Category Archives: Innovation

Big Companies Should Not Try to Act Like Startups

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

In 2009, Jeffrey Immelt set out on a journey to transform his company, General Electric, into a 124 year old startup. Although it was one of the largest private organizations in the world, with 300,000 employees, he sought to become agile and nimble enough to compete with high-flying Silicon Valley firms.

It didn’t end well. In 2017, problems in the firm’s power division led to massive layoffs. Immelt was forced to step down as CEO and GE was kicked off the Dow after 110 years. The company, which was once famous for its sound management, saw its stock tank. Much like most startups, the effort had failed.

Somewhere along the line we got it into our heads that large firms can’t innovate and should strive to act like startups. The truth is that they are very different types of organizations and need to innovate differently. While large firms can’t move as fast as startups, they have other advantages. Rather than try to act like startups, they need to leverage what they have.

Driving Innovation At Scale

The aviation industry is dominated by big companies. With a typical airliner costing tens of millions of dollars, there’s not much room for rapid prototyping. It takes years to develop a new product and the industry, perhaps not surprisingly, moves slowly. Planes today look pretty much the same as ones made decades ago.

Looks, however, can be deceiving. To understand how the aviation industry innovates, consider the case of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner. Although it may look like any other airplane, Boeing redesigned the materials within it. So a 787 is 20 percent lighter and 20 percent more efficient than similar models. That’s a significant achievement.

Developing advanced materials is not for the faint of heart. You can’t do it in a garage. You need deep scientific expertise, state-of-the-art facilities and the resources to work for years—and sometimes decades— to discover something useful. Only large enterprises can do that,

None of this means that startups don’t have a role to play. In fact one small company, Citrine Informatics, is applying artificial intelligence to materials discovery and revolutionizing the field. Still, to take on big projects that have the potential to make huge global impacts, you usually need a large enterprise.

Powering Startups

All too often, we see large enterprises and startups as opposite sides of the coin, with big companies representing the old guard and entrepreneurs representing the new wave, but that’s largely a myth. The truth is that innovation often works best when large firms and small firms are able to collaborate.

Scott Lenet, President of Touchdown Ventures, sees this first-hand every day. His company is somewhat unique in that, unlike most venture capital firms, it manages internal funds for large corporations. He’s found that large corporations are often seen as value added investors because of everything they bring to the table.

“For example,” he told me, “one of our corporate partners is Kellogg’s and they have enormous resources in technical expertise, distribution relationships and marketing acumen. The company has been in business for over 100 years and it’s learned quite a bit about the food business in that time. So that’s an enormous asset for a startup to draw on.”

He also points out that, while large firms tend to know how to do things well, they can’t match the entrepreneurial energy of someone striving to build their own business. “Startups thrive on new ideas,” Lenet says “and big firms know how to scale and improve those ideas. We’ve seen some of our investments really blossom based on that kind of partnership.”

Creating New Markets

Another role that large firms play is creating and scaling new markets. While small firms are often more agile, large companies have the clout and resources to scale and drive impact. That often also creates opportunities for entrepreneurs as well.

Consider the case of personal computers. By 1980, startups like Apple and Commodore had already been marketing personal computers for years, but it was mostly a cottage industry. When IBM launched the PC in 1981, however, the market exploded. Businesses could now buy a computer from a supplier that they knew and trusted.

It also created fantastic opportunities for companies like Microsoft, Intel and a whole range of entrepreneurs who flocked to create software and auxiliary devices for PCs. Later startups like Compaq and Dell created PC clones that were compatible with IBM products. The world was never the same after that.

Today, large enterprises like IBM, Google and Amazon dominate the market for artificial intelligence, but once again they are also creating fantastic opportunities for entrepreneurs. By accessing the tools that the tech giants have created through APIs, small firms can create amazing applications for their customers.

Innovation Needs Exploration

Clearly, large firms have significant advantages when it comes to innovation. They have resources, customer relationships and deep expertise to not only invent new things, but to scale businesses and bring products to market. Still, many fail to innovate effectively, which is why the average lifespan of companies on the S&P 500 continues to decline.

There’s no reason why that has to be true. The problem is that most large organizations spend so much time and effort fine-tuning their operations to meet earnings targets that they fail to look beyond their present business model. That’s not due to any inherent lack of capability, it’s due to a lack of imagination.

Make no mistake, if you don’t explore, you won’t discover. If you don’t discover you won’t invent and if you don’t invent you will be disrupted. So while you need to focus on the business at hand, you also need to leave some resources un-optimized so that you can identify and develop the next great opportunity.

A good rule of thumb to follow is 70-20-10. Focus 70% of your resources on developing your present business, 20% of your resources on opportunities adjacent to your current business, such as new markets and technologies and 10% on developing things that are completely new. That’s how you innovate for the long term.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credit: Pixabay

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Are You Testing Your Intuitions?

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Are You Testing Your Intuitions?

GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Do you trust your intuitions? When you have a hunch, do you go with it or hold back? There’s been a long-running debate about which is the better strategy.

Some have claimed that top executives are at their best when they “go with their gut” or “follow their instincts.” They can give examples of when that’s turned out well for them. But what we don’t know is how often other intuitions may have turned out badly.

Trusting your intuitions can sometimes keep you safe. Some research has found that firefighters are well-served by their intuitions, because it helps them avoid danger. Women who are uneasy walking alone at night are advised to follow their intuitions.

That makes sense when you’re crossing a dark parking lot or at the scene of a fire. Being cautious when there might be no threat is better than being careless when there might be one. But that doesn’t mean those intuitions are accurate.

Innovators also have intuitions—and need to. Hunches about the value of an idea, or a sense of how customers will react. For an innovator, asking whether you should trust your intuitions is the wrong question. What needs to be asked instead is: How can I test my intuitions? What can I do to find out whether those feelings are reliable?

That’s one reasons innovators have a bias for action. Because acting on their ideas—in ways that will test them—is how they find out whether those ideas will work. That’s not only a more prudent approach than just following hunches; it’s excellent practice at evaluating the merits of your ideas. So over time, you become better at forming those hunches. Because you know how well it worked in the past, and maybe where you might have biases.

If you want to enhance your intuitions—and your innovativeness—don’t trust them or distrust them.

Test them.

View this post on video here if you prefer:

Image Credit: misterinnovation.com

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2023

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2023 Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are December’s ten most popular innovation posts:

Five Key Digital Transformation Barriers — by Howard Tiersky
Achieving a Transformation Vision for a Better Future — by Howard Tiersky
Eight Innovation Executive Types — by Stefan Lindegaard
Skills versus Judgement — by Mike Shipulski
We Need to Stop Glorifying Failure — by Greg Satell
What Will People See? — by Mike Shipulski
Don’t Waste Your Time Talking to Customers — by Robyn Bolton
The Amazing Efficiency of Systematic Guessing — by Dennis Stauffer
Four Change Empowerment Myths — by Greg Satell
Do the Right Thing — by Mike Shipulski

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in November that continue to resonate with people:

Four Growth Mindset Myths — by Stefan Lindegaard
Reinventing the Retail Store — by Howard Tiersky
Mental Orgasm – The Joy of Discovery — by Dennis Stauffer
CEO Secrets of a Successful Turnaround — by Shep Hyken
Competing Successfully in an Ecosystem World — by Greg Satell

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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The Emotions of an Innovator

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GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Your emotional state has a lot to do with how innovative you are, especially when those emotions are negative. How willing are you to act in the face of uncertainty and take those risks? How comfortable are you with new ideas and interpretations that may conflict with those you have? Can you overcome your biases to gain a clear-eyed understanding of the challenges you face? The fears and prejudices we all have can undermine our ability to find solutions.

Take a few moments to recall some of the negative emotions you’ve experienced in your life.

Things like:

Frustration
Disappointment
Jealously
Resentment
Annoyance
Anger …and that’s just the short list.

One thing they all have in common is that they make you feel bad. They undermine your happiness. They can also hamper your ability to innovate.

Now ask yourself: What prompted those emotions? I suspect you think of something that happened or that someone did that upset you, but there are deeper reasons for these emotions. They form when something isn’t what you expect or hope for. Someone isn’t doing what you want, or that you think they should. You think something needs to be corrected. You already have some outcome you’d prefer, an expectation that isn’t being met.

That’s your mindset—your beliefs about how things should be—beliefs that generate those expectations. You may think someone is doing something wrong. Perhaps they’re being mean or rude. But that means you have an idea in your head of what’s right—how you think they should behave. Or, something may not have turned out the way you hoped. Maybe you didn’t get the promotion you wanted. But that means you think you should have been given something you didn’t receive.

Change those expectations and your emotional response changes. What’s happening in your head has just as much or more impact on the emotions you feel, as whatever is happening around you—and that’s empowering. When you blame your emotions on what others do, you hand them control over your emotional state. They determine how you feel.

When you realize that your beliefs and expectations—your mindset—primes you to feel those emotions, you gain control over how you feel. Instead of anger, you can substitute curiosity about why someone would behave that way. Instead of annoyance at someone’s missteps, you can choose to be amused. Instead of disappointment, you can shift to resolve to learn from your setbacks. Instead of embarrassment, you can choose to feel humility. Instead of feeling the urge to punish someone, you can choose to feel compassion and understanding.

External events may not have changed. Those are things you don’t control. What changes is your mindset—something you can control. When you realize that you create your own emotions and take steps to create fewer negative ones, you increase your own happiness—regardless of what life throws at you. Skilled innovators have a mindset that minimizes their negative emotions. Because instead of focusing on what needs to be corrected—to restore the status quo—they focus on what can be improved. That enhances their capacity to enhance. Enhance a product or service, enhance their community and the larger world, and enhance their own lives.

Here is a video of this post if you prefer:

Image Credit: Pixabay

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How to Use Your Nervous System to Feel Psychologically Safe

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or “Why Mandating a Return to the Office Destroys Safety”

How to Use Your Nervous System to Feel Psychologically Safe

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

In last week’s episode, we learned that psychological safety is more neuroscience than psychology and the huge role our nervous system plays in our experience of safety.

This week, we’re going deeper into our nervous system and how we can use our understanding of it to influence our psychology.

I’m sensing I can’t think my way to safety. So, can I fix my nervous system to feel safe and smart?

This is where I go beyond Dr. Amy Edmondson’s definition of psychological safety to incorporate neuroscience and how our nervous system works.

Our nervous system has three states:

Immobilization or the freeze response, as you felt, is often accompanied by a sense of overwhelm
Fight-and-flight when you try to either end the conversation or become more aggressive, resistant, and push back on exploring other alternatives.
Rest-and-Digest when you feel safe, social, and connected to the people around you

This third state sets humans and mammals apart from other living things. Communicating and connecting serve as a survival mechanism and represent a safe state for our nervous system. When we communicate and connect, our tribe looks out for us and keeps us safe from threats like lions or unfriendly tribes.

So, the answer is to foster more profound connections among human beings, which requires going well beyond our work roles and activities.

Does it require hugging? I knew it would require hugging.

Don’t worry, hugging isn’t mandatory.

We, as individuals, have a strong desire to connect and communicate, but it doesn’t necessarily require physical proximity. Being physically together doesn’t guarantee anything.

But what about the push to return to the office? There’s even research to support executives’ claims that physical proximity is essential to culture, innovation, and connection.

Not only does physical proximity not guarantee anything, but being forced to return to the office causes more harm than good.

From a safety perspective, our nervous system doesn’t want to feel trapped. Being forced back to the office activates our flight-or-fight response and erodes safety. Because of how our nervous system perceives choices, the more choices people have, the safer they feel.

Even though I’m tempted to ask questions about building psychological safety at the team or company level, I want to stay on the individual level for a moment. We talked about how I wasn’t consciously unsafe during a phone call. How can I tell when I feel unsafe if I’m not conscious of it?

There’s physical science behind what happens when you feel unsafe. Your heart rate increases, you might hold your breath, and your body may tense up. Your thoughts might blank out, and your peripheral vision may narrow as your body prepares for fight or flight. Your body doesn’t differentiate; it treats any threat as a threatening event.

On the other hand, feeling safe doesn’t mean you lack emotions or feel calm. Feeling calm and internally relaxed signifies safety, but it’s more than that. When your nervous system is regulated, your emotions align with the situation. They’re not an extreme overreaction or underreaction. There’s congruence. If your emotional response matches the situation, your nervous system and brain feel safe.

That makes sense, but it’s not easy. We’re trained to hide our emotions and always appear calm. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard and said, “Be a duck. Calm on the surface and paddling like hell below it.”

And that is not congruent. But congruence doesn’t mean you act out like a toddler, either.

Step one in creating safety is calming your nervous system by verbalizing your feelings. If you say, “This conversation is overwhelming for me. I need a break. Let me get some water,” you’re safe and regulated at that moment. There’s nothing wrong.

But when you can’t verbalize what you’re experiencing and freeze, that’s a sign you’re no longer in a safe state. Your body starts pumping cortisol and adrenaline, preparing for whatever it perceives as a threat.

Even if you feel overwhelmed, if you’re aware of that feeling and can take some breaths or a short break and return to the conversation, you’re in a safe, regulated state.

I can’t imagine admitting to feeling overwhelmed or asking for a break! Plus, I work with so many people who say, “I feel overwhelmed, but I can’t take a moment for myself. I need to plow through and get this done.”

It takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness. If you want to create safety and emotional intelligence, you must know what you’re feeling and be able to name it. You also need to sense what others are feeling and understand your emotional impact on them.

For example, if you say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed right now,” and I respond calmly and slow my cadence of speech, your nervous system receives the message that everything is okay. However, if I’m in “fight or flight” mode and you’re overwhelmed, we’ll end up in a chaotic and unproductive cycle.

Self-awareness and understanding are essential to safety. Unfortunately, many organizations I speak with need help with this.

Amen, sister,

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting conclusion, 3 Steps to Building a Psychologically Safe Environment or The No-Cost, No-Hug Secret to Smarter Teams

Image Credit: Pexels

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023

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After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling during the judging round, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023:

Robyn Bolton
Robyn M. Bolton works with leaders of mid and large sized companies to use innovation to repeatably and sustainably grow their businesses.

Janet Sernack
Janet Sernack is the Founder and CEO of ImagineNation™ which provides innovation consulting services to help organizations adapt, innovate and grow through disruption by challenging businesses to be, think and act differently to co-create a world where people matter & innovation is the norm.

Greg Satell
Greg Satell is a popular speaker and consultant. His first book, Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, was selected as one of the best business books in 2017. Follow his blog at Digital Tonto or on Twitter @Digital Tonto.

Mike Shipulski
Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.

Braden Kelley
Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, workshop leader, and creator of the Human-Centered Change™ methodology. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change from Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

John Bessant
John Bessant has been active in research, teaching, and consulting in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. Today, he is Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Research Director, at Exeter University. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank, and the OECD. John has authored many books including Managing innovation and High Involvement Innovation (Wiley). Follow @johnbessant

Pete Foley
A twenty-five year Procter & Gamble veteran, Pete has spent the last 8+ years applying insights from psychology and behavioral science to innovation, product design, and brand communication. He spent 17 years as a serial innovator, creating novel products, perfume delivery systems, cleaning technologies, devices and many other consumer-centric innovations, resulting in well over 100 granted or published patents. Find him at pete.mindmatters@gmail.com

Geoffrey A. Moore
Geoffrey A. Moore is an author, speaker and business advisor to many of the leading companies in the high-tech sector, including Cisco, Cognizant, Compuware, HP, Microsoft, SAP, and Yahoo! Best known for Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win with the latest book being The Infinite Staircase. Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute

David Burkus
Dr. David Burkus is an organizational psychologist and best-selling author. Recognized as one of the world’s leading business thinkers, his forward-thinking ideas and books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David is the author of five books about business and leadership and he’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and more. A former business school professor turned sought-after international speaker, he’s worked with organizations of all sizes and across all industries.

Shep Hyken
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

Howard Tiersky
Howard Tiersky is an inspiring and passionate speaker, the Founder and CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency, innovation consultant, serial entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. IDG named him one of the “10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today”, and Enterprise Management 360 named Howard “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”

Dennis Stauffer
Dennis Stauffer is an author, independent researcher, and expert on personal innovativeness. He is the founder of Innovator Mindset LLC which helps individuals, teams, and organizations enhance and accelerate innovation success. by shifting mindset. Follow @DennisStauffer

Stefan Lindegaard
Stefan Lindegaard is an author, speaker and strategic advisor. His work focuses on corporate transformation based on disruption, digitalization and innovation in large corporations, government organizations and smaller companies. Stefan believes that business today requires an open and global perspective, and his work takes him to Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia.

Douglas Ferguson
Douglas Ferguson is an entrepreneur and human-centered technologist. He is the founder and president of Voltage Control, an Austin-based change agency that helps enterprises spark, accelerate, and sustain innovation. He specializes in helping teams work better together through participatory decision making and design inspired facilitation techniques.

Teresa Spangler
Teresa Spangler is the CEO of PlazaBridge Group has been a driving force behind innovation and growth for more than 30 years. Today, she wears multiple hats as a social entrepreneur, innovation expert, growth strategist, author and speaker (not to mention mother, wife, band-leader and so much more). She is especially passionate about helping CEOs understand and value the role human capital plays in innovation, and the impact that innovation has on humanity; in our ever-increasing artificial/cyber world.

Soren Kaplan
Soren Kaplan is the bestselling and award-winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an affiliated professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, a former corporate executive, and a co-founder of UpBOARD. He has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top keynote speakers and thought leaders in business strategy and innovation.

Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and Senior Fellow for Innovation at Columbia University. He has been described as the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, credited with launching the Lean Startup movement that changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate.

Diana Porumboiu
Diana heads marketing at Viima, the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world, and has a passion for innovation, and for genuine, valuable content that creates long-lasting impact. Her combination of creativity, strategic thinking and curiosity has helped organisations grow their online presence through strategic campaigns, community management and engaging content.

Robert B Tucker
Robert B. Tucker is the President of The Innovation Resource Consulting Group. He is a speaker, seminar leader and an expert in the management of innovation and assisting companies in accelerating ideas to market.

Dainora Jociute
Dainora (a.k.a. Dee) creates customer-centric content at Viima. Viima is the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world. Passionate about environmental issues, Dee writes about sustainable innovation hoping to save the world – one article at the time.

Arlen Meyers
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, an instructor at the University of Colorado-Denver Business School and cofounding President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameyers/

Ayelet Baron
Ayelet Baron is a pioneering futurist reminding us we are powerful creators through award winning books, daily blog and thinking of what is possible. Former global tech executive who sees trust, relationships and community as our building blocks to a healthy world.

Leo Chan
Leo is the founder of Abound Innovation Inc. He’s a people and heart-first entrepreneur who believes everyone can be an innovator. An innovator himself, with 55 US patents and over 20 years of experience, Leo has come alongside organizations like Chick-fil-A and guided them to unleash the innovative potential of their employees by transforming them into confident innovators.

Rachel Audige
Rachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.

Art Inteligencia
Art Inteligencia is the lead futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. He is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Art travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. His favorite numbers are one and zero.

Paul Sloane
Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader and editor of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, both published by Kogan-Page.

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney is the Author of “Beyond The Obvious”, Host of the Killer Innovations Podcast and Syndicated Radio Show, a Keynote Speaker, President & CEO CableLabs and an Innovation Mentor and Coach.

Ralph Christian Ohr
Dr. Ralph-Christian Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.

Jeffrey Phillips
Jeffrey Phillips has over 15 years of experience leading innovation in Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies and non-profits. He is experienced in innovation strategy, defining and implementing front end processes, tools and teams and leading innovation projects. He is the author of Relentless Innovation and OutManeuver. Jeffrey writes the popular Innovate on Purpose blog. Follow him @ovoinnovation

Dean and Linda Anderson
Dr. Dean Anderson and Dr. Linda Ackerman Anderson lead BeingFirst, a consultancy focused on educating the marketplace about what’s possible in personal, organizational and community transformation and how to achieve them. Each has been advising clients and training professionals for more than 40 years.

Shilpi Kumar
Shilpi Kumar an inquisitive researcher, designer, strategist and an educator with over 15 years of experience, who truly believes that we can design a better world by understanding human behavior. I work with organizations to identify strategic opportunities and offer user-centric solutions.

Scott Anthony
Scott Anthony is a strategic advisor, writer and speaker on topics of growth and innovation. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, and currently serves at the Managing Director of Innosight’s Asia-Pacific operations.

Anthony Mills
Anthony Mills is the Founder & CEO of Legacy Innovation Group (www.legacyinnova.com), a world-leading strategic innovation consulting firm working with organizations all over the world. Anthony is also the Executive Director of GInI – Global Innovation Institute (www.gini.org), the world’s foremost certification, accreditation, and membership organization in the field of innovation. Anthony has advised leaders from around the world on how to successfully drive long-term growth and resilience through new innovation. Learn more at www.anthonymills.com. Anthony can be reached directly at anthony@anthonymills.com.

Paul Hobcraft
Paul Hobcraft runs Agility Innovation, an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations core capabilities. Follow @paul4innovating

Jorge Barba
Jorge Barba is a strategist and entrepreneur, who helps companies build new puzzles using human skills. He is a global Innovation Insurgent and author of the innovation blog www.Game-Changer.net

Chateau G Pato
Chateau G Pato is a senior futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. She is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Chateau travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. Her favorite numbers are one and zero.

Jesse Nieminen
Jesse Nieminen is the Co-founder and Chairman at Viima, the best way to collect and develop ideas. Viima’s innovation management software is already loved by thousands of organizations all the way to the Global Fortune 500. He’s passionate about helping leaders drive innovation in their organizations and frequently writes on the topic, usually in Viima’s blog.

Alain Thys
As an experience architect, Alain helps leaders craft customer, employee and shareholder experiences for profit, reinvention and transformation. He does this through his personal consultancy Alain Thys & Co as well as the transformative venture studio Agents of A.W.E. Together with his teams, Alain has influenced the experience of over 500 million customers and 350,000 employees. Follow his blog or connect on Linkedin.

Bruce Fairley
Bruce Fairley is the CEO and Founder of The Narrative Group, a firm dedicated to helping C-Suite executives build enterprise value. Through smart, human-powered digital transformation, Bruce optimizes the business-technology relationship. His innovative profit over pitfalls approach and customized programs are part of Bruce’s mission to build sustainable ‘best-future’ outcomes for visionary leaders. Having spearheaded large scale change initiatives across four continents, he and his skilled, diverse team elevate process, culture, and the bottom line for medium to large firms worldwide.

Tom Stafford
Tom Stafford studies learning and decision making. His main focus is the movement system – the idea being that if we can understand the intelligence of simple actions we will have an excellent handle on intelligence more generally. His research looks at simple decision making, and simple skill learning, using measures of behaviour informed by the computational, robotics and neuroscience work done in the wider group.

If your favorite didn’t make the list, then next year try to rally more votes for them or convince them to increase the quality and quantity of their contributions.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022

Download PDF versions of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020, 2021 and 2022 lists here:

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Happy New Year everyone!

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AI as an Innovation Tool – How to Work with a Deeply Flawed Genius!

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GUEST POST from Pete Foley

For those of us working in the innovation and change field, it is hard to overstate the value and importance of AI. It opens doors, that were, for me at least, barely imaginable 10 years ago. And for someone who views analogy, crossing expertise boundaries, and the reapplication of ideas across domains as central to innovation, it’s hard to imagine a more useful tool.

But it is still a tool. And as with any tool, leaning it’s limitations, and how to use it skillfully is key. I make the analogy to an automobile. We don’t need to know everything about how it works, and we certainly don’t need to understand how to build it. But we do need to know what it can, and cannot do. We also need to learn how to drive it, and the better our driving skills, the more we get out of it.

AI, the Idiot Savant? An issue with current AI is that it is both intelligent and stupid at the same time (see Yejin Chois excellent TED talk that is attached). It has phenomenal ‘data intelligence’, but can also fail on even simple logic puzzles. Part of the problem is that AI lacks ‘common sense’ or the implicit framework that filters a great deal of human decision making and behavior. Chois calls this the ‘dark matter’ common sense of decision-making. I think of it as the framework of knowledge, morality, biases and common sense that we accumulate over time, and that is foundational to the unconscious ‘System 1’ elements that influence many, if not most of our decisions. But whatever we call it, it’s an important, but sometimes invisible and unintuitive part of human information processing that is can be missing from AI output.

Of course, AI is far from being unique in having limitations in the quality of its output. Any information source we use is subject to errors. We all know not to believe everything we read on the internet. That makes Google searches useful, but also potentially flawed. Even consulting with human experts has pitfalls. Not all experts agree, and even to most eminent expert can be subject to biases, or just good old fashioned human error. But most of us have learned to be appropriately skeptical of these sources of information. We routinely cross-reference, challenge data, seek second opinions and do not simply ‘parrot’ the data they provide.

But increasingly with AI, I’ve seen a tendency to treat its output with perhaps too much respect. The reasons for this are multi-faceted, but very human. Part of it may be the potential for generative AI to provide answers in an apparently definitive form. Part may simply be awe of its capabilities, and to confuse breadth of knowledge with accuracy. Another element is the ability it gives us to quickly penetrate areas where we may have little domain knowledge or background. As I’ve already mentioned, this is fantastic for those of us who value exploring new domains and analogies. But it comes with inherent challenges, as the further we step away from our own expertise, the easier it is for us to miss even basic mistakes.

As for AI’s limitations, Chois provides some sobering examples. It can pass a bar exam, but can fail abysmally on even simple logic problems. For example, it suggests building a bridge over broken glass and nails is likely to cause punctures! It has even suggested increasing the efficiency of paperclip manufacture by using humans as raw materials. Of course, these negative examples are somewhat cherry picked to make a point, but they do show how poor some AI answers can be, and how they can be low in common sense. Of course, when the errors are this obvious, we should automatically filter them out with our own common sense. But the challenge comes when we are dealing in areas where we have little experience, and AI delivers superficially plausible but flawed answers.

Why is this a weak spot for AI? At the root of this is that implicit knowledge is rarely articulated in the data AI scrapes. For example, a recipe will often say ‘remove the pot from the heat’, but rarely says ‘remove the pot from heat and don’t stick your fingers in the flames’. We’re supposed to know that already. Because it is ‘obvious’, and processed quickly, unconsciously and often automatically by our brains, it is rarely explicitly articulated. AI, however, cannot learn what is not said. And so because we don’t tend to state the obvious, it can make it challenging for an AI to learn it. It learns to take the pot off of the heat, but not the more obvious insight, which is to avoid getting burned when we do so.

This is obviously a known problem, and several strategies are employed to help address it. These include manually adding crafted examples and direct human input into AI’s training. But this level of human curation creates other potential risks. The minute humans start deciding what content should and should not be incorporated, or highlighted into AI training, the risk of transferring specific human biases to that AI increase. It also creates the potential for competing AI’s with different ‘viewpoints’, depending upon differences in both human input and the choices around what data-sets are scraped. There is a ‘nature’ component to the development of AI capability, but also a nurture influence. This is of course analogous the influence that parents, teachers and peers have on the values and biases of children as they develop their own frameworks.

But most humans are exposed to at least some diversity in the influences that shape their decision frameworks. Parents, peers and teachers provide generational variety, and the gradual and layered process that builds the human implicit decision framework help us to evolve a supporting network of contextual insight. It’s obvious imperfect, and the current culture wars are testament to some profound differences in end result. But to a large extent, we evolve similar, if not identical common sense frameworks. With AI, the narrower group contributing to curated ‘education’ increases the risk of both intentional and unintentional bias, and of ‘divergent intelligence’.

What Can We do? The most important thing is to be skeptical about AI output. Just because it sounds plausible, don’t assume it is. Just as we’d not take the first answer on a Google search as absolute truth, don’t do the same with AI. Ask it for references, and check them (early iterations were known to make up plausible looking but nonsense references). And of course, the more important the output is to us, the more important it is to check it. As I said at the beginning, it can be tempting to take verbatim output from AI, especially if it sounds plausible, or fits our theory or worldview. But always challenge the illusion of omnipotence that AI creates. It’s probably correct, but especially if its providing an important or surprising insight, double check it.

The Sci-Fi Monster! The concept of a childish super intelligence has been explored by more than one Science Fiction writer. But in many ways that is what we are dealing with in the case of AI. It’s informational ‘IQ’ is greater than the contextual or common sense ‘IQ’ , making it a different type of intelligence to those we are used to. And because so much of the human input side is proprietary and complex, it’s difficult to determine whether bias or misinformation is included in its output, and if so, how much? I’m sure these are solvable challenges. But some bias is probably unavoidable the moment any human intervention or selection invades choice of training materials or their interpretation. And as we see an increase in copyright law suits and settlements associated with AI, it becomes increasingly plausible that narrowing of sources will result in different AI’s with different ‘experiences’, and hence potentially different answers to questions.

AI is an incredible gift, but like the three wishes in Aladdin’s lamp, use it wisely and carefully. A little bit of skepticism, and some human validation is a good idea. Something that can pass the bar, but that lacks common sense is powerful, it could even get elected, but don’t automatically trust everything it says!

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80% of Psychological Safety Has Nothing to Do With Psychology

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or Why the Lack of Psychological Safety Makes You Dumber

80% of Psychological Safety Has Nothing to Do With Psychology

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

It’s been over 20 years since “Psychological Safety” exploded onto the scene and into the business lexicon. But as good as it sounded, I always felt like it was one of those “safe space, everyone gets a trophy, special snowflake” things we had to do to make the Millennials (and subsequent generations) happy.

Then I read Alla Weinberg’s book, A Culture of Safety, and realized I was very, very wrong.

It’s not the equivalent of an HR-approved hug and high-five.

It’s the foundation of what we do. Without it, there is no productivity, creativity, or progress.

Needing to know more, I reached out to Alla, who graciously agreed to teach me.

Thanks for speaking with me, Alla. Let’s get right to the point: why should I, or any business leader, care about psychological safety?

The short answer is that without psychological safety, you are dumber. When you feel unsafe, your operating IQ, which you use for daily tasks, drops in half.

Think about all the people you work with or all the people in your company. They’re there because they’re smart, have experience, and demonstrated that they can do the job. But then something goes wrong, and you wonder why they didn’t anticipate it or plan appropriately to avoid it. You start to question their competence when, in fact, it may be that they feel unsafe, so parts of their brain have gone offline. Their operating IQ isn’t operating at 100%.

I am so guilty of this. When things go wrong, I assume someone didn’t know what to do, so they need to be trained, or they did know what to do and decided not to do it. It never occurs to me that there could be something else, something not logical, going on.

We all forget that human beings are biological creatures, and survival is the number one evolutionary trait for all living beings. Our body and mind are wired to ensure our continued existence.

A part of the brain – the prefrontal cortex, responsible for planning, executive thought, and analysis – is unique to humans, and it goes offline when our body feels unsafe.

When we experience extreme stress, our body and mind cannot distinguish an impending deadline from a lunging tiger. Our body and mind prioritize survival, so we experience all the biological responses to a threat, like getting tunnel vision, losing peripheral vision, and perceiving limited options.

So, when you’re trying to meet a deadline, and your manager or supervisor asks why you didn’t consider alternatives or complete a specific task, it’s because you physically couldn’t think of it at that moment. This is how human beings operate.

My first reaction is to wonder who can’t tell the difference between a deadline and a tiger because if you can’t tell the difference between the two, you may have bigger problems. But when you mentioned the inability to perceive options, I immediately thought of something that happened yesterday.

I was on a call with a client, someone I’ve worked with for years and consider a friend, and we were trying to restructure a program to serve their client’s needs better. I didn’t feel under threat…

Consciously. You didn’t consciously feel under threat.

Right, I didn’t feel consciously under threat. But I froze. I absolutely couldn’t think. I put my head in my hands and tried to block out all the light and the noise, and I still couldn’t think of any option other than what we were already doing. My brain came to a screeching halt.

That’s your nervous system, and it’s a huge driver of psychological safety. 80% of the information our brain receives comes from our nervous system. So, while you didn’t consciously feel unsafe, your body felt unsafe and sent a signal to your brain to go into survival mode, and your brain chose to freeze.

But it was a Zoom call. I was sitting alone in my office. I wasn’t unsafe. Why would my nervous system think I was unsafe?

Your nervous system doesn’t think. It perceives and reacts. Let me give you a simple illustration that we’ve all experienced. When you touch something hot, your hand immediately pulls away. You say “ouch” after your hand is away from the heat source. When you felt the hot object, your nervous system entered survival mode and pulled away your hand. Your brain then had to catch up, so you saw “Ow” after the threat was over.

Hold up. We’re talking about psychological safety. What does my nervous system have to do with this?

I define psychological safety as a state of our nervous system with three states: safe, mobilized (fight or flight), and immobilized (freeze response). The tricky part is not psychological but neurobiological. You cannot think your way to safety or unfreeze yourself. The rational mind has no control over this. Mantras and mindsets won’t make you feel safe; it’s a neurobiological process.

That is a plot twist I did not see coming.

Stay tuned for Part 2:

How to Use Your Nervous System to Feel Psychologically Safe, or “Why Mandating a Return to the Office Destroys Safety”

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Harnessing the Scarcity Principle: Driving Innovation through Consumer Psychology

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Harnessing the Scarcity Principle: Driving Innovation through Consumer Psychology

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

In today’s fast-evolving business landscape, innovation has become the lifeblood of success. In order to stay ahead of the competition, companies must continuously find new ways to captivate consumers and create lasting impact. One powerful strategy that businesses can employ is leveraging consumer psychology, specifically the scarcity principle. By understanding and harnessing this principle, companies can drive innovation and maintain a competitive edge. This article will explore the scarcity principle and its application in two compelling case studies, highlighting how it can be effectively utilized to spur innovation.

The Scarcity Principle:

The scarcity principle, rooted in human psychology, states that people perceive scarce resources as being more valuable and desirable. When a product or service is scarce or perceived as limited, it creates a sense of urgency and triggers a fear of missing out (FOMO). This psychological phenomenon drives consumers to take immediate action, leading to increased demand and a willingness to pay a premium.

Case Study 1: Apple and Limited Edition Products

Apple Inc. has mastered the art of harnessing the scarcity principle to drive innovation and maintain a fiercely dedicated consumer base. Their approach revolves around the strategic release of limited edition products. For instance, they frequently launch new iPhone models with specific color variations, available in limited quantities. This scarcity tactic generates enormous buzz and compels consumers to line up outside Apple stores, eager to get their hands on the exclusive product. By leveraging the scarcity principle, Apple continues to innovate and maintain remarkable consumer loyalty.

Case Study 2: Supreme and Streetwear Hype

Supreme, the iconic streetwear brand, has garnered a cult-like following by skillfully exploiting the scarcity principle. Their business model revolves around producing limited quantities of products and maintaining an aura of exclusivity. Supreme creates an air of frenzy through limited drops of apparel items and accessories, coupled with secretive release information. This meticulously crafted approach creates scarcity, leading to long queues outside their stores and an immediate sell-out of their products. The brand’s masterful utilization of the scarcity principle fuels innovation in every collection release.

Harnessing the Scarcity Principle for Innovation:

The scarcity principle can be harnessed beyond the release of limited edition products. Companies can tap into this psychological phenomenon to drive innovation across various aspects of their business.

1. Limited Time Offers: Implementing time-limited promotions or discounts can be an effective strategy to create a sense of urgency and drive sales. Businesses can offer exclusive deals to a limited number of customers or for a specific timeframe, leveraging scarcity to spur innovation in marketing tactics.

2. Membership Programs: Implementing a membership-based model with exclusive benefits can tap into consumers’ desire for exclusivity. By offering limited spots or restricted access to events, content, or perks, companies can foster innovation by continuously enhancing the membership experience.

Conclusion

Innovation is critical for businesses to thrive in the competitive marketplace. By understanding and harnessing the scarcity principle, companies can drive innovation through consumer psychology. The strategic application of scarcity can create a sense of urgency, trigger FOMO, and lead to increased demand and loyalty. Through case studies on Apple and Supreme, we observed how brands effectively employed the scarcity principle to maintain their competitive edge and inspire innovation. By implementing limited-time offers and membership programs, businesses can successfully leverage scarcity, fostering innovation across various facets of their operations. Embracing the scarcity principle allows companies to tap into the power of consumer psychology and take their innovation game to new heights.

Extra Extra: Because innovation is all about change, Braden Kelley’s human-centered change methodology and tools are the best way to plan and execute the changes necessary to support your innovation and transformation efforts — all while literally getting everyone all on the same page for change. Find out more about the methodology and tools, including the book Charting Change by following the link. Be sure and download the TEN FREE TOOLS while you’re here.

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Human-Centered Change and Innovation

Innovation, change and transformation thought leadership, lovingly curated by Braden Kelley

Category Archives: Innovation

Big Companies Should Not Try to Act Like Startups

Driving Innovation At Scale

Powering Startups

Creating New Markets

Innovation Needs Exploration

Are You Testing Your Intuitions?

Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2023

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2023

The Emotions of an Innovator

How to Use Your Nervous System to Feel Psychologically Safe

or “Why Mandating a Return to the Office Destroys Safety”

AI as an Innovation Tool – How to Work with a Deeply Flawed Genius!

80% of Psychological Safety Has Nothing to Do With Psychology

or Why the Lack of Psychological Safety Makes You Dumber

Stay tuned for Part 2:

Harnessing the Scarcity Principle: Driving Innovation through Consumer Psychology

The Scarcity Principle:

Case Study 1: Apple and Limited Edition Products

Case Study 2: Supreme and Streetwear Hype

Harnessing the Scarcity Principle for Innovation:

Conclusion