Category Archives: Management

Automation Success More About Trust Than Technology

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

We’ve all seen the apocalyptic headlines about robots coming for our jobs. The AI revolution has companies throwing money at shiny new tech while workers polish their résumés, bracing for the inevitable pink slip. But what if we have it completely, totally, and utterly backward? What if the real drivers of automation success have nothing to do with the technology itself?

That’s precisely what an MIT study of 9,000+ workers across nine countries asserts. While the doomsayers have predicted the end of human workers since the introduction of the assembly line, those very workers are challenging everything we think we know about automation in the workplace.

The Secret Ingredient for Technology ROI

MIT surveyed workers across the manufacturing industry—50% of whom reported frequently performing routine tasks—and found that the majority ultimately welcome automation. But only when one critical condition is present. And it’s one that most executives completely miss while they’re busy signing purchase orders for the latest AI and automation systems.

Trust.

Read that again because while you’re focused on selecting the perfect technology, your actual return depends more on whether your team feels valued and believes you are invested in their safety and professional growth.

Workers Who Trust, Automate

This trust dynamic explains why identical technologies succeed in some organizations and fail in others. According to MIT’s research:

Job satisfaction is the second strongest indicator of technology acceptance, with a 10% improvement that researchers identified as consistently significant across all analytical models
Feeling valued by their employer shows a highly significant 9% increase in positive attitudes toward automation
Trust also consistently predicts automation acceptance, as workers scoring higher on trust measures are significantly more likely to view new technologies positively.

For example, Sam Sayer, an employee at a New Hampshire cutting tool manufacturer, has become an automation champion because his employer helped him experience how factory-floor robots could free him from routine tasks and allow him to focus on more complex problem-solving. “I worked in factories for years before I ever saw a robot. Now I’m teaching my colleagues on the factory floor how to use them.”

This contrasts with an aerospace manufacturer in Ohio that hired a third party to integrate a robot into its warehouse processes. Despite the company’s efforts to position the robot as a teammate, even giving it a name, workers resisted the technology because they didn’t trust the implementation process or see clear personal benefits.

These patterns hold across industries and countries: When workers perceive their employer as invested in their development and well-being, automation initiatives succeed. When that foundation is missing, even the most sophisticated technologies falter.

Four Steps to Convert Resistors to Champions

Whether it’s for the factory floor or the office laptop, if you want ROI and revenue growth from your automation investments, start with your people:

Design roles that connect workers to outcomes: When people see how their input shapes results, they become natural technology allies.
Create visible growth pathways. Workers motivated by career advancement are significantly more likely to embrace new technologies.
Align financial incentives with implementation goals. When workers see the personal benefits of adoption, resistance evaporates faster than free donuts in the break room.
Make safety improvements the leading edge of your technology story. It’s the most universally appreciated benefit of automation.

A Provocative Challenge

Ask yourself this (potentially) uncomfortable question: Are you investing as much in trust as you are in technology?

Because if not, you might as well set fire to a portion of your automation budget right now. At least you’d get some heat from it.

The choice isn’t between technology and workers—it’s between implementations that honor human relationships and those that don’t. The former generates returns; the latter generates résumé updates.

What are you choosing?

Image credit: misterinnovation.com (1 of 850+ free quote slides for download)

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Your Innovation Team Doesn’t Have to be Dead

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Your Innovation Team Doesn't Have to be Dead

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

When times get tough, the first things most companies cut are the “luxuries.” That includes their innovation teams. But as companies dismantle their labs, teams, and other structures, a crucial question emerges: Who’s working on growth?

Cutting innovation teams doesn’t just cut a branch off the org chart, it eliminates capabilities that are fundamental to sustaining and growing a business and culture.

So why throw the baby out with the bathwater? Here’s a scenario that might sound familiar: Your innovation team created something brilliant. The prototype works, early users love it, and the business case is solid. But six months later, its gathering dust because no one in the core business knew how to – or wanted to – take it forward.

This isn’t a failure of innovation. It’s a failure of integration.

Wait, I thought integrating innovation with the core business was bad

The traditional innovation team structure – a separate unit with its own space, processes, and culture – solved one problem but created another.

As innovation teams were given the freedom to think differently, they were also given shiny, new, fun, and amenity filled spaces cordoned off from everyone else. Meanwhile, “everyone else” was stuck in their usual offices and doing the usual things that keep the business running and, apparently, fund the innovation team’s luxe life.

The resulting Us vs. Them mentality fueled resentment that made it easy for “everyone else” to stonewall the innovation team’s efforts by pointing out flaws, uncertainties, and risks.

To be fair, they weren’t doing this to be mean – they were protecting the business. The innovators, meanwhile, grew frustrated, sought help from higher-ups who were happy to help until times got tough and cuts had to be made.

So, one team should work on both innovation and the core business?

Just like we need multiple words to describe the what and why of innovation, we need different operating models that embed innovation capabilities across the organization while protecting the space for them to flourish.

Here’s what it looks like:

For Core Improvements: Let your operational teams lead. They know the problems best, but give them innovation tools and methods. Think of it as equipping your existing workforce with new superpowers, not replacing them with superheroes.
For Adjacent Expansions: Create hybrid teams that mix operational experience with innovation expertise. When expanding into new markets or launching new products, you need both the innovative mindset and the operational know-how. Neither alone is sufficient.
For Radical Reinvention: You still need dedicated teams – but not isolated ones. Their job is to create offerings that reinvent the company and the culture that enables everyone to be part of the reinvention. Establish bridges that connect them with business units and enforce quarterly meetings to share progress, insights, and tools.

This isn’t theory.

Companies like Amazon have been doing this for years with their “working backwards” innovation process that’s used by all teams, not just a special innovation unit. When I worked at P&G, the brand teams worked on core improvements, the New Business Development teams (where I worked) physically sat next to the brand teams and worked on Adjacent expansion, and the radical reinvention teams were co-located with R&D at the technical centers.

Put it into practice

Here’s where to start:

Map your innovation portfolio to understand what types of innovation you need to hit your goals
Match your team structures to your innovation types
Start embedding innovation capabilities across the organization
Create clear paths for innovations to move from idea to implementation

The transition isn’t easy. It requires rethinking roles and reimagining how innovation happens in your organization. But the alternative – watching your innovation investments evaporate because they can’t cross the bridge back to the core business – is far more painful.

What’s your experience? Drop your stories and strategies in the comments. Let’s figure this out together.

Image credit: Pexels

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When Best Practices Become Old Practices

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When Best Practices Become Old Practices

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When best practices get old, they turn into ruts of old practice. No, it doesn’t make sense to keep doing it this way, but we’ve done it this way in the past, we’ve been successful, and we’re going to do it like we did last time. You can misuse old practices long after they’ve withered into decrepit practices, but, ultimately, your best practices will turn into old practices and run out of gas. And then what?

It’s unskillful to wait until the wheels fall off before demonstrating a new practice – a new practice is a practice that you’ve not done before – but that’s what we mostly do. There’s immense pressure to do what we did last time because we know how it turned out last time. But when the environment around a process changes, there’s no guarantee that the output of the old process will adequately address the changing environment. What worked last time will work next time, until it doesn’t.

But there’s another reason why we don’t try new practices. We’ve never taught people how to do it. Here are some thoughts on how to try new practices.

If you think the work can be done a better way, try a new practice, then decide if it was better. If the new practice was better, do it that way until you come up with an even better practice. Rinse and repeat.
Don’t ask, just try the new practice.
When you try a new practice, do it in a way that is safe to fail. (Thanks to Dave Snowden for that language.) Like before you use a new cleaning product to remove a stain on your best sweater, test the new practice in a way that won’t ruin your sweater.
If someone asks you to use the old practice instead of trying the new practice, ask them to do it the old way and you do it the new way.
If that someone is your boss, tell them you’re happy to do WHAT they want but you want to be the one that decides HOW to do it.
If your boss still wants you to follow the old practice, do it the old way, do it the new way, and look for a new job because your boss isn’t worth working for.

Just because best practices were best last time, doesn’t mean they’re good practice this time.

Image credits: Pixabay

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Is it Time to ReLearn to Work?

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Is it Time to ReLearn to Work?

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

In white-collar industries where remote work is not only viable but often highly productive, we are still struggling to find a post-pandemic formula for integrating office attendance into our weekly routine. Continuing to waffle, however, does no one any good, so we need to get on with things. Part of what has been holding us back is that we have been talking about getting back to the office as an end. It is not. It is a means. The question it begs is, what is the end we have in mind? Why should we get back to the office?

Let’s start by eliminating one reason which gets frequent mention—we can manage better. This is not a good why. Supervision is an artifact of a prior era. Digitally enabled work logs itself, and we can hold each other accountable for all our KPIs, OKRs, and MBOs without having to be collocated. Managers may feel more in control with people in sight, but that is a poor return on the overall commute investment entailed.

A far better reason to return to the office is to reactivate learning. The biggest problem with remote work is that we do not learn. Specifically, we do not:

Learn anything new about ourselves, because we need the input of others to do so.
Learn new soft skills, because online courses don’t cut it.
Learn about our teammates, because video calls lack the needed intimacy.
Learn about our customers, because we need to go to their offices to do so (going to our offices would at least let us share the ride)
Learn about the current state of our company, because that kind of thing never gets published.

In short, just as our children experienced a learning gap at school, so we inherit the same dynamics with remote work. We consume the skills we have, but we do not develop the ones we need next. We are harvesting, but we are not seeding, and there will be a reckoning if we do not alter our course.

So, there is a good why for returning to the office, but that in turn begs the question of how? Here we need to be clear. We do not know how. We do not know what is the right formula. Unfortunately, waiting won’t help either, so now what?

Let me suggest that the best course of action is to implement a clear policy effective immediately with the following provisos.

We publicly acknowledge that we suspect this policy is wrong.
We are putting it in place for 90 days.
We want everyone to abide by it religiously so that we get the right signals.
We will review the policy publicly and transparently after 90 days and implement a new policy at that time.
We will put that policy in place for 90 days, following the same protocols as before.
We will rinse and repeat until no longer necessary.

The point is, we have to get on with getting on, and running the experiment is the fastest way to get there.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Pixabay

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When Scaling Innovation Backfires

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How One Company Became the Theranos of Marshmallows

When Scaling Innovation Backfires

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Here’s a head-scratcher when it comes to scaling innovation: What happens when your innovative product is a hit with customers, but you still fail spectacularly? Just ask the folks behind Smashmallow, the gourmet marshmallow company that went from sweet success to sticky situation faster than you can say “s’mores.”

The Recipe for Initial Success

Jon Sebastiani sold his premium jerky company Krave to Hershey for $240 million and thought he’d found his next billion-dollar idea in fancy French marshmallows. And initially, it looked like he had.

Smashmallow’s artisanal, flavor-packed treats weren’t just another fluffy, tasteless sugar puff – they created an entirely new snack category. Customers couldn’t get enough of their handcrafted, churro-dusted, chocolate-chip-studded clouds of happiness. The company hit $5 million in sales in its first year, doubled that the next, and was available in 15,000 stores nationwide in only its third year.

Sounds like a startup fairy tale, right? Right! If we’re talking about the original Brothers Grimm versions. Corporate innovators start taking notes.

The Candy-coated Vision

Sebastiani and his investors weren’t content with building a successful premium regional brand. They wanted to become the Kraft of craft marshmallows, scaling from artisanal to industrial without losing what made the product special. It’s a story that plays out in corporations every day: the pressure to turn every successful pilot into a billion-dollar business.

So, they invested. Big time.

They signed a contract with “an internationally respected builder of candy-making machines” to design and build a $3 million custom-built machine and another with a copacker to build an entirely new facility to accommodate the custom machine.

Bold visions require bold moves, and Sebastiani was a bold guy.

The Scale-up Meltdown

But boldness can’t overcome reality, and the custom machine couldn’t replicate the magic of handmade marshmallows. It couldn’t even make the marshmallows.

Starch dust created explosion hazards. Cinnamon wouldn’t stick. Workers couldn’t breathe through spice clouds. The handmade ethos of imperfect squares gave way to industrialized perfection. Each attempt to solve one problem created three more, like a game of confectionery whack-a-mole.

By 2022, Smashmallow was gone, leaving behind a cautionary tale about the gap between what customers value and what executives and investors want. The irony? They succeeded in their mission to disrupt the market – by 2028, the North American marshmallow market is projected to more than double its 2019 size, largely thanks to the premium category Smashmallow created. They just won’t be around to enjoy it.

A Bittersweet Paradox

For so many corporate innovators, this story hits close to home. How many promising projects died not because customers didn’t love them but because they couldn’t scale to “move the needle” for a multi-billion dollar corporation? A $15 million business might be a champagne-popping moment for an entrepreneur, but it barely registers as a rounding error on a Fortune 500 income statement.

This is the innovation paradox facing corporate innovators: The very pressure to go big or go home often destroys what makes an innovation special in the first place. It’s not enough to create something customers love – you must create something that can scale to satisfy the corporate appetite for growth.

Finding the Sweet Spot

The lesson isn’t that we should abandon ambitious scaling plans. Instead, we must be brutally honest about whether our drive for scale aligns with what makes our innovation valuable to customers. If it doesn’t, we must choose whether to scale back our ambitions (unlikely) or let go of our successful-but-small idea.

After all, not every marshmallow needs to be a mountain, but every mountain climber (that’s you) needs a mountain.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Five Must Reads for 2025

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Five Must Reads for 2025

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

‘Tis the season for “year in review” and “top 10 lists.” As fun (and sometimes frightening) as it is to look back, it is just as fun (and sometimes frightening) to look ahead. After all, as innovators, that is what we naturally do. So, in anticipation of the year ahead, here are 5 Must Reads to make 2025 far more fun than frightening.

(listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name so I can’t be accused of playing favorites)

Pay Up! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation by Kate Dixon

This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to earn what they deserve
This book solves the problem of…the black box that is compensation and the fear of negotiating for what you’re worth
This book creates value by… Outlining a step-by-step system to:
- Understand key terms and concepts and apply them to your situation
- Research the information you need to confidently and competently negotiate
- Know what to say and do (and NOT say or do) in the moment
Why I love this book: Full disclosure – Kate and I are friends, so I’ve had a front-row seat to her wisdom and humor (how many compensation books invoke Beyonce?) and the jaw-dropping impact she gets for her clients. I’ve even gifted this book to others because I know it works!

Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work by Whitney Johnson

This book is for everyone, especially… people who are rethinking their careers and are ready for change
This book solves the problem of… knowing how to start redefining your career (and yourself)
This book creates value by… Turning Clayton Christensen’s Theory of Disruption into four principles for self-disruption, including:
- Identifying your disruptive strengths
- Stepping backward or sideways to grow
- Patiently waiting for your career (and legacy) to emerge
Why I love this book: Two quotes: (1) “Disruption starts as an inside game” and (2) “Constraints can be the perfect remedy if you are having a difficult time.”

Live Big! A Manifesto for a Creative Life by Rochelle Seltzer

This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to experience daily joy and creativity
This book solves the problem of…feeling stuck in the day-to-day reality of life, uncertain whit how to begin, and afraid to make big, drastic changes
This book creates value by… Offering 20 tips for:
- Becoming a person who Lives Big, including slowing down, aligning to your purpose, and being patient
- Acting big, including listening to your intuition, embracing change, and carrying on
- Savoring the small joys of life, including the gorgeous design of the book
Why I love this book: Rochelle’s Discovery Dozen exercise is a game-changer. I learned this tool when she was my coach, and I have continued to use it for everything from naming my business, to deciding if/when/how to act on an opportunity, and writing articles.

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Steiner

This book is for everyone, especially... busy managers who want to be better people leaders
This book solves the problem of…balancing hands-on management with team empowerment and individual development
This book creates value by… Guiding you through seven questions that help you:
- Work less hard while having more impact
- Break cycles of team overdependence and workplace overwhelm
- Turn coaching and feedback from an occasional formal event into a daily habit
Why I love this book: A copy of the 7 questions sits just below my monitor, reminding me to be curious, dig deeper, and that every decision is a choice to do one thing and not another.

Readers Choice!

It’s audience participation time! In the comments below, drop YOUR recommendation for a 2025 Must Read.

Bonus points for telling us:

Who it’s for
Problem it solves
Value it creates
Why you love it

Image credit: MileZero, Misterinnovation.com

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A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

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Building, Leading and Scaling

A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Together with a client, we are developing a toolbox for building, leading, and scaling high-performance teams. We are about to begin the implementation phase and will share case stories in a few months, as there are valuable learnings in this process.

For now, you are welcome to use this toolbox. See the introduction and images below, and if you see a match, get in touch with your feedback and questions about utilization and implementation within your teams and organization.

Here’s a short overview of the toolbox. The attached images also provide a glimpse (let me know if I should send you an image deck with all of this combined):

Capability Gap Map

The Capability Gap Map tool helps identify and understand the current status, future desired position, and gaps that need to be filled across different focus areas. The key elements are 7-12 indicators that are prioritized, assessed today, and considered for the future position.

Steps for Using the Capability Gap Map:

Identify Indicators: Select 7-12 key indicators relevant to the focus area.
Prioritize Indicators: Rank the indicators based on their importance and impact.
Rate Current State: Assess the current state for each indicator.
Assess Future State: Define the desired future state for each indicator.
Develop Action Plans: Create a one-pager outlining short, mid, and long-term actions to bridge the gaps.

SEBL (Stop, Enhance, Borrow, Learn)

SEBL is a tool to help leaders and their teams understand what to Stop, Enhance, Borrow, and Learn based on the Capability Gap Map. This tool can spur reflections and help drive specific actions.

Steps for Using SEBL:

Stop: Identify and eliminate ineffective practices to free up resources and provide clarity.
Enhance: Improve what’s already working well, capitalizing on strengths.
Borrow: Look outward for inspiration and adapt successful practices from other sources.
Learn: Push boundaries, innovate, and introduce entirely new concepts or skills.

Action Overviews

The Action Overview is a short document for leaders and their teams to create an overview of their upcoming actions. It can be used for individuals as well as teams and is useful for sharing the current focus with team members and stakeholders to get feedback and leverage networks.

Steps for Action Overviews:

Focus & Description: Define your key action and relate it to your team’s objectives.
Expected Outcomes & Metrics/KPIs: Detail what you aim to achieve and the metrics to measure these outcomes.
Resources & Team Collaboration: Identify needed resources and potential for cross-functional collaboration.
Stakeholders: Identify relevant internal and external stakeholders and their attitudes toward the action.
Milestones/Deadline: Break down the action into manageable milestones, each with its own deadline.

Additional Tools

This toolbox is still in the early phases, and we are starting to implement it while developing other tools. If you are curious, we can also develop tailored Team Dynamics Cards, exercises, assessments, and other insights to support the above actions. You can access my library with over 250 images, 50+ cards on Team Dynamics and Leadership Growth, and more than 30 exercises. Custom materials can also be created for your teams or organization.

Feel free to use and share these tools. I look forward to your feedback and questions on implementing them within your teams and organization. If you’d like a complete image deck or more details, just let me know!

Image Credits: Unsplash, Stefan Lindegaard

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The Twelve Killers of Innovation

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A Corporate Carol About Why You’re Not Getting Results

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Last week, InnoLead published a collection of eleven articles describing the root causes and remedies for killers of innovation in large organizations. Every single article is worth a read as they’re all written by experts and practitioners whose work I admire.

I was also inspired.

In the spirit of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I gave into temptation, added my own failure mode, and decided to have a bit of fun.

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

(Inspired by the Twelve Days of Christmas yet relevant year-round)

On the twelfth day of innovating, management gave to me:

Twelve leaders short-term planning

Eleven long projects dragging

Ten cultures resisting

Nine decisions made too quickly

Eight competing visions

Seven goals left unclear

Six startups mistrusted

Five poorly defined risks

Four rigid structures

Three funding black holes

Two teams under-staffed

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change

Want to write a happier song?

Each of the innovation killers can be fended off with enough planning, collaboration, and commitment. To learn how, check out the articles:

Twelve leaders short-term planning – 3 Examples of Why Innovation is a Leadership Problem by Robyn Bolton, MileZero

Eleven long projects dragging – Failing Slow by Clay Maxwell, Peer Insight

Ten cultures resisting – How to Innovate When Resistance is Everywhere by Trevor Anulewicz, NTT DATA

Nine decisions made too quickly – Red Light, Green Light by Doug Williams, SmartOrg Inc.

Eight competing visions – The Five Most Common Innovation Failure Modes by Parker Lee, Territory Global

Seven goals left unclear – Mitigating Common Failure Modes by Jim Bodio, BRI Associates

Six startups mistrusted – Developing a New Corporate Innovation Model by Satish Rao, Newlab

Five poorly defined risks – Strategic Innovation is too Scary by Gina O’Connor, Babson College

Four rigid structures – Corporate Innovation is Dead by Ryan Larcom, High Alpha Innovation

Three funding black holes – Failure Modes by Jake Miller, The Engineered Innovation Group

Two teams under-staffed – Why Innovation Teams Fail by Jacob Dutton, Future Foundry

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change – Building Resilient Teams by Frank Henningsen, HYPE Innovation

How are you going to make sure that you receive gifts and not coal this year for all your innovation work?

Image credit: Pexels

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024

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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 2024:

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023

Download PDF versions of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 lists here:

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Happy New Year everyone!

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The Fears of Your Colleagues

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The Fears of Your Colleagues

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“We identified four opportunities for market expansion, all adjacent to our current business, and entry into any one of them is almost guaranteed to materially grow our business. But no one is doing anything.”

I wanted to be surprised. Instead, I sighed and asked the question I knew he couldn’t answer.

“What are your colleagues afraid of?”

The Four Horsemen of the Innovation Apocalypse

Most of the time, when opportunities are clear, but action is absent, it’s because one of the first three horsemen of the innovation apocalypse appeared:

Short-termism: “The CFO is worried we may miss the quarter, so we’re starting to make cuts.”
Size: “We have a new President coming in who wants to put his stamp on things, so he’s cutting anything that won’t double our business in three years.”
Scarcity: “We’re implementing a new process, and this would just be one thing too many for people to handle.”

The business my client described has doubled in the past five years. After fifty years of steady, reliable, and predictable revenue, its top line suddenly became the mythical “hockey stick of growth.” The technological driver of this change is more likely to be the “new normal” than a fad, so the business is expected to double again in the next five years.

Leadership isn’t worried about delivering the next quarter, year, or five years. They know that they have the resources they need and can access more when the time is right. They’re confident that the opportunities identified are feasible and meaningful.

Yet, they will not act.

I’m not afraid. I’m biased!

Behavioral economists, psychologists, and sociologists explain situations like the above by pointing out our “cognitive biases”—the “irrational errors that are programmed into our brains.” For example, the first three horsemen could be known as Present Bias, the hard-easy effect, and Loss Aversion.

As of 2024, over 150 cognitive biases have been identified.

While it’s comforting to blame programming bugs beyond our awareness and control for our “irrational errors,” this approach lets us off the hook a bit too easily.

I’m not biased. I’m afraid!

Fear is at the root of most, if not all, of these biases because emotions, not programming bugs in our brains, drive our decisions.

The study of how our emotions impact decision-making didn’t take off until the early 2000s. It really accelerated in 2015 when professors from Harvard, UC Riverside, Claremont McKenna College, and Carnegie Mellon published a meta-study on the topic and declared:

The research reveals that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision making. Across different domains, important regularities appear in the mechanisms through which emotions influence judgments and choices.

Bottom line – we decide with our hearts and justify with our heads.

Our hearts are afraid that we’ll lose the respect of our peers and loved ones, the reputations we’ve worked decades to build, the physical goods and intangible experiences that project our societal status, or the financial safety of a regular paycheck.

And, as my brilliant and kind sister told me, “These feelings we feel, these feelings are real.”

I’m afraid and biased and brave!

Next time you see someone (maybe you?) do something “irrational,” get curious and ask:

What cognitive bias are they falling prey to?
What is the fear that’s driving that bias?
How can you help them to be brave, live with the fear, and move forward?

I’m curious…when was the last time you were afraid, biased, and brave?

Image credit: Pixabay

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