent. This thorough understanding enables you to provide more relevant and effective advice. Show empathy throughout the conversation, acknowledging their emotions and experiences. By creating a safe and supportive environment, individuals are more likely to open up and engage in meaningful dialogue.

5. Addition Before Subtraction

The final way to make people feel heard is to add before you subtract, meaning build upon their existing idea or comments before challenging anything you heard. When offering feedback or criticism, it is essential to always start by highlighting the positive aspects of what was shared. By acknowledging the strengths and value of their contribution, you create a more receptive atmosphere. Even better, when you build upon the idea you demonstrate how much you value it. If you must offer constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement, focus on growth and development rather than solely pointing out flaws. This approach encourages individuals to embrace feedback as an opportunity for growth rather than feeling discouraged. Building on strengths and encouraging growth fosters a positive and supportive environment. By emphasizing the positive aspects, you inspire individuals to continue sharing their ideas and contribute to the team’s success.

Making people feel heard is a fundamental aspect of effective leadership. By modeling active listening, praising contributions, questioning assumptions, asking questions before offering advice, and focusing on addition before subtraction, leaders can create an inclusive and empowering environment. When individuals feel valued and understood, they are more motivated to contribute their ideas, leading to better outcomes and improved team culture. By implementing these tactics, leaders can foster a culture where everyone can do their best work ever.

Image credit: Pexels

Originally published at https://davidburkus.com on July 10, 2023

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Challenging the Assumption of the Status Quo

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(A Lesson Learned from Yogurt)

Challenging the Assumption of the Status Quo

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

In September 2006, I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, on a temporary assignment with BCG.  As one does when arriving somewhere for an extended period, I went to the grocery store to stock my kitchen. 

Since the grocery store was on the ground floor of my building, I bought enough food for a few breakfasts and dinners, made note of the other offerings for future trips, and learned through painful public embarrassment that one must purchase grocery bags (and those bags are nowhere near the checkout lane).

The following day, yogurt was on the menu, and I grabbed the first of the three options I had bought the previous day – a small container of strawberry yogurt.

My heart sank when I peeled off the top.

Instead of super healthy, organic, natural (I’m in Scandinavia, for crying out loud!) yogurt, the stuff in my cup was a rather suspicious beige with dark brown flecks.

Stifling my instinct to dry heave, I chucked the cup into the garbage, along with the five other cups in the clearly spoiled pack, and pulled Brand #2 out of the refrigerator.  Surely, this strawberry yogurt would be safe to eat.

But it, too, was beige.  A lighter beiger and without the disturbing brown flecks.  But still beige.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.  Admittedly, the grocery store was more of a glorified convenience store, but c’mon, how hard is it to keep track of Sell By dates?

Into the garbage, it went.  Out of the refrigerator came Brand #3 (Yes, I take a portfolio approach to innovation AND food purchases)

Closing my eyes and saying a quick prayer to both the grocery and yogurt gods, I peeled open the yogurt. Not beige but a slight hint of pink, just enough to reassure me that it contained strawberries and hadn’t curdled but not so much that I suspected an American-amount of food coloring.

Later that day…

At lunch, my new colleagues asked how I was settling in.  I regaled them with my “bumbling American experiencing culture shock in a country where she looks (and is initially treated like) a local” stories. 

As we gathered up our dishes and returned to the kitchen, I commented that I was surprised that my local grocery would keep expired products on the shelf.  When they echoed my surprise, I told them about the spoiled yogurt and that 2 of the three brands I purchased were bad.

Based on the glances they exchanged, I knew I had another story to add to an already uncomfortably full book.

It turns out that. The “good” yogurt I ate that morning was from the lowest quality brand, one that no self-respecting Dane would consider eating but that is sold to unsuspecting foreigners (Hi, that’s me).  The “bad” yogurt was from respected all-natural brands.  All yogurt, they explained, falls somewhere in the spectrum from white to beige or even tan. That’s why they print the flavor name and a picture of the fruit on the label.

How often do we make the same mistake?

How often do we reject something because it’s not what we expect to see?  Because it’s not what we’re used to?

Maybe not often when it comes to yogurt, but what about other more important things, like:

  • Trends
  • Technologies
  • Ideas
  • Business Models
  • Startups
  • People

And what happens when we don’t have people willing to point out that we’re no longer in a place where our status quo applies?

Image credit: Pixabay

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Technical, Market and Emotional Risks

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Technical, Market and Emotional Risks

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Technical risk – Will it work?
Market risk – Will they buy it?
Emotional risk – Will people laugh at your crazy idea?

Technical risk – Test it in the lab.
Market risk – Test it with the customer.
Emotional risk – Try it with a friend.

Technical risk – Define the right test.
Market risk – Define the right customer.
Emotional risk – Define the right friend.

Technical risk – Define the minimum acceptable performance criteria.
Market risk – Define the minimum acceptable response from the customer.
Emotional risk – Define the minimum acceptable criticism from your friend.

Technical risk – Can you manufacture it?
Market risk – Can you sell it?
Emotional risk – Can you act on your crazy idea?

Technical risk – How sure are you that you can manufacture it?
Market risk – How sure are you that you can sell it?
Emotional risk – How sure are you that you can act on your crazy idea?

Technical risk – When the VP says it can’t be manufactured, what do you do?
Market risk – When the VP says it can’t be sold, what do you do?
Emotional risk – When the VP says your idea is too crazy, what do you do?

Technical risk – When you knew the technical risk was too high, what did you do?
Market risk – When you knew the market risk was too high, what did you do?
Emotional risk – When you knew someone’s emotional risk was going to be too high, what did you do?

Technical risk – Can you teach others to reduce technical risk? How about increasing it?
Market risk – Can you teach others to reduce market risk? How about increasing it?
Emotional risk – Can you teach others to reduce emotional risk? How about increasing it?

Technical risk – What does it look like when technical risk is too low? And the consequences?
Market risk – What does it look like when market risk is too low? And the consequences?
Emotional risk – What does it look like when emotional risk is too low? And the consequences?

We are most aware of technical risk and spend most of our time trying to reduce it. We have the mindset and toolset to reduce it. We know how to do it. But we were not taught to recognize when technical risk is too low. And if we do recognize it’s too low, we don’t know how to articulate the negative consequences. With all this said, market risk is far more dangerous.

We’re unfamiliar with the toolset and mindset to reduce market risk. Where we can change the design, run the test, and reduce technical risk, market risk is not like that. It’s difficult to understand what drives the customers’ buying decision and it’s difficult to directly (and quickly) change their buying decision. In short, it’s difficult to know what to change so they make a different buying decision. And if they don’t buy, you don’t sell. And that’s a big problem. With that said, emotional risk is far more debilitating.

When a culture creates high emotional risk, people keep their best ideas to themselves. They don’t want to be laughed at or ridiculed, so their best ideas don’t see the light of day. The result is a collection of wonderful ideas known only to the underground Trust Network. A culture that creates high emotional risk has insufficient technical and market risk because everyone is afraid of the consequences of doing something new and different. The result – the company with high emotional risk follows the same old script and does what it did last time. And this works well, right up until it doesn’t.

Here’s a three-pronged approach that may help.

  1. Continue to reduce technical risk.
  2. Learn to reduce market risk early in a project.
  3. And behave in a way that reduces emotional risk so you’ll have the opportunity to reduce technical and market risk.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Thinking Differently About Leadership and Innovation

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Thinking Differently About Leadership and Innovation

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

We live in a world, with less stability, certainty, simplicity, and predictability, where regional conflicts, societal divisions, and civil unrest have increased globally. Simultaneously, technological-induced disruptive innovations and the climate crisis impact every aspect of our daily lives. This means that we live in an age of overwhelm and a world of unknowns, requiring us all to know how to uncover and eliminate our individual and collective blind spots, to be adaptive and innovative. By thinking and acting differently about leadership and innovation, we can all grow, survive, and thrive within it.

This a moment in time that calls for leaders to boldly and courageously, step up, shift out of any myopic, reactive, cost, and short-term focus, and develop their leadership consciousness.  By taking personal responsibility, and being accountable for owning and shifting their interior state or inner being, to eliminate flaws, maximize core strengths, and build confidence, capacity, and competence to adapt, innovate, and grow through disruption.  

To refocus on developing future-fit systemic and innovative solutions, that add real value in ways that serve and sustain people, profit, and the planet, differently.

Leadership is in crisis

We are experiencing a global leadership crisis.

Many leaders, in the corporate sector, and national and international institutions have become increasingly reactive. In ways that are passively or aggressively defensive, egotistic, and often self-serving. By vacillating between political correctness, denial, justification, and avoidance – and between attacking, shaming, and blaming groups, individuals, and nations for the current state of social unrest, political chaos, cultural divisions, and regional and religious conflicts.

  • Hitting a pause button

The missing key element is the leadership consciousness required in taking the time to pause, retreat (step back), reflect, and explore the deep causes, current implications, and nature of challenging, complex, and systemic problems.

Leaders are obliged to step out of their habitual comfort zones and boost their ability to bravely make sense of what is going on – and develop the foresight skills to risk mitigate and identify the most intelligent actions that will deliver high-value and high-impact outcomes that serve people, profits, and the planet.

To uncover the repetitive mindsets and behaviors that keep on producing results that no one wants, by bravely exposing and eliminating their leadership blind spots. 

Leadership blind spots

We know that most of the innovative solutions to the complex challenges we face already exist.

To unleash these desirable, value-adding, and innovative solutions, we need to empower, enable, and equip leaders to bravely and safely expose and eliminate their largely, unconscious and unknown leadership blind spots. These exist in our individual and collective leadership, they also exist in our everyday team and social interactions.

Because most leaders are smart and know what to do, and how to do it, identifying and eliminating any leadership blind spots will enable them to do it better.

Yet, despite, in many cases, years of leadership training they are at risk of being perpetually reactive, unfocused, overcome with “busyness” and addicted to the tasks involved in “getting stuff” (usually the urgent “small stuff” and not always the “important stuff”) the done. 

As defined by Dr. Karen Blakeley in “Leadership Blind Spots and What to Do about Them,” a blind spot is “a regular tendency to repress, distort, dismiss or fail to notice information, views or ideas in a particular area that results in an individual failing to learn, change or grow in response to changes in that area.”

  • Source of leadership blind spots

The majority of leaders are mostly blind to the Source from which they operate. This is often because many do not have the self-awareness and emotional intelligence to manage and self-regulate any of their unconscious un-resourceful emotional states, mindsets, and behaviors. 

Leadership Consciousness

“An ordered distinction between self and environment, simple wakefulness, one’s sense of self-hood or soul explored by “looking within”; being a metaphorical “stream” of contents, or being a mental state, mental event or mental process of the brain”.

  • Igniting the brain

Leadership blind spots are typically contained in our neurology and can be exposed and eliminated by:


Paying attention to their three core neurological levels and being intentional in cultivating their leadership consciousness.

When engaged in a coaching partnership, a leader can learn how to shift, self-regulate, and self-manage at all three levels to effectively eliminate their flaws, and learn how to think and act differently in delivering successful transformation and change initiatives.

Power of Coaching Intervention

A coach is an external disruptor who seeks to bring out the best in a leader, tap into and maximize their potential, and adds value by facilitating deep, insight-based learning processes, that shifts mindsets and result in sustainable behavior change.

Coaching helps smart people be and think beyond who they are being and beyond what they are thinking now. In ways that can empower, enable, and equip leaders to adapt, innovate, and grow, cultivate their imagination and creativity, to think and act differently in an unstable world.

This enables them to develop and implement systemic and innovative solutions in a timely way and at scale.

  • Noticing, disrupting, disputing, and deviating

Coaches partner with leaders to enable them to notice, disrupt, dispute, and deviate by accessing and harnessing resourceful emotional states, and mindsets. Coaches safely explore the “boxes”, thinking, or the “stories” a leader may have been unconsciously living within, and constricted by.

Because we can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it in the first instance.

Especially in a 21st-century world where developing leadership consciousness enables us to adapt, innovate, and grow by:

  • Reducing our brain’s ability to hijack us when doing its best to constantly keep us safe from danger,
  • Letting go of old pervasive Industrial Age mental models and perspectives, especially around cost and efficiency,
  • Relearning new future-fit ways of being, thinking, and acting differently.

And increases our ability to be agile, centered, and focused in thinking faster in the Disruption Age, where technology is accelerating faster than our human brains are.

Upskilling our brains!

A coaching partnership will create a safe and collective holding space to help leaders deep dive into the unknown develop strategies and develop their leadership consciousness in ways that:

  • Opens their minds, ignites their imagination, curiosity, and creativity, shifts their perspective, makes sense of things develops a whole systems perspective, and think differently,
  • Opens their hearts to become connected with self, others, systems, and with Source, and be empathic and compassionate,
  • Opens their will to let go of the need for control, and allows them to deal with paradox and the new to emerge, which can be designed, iterated, and pivoted, in ways that enable them to act differently, in designing and implementing systemic and innovative solutions.

Closing leadership blind spots to adapt, innovate and grow

A coach empowers, enables, and equips a leader’s capacity, confidence, and competence, to identify and close their leadership blind spots, be in charge of their minds, and think and act differently, to adapt, innovate, and grow in times of great uncertainty.

To convincingly work with, and flow with both their peoples overwhelm, and with the constraints in the external environment by:

  • Developing an awareness of their neurological RIGIDITY which exists within their emotional, cognitive, and visceral states, in turn, impacts their ability to mobilise, focus, and engage their efforts.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they may demonstrate rigidity, or functional fixedness, resulting in an inability to mobilise, they will be withdrawn, reactive, and become overly passive or even aggressive.  Because they are unconsciously at the effect of the “mental blocks” resulting from unacknowledged fears and anxiety.

  • Developing their neurological PLASTICITY and flexibility to be able to attend to, regulate, and focus their thoughts, and feelings, and be grounded, mindful, present, and intentional in taking intelligent actions.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they will not be able to access their brain’s ability to change, reorganize, or grow new neural networks, learn, adapt, and become resilient. They will not develop the agility required to shift mindsets or behaviours, or even learn the new skills that will equip them to be future-fit and deliver the results they seek.

  • Generating the critical and creative thinking, problem sensing, and solving skills required to improve their leadership consciousness and GENERATE their crucial elastic thinking and human skills required to see, think differently in solving complex and wicked problems, be future-fit, and lead others to thrive.

When a leader has a blind spot in this area, they will take a conventional and linear approach to decision-making problem-solving, and team development. They will safely stay stuck in what they know, even though what they did in the past may not have worked.

Adding value to the quality of peoples’ lives

If we keep on trying to solve the problem with the same thinking (and neurological state) that created it, we will continue to reproduce the results no one wants.

We will not be able to shift beyond what we think now, nor will we connect, export, and, discover the crucial new horizons we need to emerge to develop and implement the systemic and innovative solutions, in a timely way and at scale, that the world needs right now!

Imagine if leaders truly and deeply committed to cultivating their leadership consciousness, and make the time and space to eliminate their blind spots, how peaceful and harmonious the world could become!

If leaders could learn how to think and act differently, focus on adding value to the quality of people’s lives in ways they appreciate and cherish, and contribute to the common good, to serve all of humanity, how people, profit, and the planet could flourish.

Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™

Find out about our collective, learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, presented by Janet Sernack, is a collaborative, intimate, and deeply personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, and can be customized as a bespoke corporate learning and coaching program for leadership and team development and change and culture transformation initiatives.

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Surprising Secrets and Customer Research Revelations

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Surprising Secrets and Customer Research Revelations

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Most customer research efforts waste time and money because they don’t produce insights that fuel innovation.  Well-meaning business people say they want to “learn what customers want,” yet they ask questions better suited to confirming their own ideas or settling internal debates.  Meanwhile, eager consumers dutifully provide answers despite the nagging belief that they’re being asked the wrong questions.  

It doesn’t have to be this way.  In fact, you can get profound revelations into consumers’ psyche, motivations, and behaviors if you do one thing – channel your inner Elmo.

First, a confession

I find Elmo deeply annoying.  I grew up watching Sesame Street, and I still get an astounding amount of joy watching Big Bird, Mr. Snuffleupagus, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, Grover, and Oscar the Grouch (especially when Oscar channels his inner Taylor Swift).

Elmo moved to Sesame Street in 1985, and it hasn’t been the same since.  He’s designed to reflect the mental, emotional, and intellectual capabilities of a 3.5-year-old, and, in that aspect, his creators were wildly successful.   I fully acknowledge that Elmo plays a vital role in the mission of Sesame Street and that people of all ages love Elmo. But Elmo makes my ears bleed, and I will never be ok with the fact that Elmo refers to himself in the third person.

This is why my recommendation to channel your inner Elmo is shocking and extremely serious.

Next, an explanation

On Monday, Elmo posted on X (yes, the minimum age limit is 13, but his mom and dad help him run the account, so it’s apparently okay), “Elmo is just checking in!  How is everybody doing?”

180 million views, 120,000 likes, and 13,000 comments later, it was clear that no one was okay.

And lest you think this was Gen Z trauma dumping on their ol’ pal Elmo, Dionne Warwick, T-Pain, and Today Show anchor Craig Melvin responded with their struggles.  Comments ranged from, “Mondays are hard” to “Elmo I’m gonna be real I am at my f—ing limit,’ to “Elmo each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror. one that was previously unfathomable in nature. our inevitable doom which once accelerated in years, or months, now accelerates in hours, even minutes. however I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thank you for asking.”

Wow.  Thank goodness for that grapefruit.

There are a lot of theories about why Elmo’s post touched a nerve – it’s January and we’re tired, it’s easier to share our struggles online than in person, or we still enjoy “that wholesome and sincere bond from childhood that makes us want to share.”

I’m sure all those are true, and I think it’s something more, something we can all learn and do.

Now, the secret

Elmo may be a red, hairy, 3.5-year-old muppet. Still, he nailed the behaviors required to get people to open up and share their inner worlds – the very thoughts, beliefs, and motivations that enable others to create and offer impactful and innovative solutions.

Here’s what Elmo did (and you should, too):

  1. Show that you’re genuinely curious:  Elmo didn’t open with the standard “How are you?” that if answered with anything other than the socially acceptable “Fine,” results in awkward silence and inner panic. Elmo opened by declaring his intent – checking in – and then asked a question. Because of that, we understood his motivation was genuine, and he wanted an honest answer.
  2. Ask open-ended questions: Elmo didn’t ask a closed question that can be answered with yes or no.  He asked a question that allowed people to share as much or as little as they wanted and that could act as a springboard to a deeper conversation.
  3. Listen silently and without judgment: Elmo didn’t follow up his original tweet with options like “Are you doing ok, or not ok, or are you happy, or sad, or mad, or…”  Elmo asked a question and then listened (read the responses) without jumping back into the conversation or firing off follow-up questions.
  4. Acknowledge and thank the person sharing: On Tuesday, Elmo responded but not by skipping off to the next scheduled post.  He acknowledged the response by opening with, “Wow!  Elmo is glad he asked!”  He didn’t share his opinion or immediately ask another question.  Instead, he thanked people for sharing, acknowledged that he heard their responses, and was grateful.
  5. Do something with what was shared: Even if you do #4, it’s tempting to move on to the next question.  Don’t.  Elmo didn’t.  Instead, he wrote that he “learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.” He also wrote that he “will check in again soon, friends!  Elmo loves you.”  You don’t have to profess your love but do respond with what you learned and what it makes you wonder.

People can’t tell you what to create because they don’t know what you know.  But they can tell you the problems they have.  If you’re willing to listen (just don’t talk about yourself in the third person, you’re not a muppet).

Image credit: Dall-E via Bing

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Truth Can Set You Free – If You Tell It

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Truth Can Set You Free - If You Tell It

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

Your truth is what you see. Your truth is what you think. Your truth is what feel. Your truth is what you say. Your truth is what you do.

If you see something, say something.

If no one wants to hear it, that’s on them.

If your truth differs from common believe, I want to hear it.

If your truth differs from common believe and no one wants to hear it, that’s troubling.

If you don’t speak your truth, that’s on you.

If you speak it and they dismiss it, that’s on them.

Your truth is your truth, and no one can take that away from you.

When someone tries to take your truth from you, shame on them.

Your truth is your truth. Full stop.

And even if it turns out to be misaligned with how things are, it’s still your responsibility to tell it.

If your company makes it difficult for you to speak your truth, you’re still obliged to speak it.

If your company makes it difficult for you to speak your truth, they don’t value you.

When your truth turns out to be misaligned with how things are, thank you for telling it.

You’ve provided a valuable perspective that helped us see things more clearly.

If you’re striving for your next promotion, it can be difficult to speak your dissenting truth.

If it’s difficult to speak your dissenting truth, instead of promotion, think relocation.

If you feel you must yell your dissenting truth, you’re not confident in it.

If you’re confident in your truth and you still feel you must yell it, you have a bigger problem.

When you know your truth is standing on bedrock, there’s no need to argue.

When someone argues with your bedrock truth, that’s a problem for them.

If you can put your hand over mouth and point to your truth, you have bedrock truth.

When you write a report grounded in bedrock truth, it’s the same as putting your hand over your mouth and pointing to the truth.

If you speak your truth and it doesn’t bring about the change you want, sometimes that happens.

And sometimes it brings about its opposite.

Your truth doesn’t have to be right to be useful.

But for your truth to be useful, you must be uncompromising with it.

You don’t have to know why you believe your truth; you just have to believe it.

It’s not your responsibility to make others believe your truth; it’s your responsibility to tell it.

When your truth contradicts success, expect dismissal and disbelief.

When your truth meets with dismissal and disbelief, you may be onto something.

Tomorrow’s truth will likely be different than today’s.

But you don’t have a responsibility to be consistent; you have a responsibility to the truth.

Image credit: Dall-E via Bing

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