Tag Archives: Management

7 Things Leaders Need to Know About Team AI Usage

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Leaders, we need to talk about intelligence.

By now you’ve–hopefully–started to take it as seriously as many leaders of industry have been. Either way you look at artificial intelligence, good or bad, it is here to stay. And so we need to start thinking of answers for several questions at the intersection of leadership and AI.

How can it be used effectively, not just to cut costs but to supercharge productivity? How can we use artificial intelligence to supplement our solid foundational leadership? Where should we NOT be using artificial intelligence?

It’s still early in the new world of artificial intelligence in the workplace. A lot of companies are delaying hiring, some are already cutting teams to embrace the optimistic promises AI will bring. But I don’t think we should be all in…yet.

I do know one thing to be true: Leaders using AI will quickly outpace leaders who don’t. And it’s important you get equipped, and in the right way.

Artificial intelligence will make good managers better, but not mediocre bosses better

They say a great actor can bring a C+ movie script up to a B+ or even an A if they are really good. But if a C+ actor is given a C+ script, then it’s going be a C+ movie. The same goes for artificial intelligence and leadership. You need to be a great leader before you start implementing artificial intelligence. AI will not bump up a mediocre manager and turn them into a great leader. It’s not some miracle machine. The truth is you need to have your foundations as a manager be solid first. AI is a good supplement for already successful managers.

Don’t use artificial intelligence to monitor

Often the first temptation of leaders experimenting with AI is to find a productivity AI tool out there, plug it into their IT systems, and start virtually looking over their team’s shoulders to monitor output. There are already dozens of stories…horror stories…of companies doing just that. And it’s not a good look, and deeply hurts morale.

If you need a technology tool to ensure your people are actually working when they say they are, you screwed up a long time ago—back during the hiring process.

And the current research on this isn’t in artificial intelligence’s favor. If AI is used to “collect and analyze data about workers,” then eight out of ten workers say AI use on them would definitely or probably make them feel inappropriately watched. In addition, about a one third of the public does not think AI would lead to equitable evaluations. A majority also agrees this would lead to the information collected about workers being misused (66%).

Artificial intelligence is good at turning anything and everything into a metric. Time is an easy metric. Number of sales calls is an easy metric. Messages on slack is an easy metric. How often you move your mouse is an easy, and terrifying, metric. But just because you have easy numbers to pull on your team doesn’t mean they are the right metrics to be pulling.

Leadership is really about people, not the metrics. How you solicit and give feedback is important. How you support and grow individual employees is important. Inspiring your team and being transparent is important. If you monitor your team endlessly, and your team knows that you’re outsourcing the process of harvesting that data with artificial intelligence, it creates distance between you and them.

And that ultimately works against you in the long run. People don’t like leaders who seem far from them and far from…reality.

Become fluent in artificial intelligence, or risk getting lost in translation

There’s some interesting data from Deloitte on AI that came out in Spring 2024. Organizations reporting “very high” Generative AI expertise expect to change their talent strategies even faster, with 32 percent already making changes. According to their findings, a lot of companies are redesigning work processes and changing workflows to integrate AI at different points.

You’re probably already experiencing this with Google, Microsoft and others integrating artificial intelligence into their core products like email and chats.

Another big focus is going to be on AI fluency. Deloitte found that 47 percent of respondents are dedicating time towards it. The leadership who gets educated on AI early, and keeps training consistently on as it develops, will be the best equipped to shepherd their teams going forward. It’s inevitable that career paths and job descriptions are going to evolve. It’s up to you to stay current.

You NEED to know what the technology is, how it’s being used, and how it’s helping those you’re serving. Be it clients, customers, the public–whomever. Saying you just typed some words into a text box and out came some more words….is not a good answer. Or a good look for you. You sound like you’re treating it like magic, when it’s actually just code.

Turn your conversations and meetings into a database

Middle managers spend a lot of time, arguably too much time, sending progress reports up the chain to the C-Suite and marching orders down to the individual contributors at the bottom. And there’s a fair amount of investigating to find out where things really stand, and time can be spent having to meet multiple people to get all the correct and current information. This is a time slog.

Meanwhile, there are dozens of AI tools now that just take notes. Notes from meetings. Notes from calls. They take the transcript and pair it down to the key takeaways, action items, attendance –a full brief for your records.

So, instead of asking someone to take notes during a meeting or having all your notes in the chat only to evaporate once the zoom call ends, you have a searchable document that you can reference, build on, and keep track of. New hires can use the database to catch up, and senior leaders can get a quick read of the progress and where everything stands.

Use AI/Chat bots to offload small, clerical questions

Here’s a situation: You run a small team and maybe you have a few new hires. You’re going to get a bunch of clerical questions from them over their first 90 days. That’s normal. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Onboarding takes time. “Who’s the point person for this? What’s so and so’s email from HR? What’s the policy for remote days at the company?”

Here’s where artificial intelligence can be really useful. Depending on the sort of chat platform you use– Slack, Teams, whatever, you could make a simple chat bot that you upload a full archive of the company’s policies and your own team norms, clerical details– everything new hires will probably ask you about. So, when those quick questions, quick stop-and-chats happen, the chat-bot can take care of that.

This shouldn’t subtract your time with your new hires. This just subtracts the lower stakes conversations. Now, you have more time for the high-level conversations with them. More coaching. More mentorship. More progression towards team goals. It might sound simple but…that’s because it is.

Use AI as an audience for decisions before taking them public

Being in a leadership role requires making decisive decisions. You include feedback and perspectives from your team as much as possible. Do the research. Talk to people. But then comes the actual decision making. And that is often just you, alone, with your thoughts.

Instead of making your pros and cons list, one practical thing to try is inputting proposed decisions or actions in an AI tool and then asking for all the counterpoints and possible outcomes.

You could even scale this out to your whole team. Ideally, teams should be leveraging task-focused conflict in team discussions to spark new and better ideas. But conflict can be tricky. So, what if AI is always the devil’s advocate? As your team is generating or discussing ideas, you can be feeding those ideas into an AI tool and asking it for counterpoints or how competitors might respond.

Don’t let it make the decision for you but do let it help guide you to possible solutions.

Get the legal clearance before going too deep

One last disclaimer: check with your human resources or your senior leadership, your informational technology (IT) people—or honestly, all of them—to know the boundaries you can work within when using AI tools.

Many of the tools out there are free and still in beta mode or come with a small fee. And most of the larger AI companies are taking whatever data you input and using it to better refine their product. Your company may have rules on the books about data privacy. Certainly, if you work in legal, healthcare, or government services, you’re dealing with sensitive data that may be protected.

Get clear answers before using any AI tools. Until someone above you with authority gives you the OK, you should probably just play with the tools on your own time with your own personal projects.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence is just getting started in the workplace. And it’s all playing out in real time. If you’re a manager starting to get your hands dirty with these new tools, acknowledge to your team that this is all a work in progress and the norms around AI are likely to evolve. Be sure to keep the playing field level with your team. Practice that transparency, onboard everyone to the tools you’re using and that they can use and see where this takes you. Remember, AI, at its best, is here to enhance our human capabilities, not replace them.

AI will never take the place of a great boss…. but it might be better than being managed by a bad one.

Image credit: David Burkus

Originally published at https://davidburkus.com on September 9, 2024.

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of September 2025

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of September 2025 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 September’s ten most popular innovation posts:

McKinsey is Wrong That 80% Companies Fail to Generate AI ROI — by Robyn Bolton
Back to Basics for Leaders and Managers — by Robyn Bolton
Growth is Not the Answer — by Mike Shipulski
The Most Challenging Obstacles to Achieving Artificial General Intelligence — by Art Inteligencia
Charlie Kirk and Innovation — by Art Inteligencia
You Just Got Starbucked — by Braden Kelley
Metaphysics Philosophy — by Geoffrey Moore
Invention Through Co-Creation — by Janet Sernack
Sometimes Ancient Wisdom Needs to be Left Behind — by Greg Satell
The Crisis Innovation Trap — by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia

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

This AI Creativity Trap is Gutting Your Growth — by Robyn Bolton
How Neuromorphic Computing Will Unlock Human-Centered Innovation — by Art Inteligencia
Why Context Engineering is the Next Frontier in AI — by Braden Kelley and Art Inteligencia
The Nordic Way of Leadership in Business — by Stefan Lindegaard
Three Strategies for Overcoming Change Resistance — 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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What We See Influences How We’ll Act

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What We See Influences How We'll Act

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist,” John Maynard Keynes, himself a long dead economist, once wrote. We are, much more than we’d like to admit, creatures of our own age, taking our cues from our environment.

That’s why we need to be on the lookout for our own biases. The truth, as we see it, is often more of a personalized manifestation of the zeitgeist than it is the product of any real insight or reflection. As Richard Feynman put it, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that.”

We can’t believe everything we think. We often seize upon the most easily available information, rather than the most reliable sources. We then seek out information that confirms those beliefs and reject evidence that contradicts existing paradigms. That’s what leads to bad decisions. If what we see determines how we act, we need to look carefully.

The Rise And Fall Of Social Darwinism

In the 1860s, in response to Darwin’s ideas, Herbert Spencer and others began promoting the theory of Social Darwinism. The basic idea was that “survival of the fittest” meant that society should reflect a Hobbesian state of nature, in which most can expect a life that is “nasty, brutish and short,” while an exalted few enjoy the benefits of their superiority.

This was, of course, a gross misunderstanding of Darwin’s work. First, Darwin never used the term, “survival of the fittest,” which was actually coined by Spencer himself. Secondly, Darwin never meant to suggest that there are certain innate qualities that make one individual better than others, but that as the environment changes, certain traits tend to be propagated which, over time, can lead to a new species.

Still, if you see the world as a contest for individual survival, you will act accordingly. You will favor a laissez-faire approach to society, punishing the poor and unfortunate and rewarding the rich and powerful. In some cases, such as Nazi Germany and in the late Ottoman empire, Social Darwinism was used as a justification for genocide.

While some strains of Social Darwinism still exist, for the most part it has been discredited, partly because of excesses such as racism, eugenics and social inequality, but also because more rigorous approaches, such as evolutionary psychology, show that altruism and collaboration can themselves be adaptive traits.

The Making Of The Modern Organization

When Alfred Sloan created the modern corporation at General Motors in the early 20th century, what he really did was create a new type of organization. It had centralized management, far flung divisions and was exponentially more efficient at moving around men and material than anything that had come before.

He called it “federal decentralization.” Management would create operating principles, set goals and develop overall strategy, while day-to-day decisions were performed by people lower down in the structure. While there was some autonomy, it was more like an orchestra than a jazz band, with the CEO as conductor.

Here again, what people saw determined how they acted. Many believed that a basic set of management principles, if conceived and applied correctly, could be adapted to any kind of business, which culminated in the “Nifty Fifty” conglomerates of the 60’s and 70’s. It was, in some sense, an idea akin to Social Darwinism, implying that there are certain innate traits that make an organization more competitive.

Yet business environments change and, while larger organizations may be able to drive efficiencies, they often find it hard to adapt to changing conditions. When the economy hit hard times in the 1970s, the “Nifty Fifty” stocks vastly under-performed the market. By the time the 80s rolled around, conglomerates had fallen out of fashion.

Industries and Value Chains

In 1985, a relatively unknown professor at Harvard Business School named Michael Porter published a book called Competitive Advantage, which explained that by optimizing every facet of the value chain, a firm could consistently outperform its competitors. The book was an immediate success and made Porter a management superstar.

Key to Porter’s view was that firms compete in industries that are shaped by five forces: competitors, customers, suppliers, substitutes, and new market entrants. So he advised leaders to build and leverage bargaining power in each of those directions to create a sustainable competitive advantage for the long term.

If you see your business environment as being neatly organized in specific industries, everybody is a potential rival. Even your allies need to be viewed with suspicion. So, for example, when a new open source operating system called Linux appeared, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer considered it to be a threat and immediately attacked, calling it a cancer.

Yet even as Ballmer went on the attack, the business environment was changing. As the internet made the world more connected, technology companies found that leveraging that connectivity through open source communities was a winning strategy. Microsoft’s current CEO, Satya Nadella, says that the company loves Linux. Ultimately, it recognized that it couldn’t continue to shut itself out and compete effectively.

Looking To The Future

Take a moment to think about what the world must have looked like to J.P. Morgan a century ago, in 1922. The disruptive technologies of the day, electricity and internal combustion, were already almost 40 years old, but had little measurable economic impact. Life largely went on as it always had and the legendary financier lorded over his domain of corporate barons.

That would quickly change over the next decade when those technologies would gain traction, form ecosystems and drive a 50-year boom. The great “trusts” that he built would get broken up and by 1930 virtually all of them would be dropped as components of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Every face of life would be completely transformed.

We’re at a similar point today, on the brink of enormous transformation. The recent string of calamities, including a financial meltdown, a pandemic and the deadliest war in Europe in 80 years, demand that we take a new path. Powerful shifts in technology, demographics, resources and migration, suggest that even more disruption may be in our future.

The course we take from here will be determined by how we see the world we live in. Do we see our fellow citizens as a burden or an asset? Are new technologies a blessing or a threat? Is the world full of opportunities to be embraced or dangers we need to protect ourselves from? These are questions we need to think seriously about.

How we answer them will determine what comes next.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credit: Unsplash

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Back to Basics for Leaders and Managers

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Back to Basics for Leaders and Managers

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Imagine that you are the CEO working with your CHRO on a succession plan. Both the CFO and COO are natural candidates, and both are, on paper, equally qualified and effective.

The CFO distinguishes herself by consistently working with colleagues to find creative solutions to business issues, even if it isn’t the optimal solution financially, and inspiring them with her vision of the future. She attracts top talent and builds strong relationships with investors who trust her strategic judgment. However, she sometimes struggles with day-to-day details and can be inconsistent in her communication with direct reports.

The COO inspires deep loyalty from his team through consistent execution and reliability. People turn down better offers to stay because they trust his systematic approach, flawless delivery, and deep commitment to developing people. However, his vision rarely extends beyond “do things better,” rigidly adhering to established processes and shutting down difficult conversations with peers when change is needed.

Who so you choose?

The COO feels like the safer bet, especially in uncertain times, given his track record of proven execution, loyal teams, and predictable results. While the CFO feels riskier because she’s brilliant but inconsistent, visionary but scattered.

It’s not an easy question to answer.

Most people default to “It depends.”

It doesn’t depend.

It doesn’t “depend,” because being CEO is a leadership role and only the CFO demonstrates leadership behaviors. The COO, on the other hand, is a fantastic manager, exactly the kind of person you want and need in the COO role. But he’s not the leader a company needs, no matter how stable or uncertain the environment.

Yet we all struggle with this choice because we’ve made “leadership” and “management” synonyms. Companies no longer have “senior management teams,” they have “senior/executive leadership teams.” People moving from independent contributor roles to oversee teams are trained in “people leadership,” not “team management” (even though the curriculum is still largely the same).

But leadership and management are two fundamentally different things.

Leader OR Manager?

There are lots of definitions of both leaders and managers, so let’s go back to the “original” distinction as defined by Warren Bennis in his 1987 classic On Becoming a Leader

Leaders	Managers
· Do the right things· Challenge the status quo· Innovate· Develops· Focuses on people· Relies on trust· Has a long-range perspective· Asks what and why· Has an eye on the horizon	· Do things right· Accept the status quo· Administers· Maintains· Focuses on systems and structures· Relies on control· Has a short-range view· Asks how and when· Has an eye on the bottom line

In a nutshell: leaders inspire people to create change and pursue a vision while managers control systems to maintain operations and deliver results.

Leaders AND Managers!

Although the roles of leaders and managers are different, it doesn’t mean that the person who fills those roles is capable of only one or the other. I’ve worked with dozens of people who are phenomenal managers AND leaders and they are as inspiring as they are effective.

But not everyone can play both roles and it can be painful, even toxic, when we ask managers to take on leadership roles and vice versa. This is the problem with labeling everything outside of individual contributor roles as “leadership.”

When we designate something as a “people leadership” role and someone does an outstanding job of managing his team, we believe he’s a leader and promote him to a true leadership role (which rarely ends well). Conversely, when we see someone displaying leadership qualities and promote her into “people leadership,” we may be shocked and disappointed when she struggles to manage as effortlessly as she inspires.

The Bottom Line

Leadership and Management aren’t the same thing, but they are both essential to an organization’s success. They key is putting the right people in the right roles and celebrating their unique capabilities and contributions.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Three Ways Strategic Idleness Accelerates Innovation and Growth

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Three Ways Strategic Idleness Accelerates Innovation and Growth

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“What will you do on vacation?” a colleague asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

The uncomfortable silence that followed spoke volumes. In boardrooms and during quarterly reviews, we celebrate constant motion and back-to-back calendars. Yet, study after study shows that the most successful leaders embrace a counterintuitive edge: strategic idleness.

While your competitors exhaust themselves in perpetual busyness, research shows that deliberate mental downtime activates the brain networks responsible for strategic foresight, innovative solutions, and clear decision-making.

The Status Trap of Busy-ness

At one company I worked with, there was only one acceptable answer to “How are you doing?” “Busy.” The answer wasn’t a way to avoid an awkward hallway conversation. It was social currency. If you’re busy, you’re valuable. If you’re fine, you’re expendable.

A 2017 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research confirmed what Columbia, Georgetown, and Harvard researchers discovered: being busy is now a status symbol, signaling “competence, ambition, and scarcity in the market.”

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: your packed schedule is undermining the very outcomes you’re accountable for delivering.

Your Brain’s Innovation Engine

Neuroscience has confirmed what innovators have long practiced: Strategic Idleness. While you consciously “do nothing,” your default mode network (DMN) engages, making unexpected connections across stored information and experiences.

Recent research published in the journal Brain demonstrates that the DMN is activated during creative thinking, with a specific pattern of neural activity occurring during the search for novel ideas. This network is essential for both spontaneous thought and divergent thinking, core elements of innovation.

So if you’ve always wondered why you get your best ideas in the shower, it’s because your DMN is powered all the way up.

Three Ways to Power-Up Your Engine

Here are three executive-grade approaches to strategic idleness without more showers or productivity sacrifices:

Pause for 10 Minutes Before Making a Decision
Before making high-stakes decisions, implement a mandatory 10-minute idleness period. No email, no conversation—just sitting. Research on cognitive recovery suggests that this brief reset activates your DMN, allowing for a more comprehensive consideration of variables and strategic implications.
Take a Walking Meeting with Yourself
Block 20 minutes in your calendar each week for a solo walking meeting (and then take the walk!). No other attendees, no agenda, just walking. Researchers at Stanford University found that walking increases creative output by an average of 60% compared to sitting. The combination of physical movement and mental space creates ideal conditions for your brain to generate solutions to problems you didn’t know you had.
Schedule 3-5 minutes of Strategic Silence before key discussions
Research on group dynamics shows that silent reflection before discussion can reduce groupthink and increase the quality of ideas by helping team members process information more deeply. Before you dive into a critical topic at your next leadership meeting, schedule 3-5 minutes of silence. Explain that this silence is for individual reflection and planning for the upcoming discussion, not for checking email or taking bathroom breaks. Acknowledge that it will feel awkward, but that it’s critical for the upcoming discussion and decision.

Remember, You’re Not Doing Nothing If You’re being Strategically Idle

The most valuable asset in your organization isn’t technology, capital, or even the products you sell. It’s the quality of thinking that goes into critical decisions. Strategic idleness isn’t inaction; it’s the deliberate cultivation of conditions that foster innovation, clear judgment, and strategic foresight.

While your competitors remain trapped in perpetual busyness, by using executive advantage of strategic idleness, your next breakthrough will present itself.

This is an updated version of the June 9, 2019, post, “Do More Nothing.”

Image credit: Unsplash, Laura Weiss

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How Innovation Tools Help You Stay Safe

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Risk Management in Uncertain Times

How Innovation Tools Help You Stay Safe

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Risk management is critical in uncertain times. But traditional approaches don’t always help when volatility, ambiguity, and complexity are off the charts.

What many leaders overlook in their rush to safety is that many of the most effective tools for managing risk come from an unexpected place: innovation.

The Counterintuitive Truth About Risk Management

Risk Management’s purpose isn’t to eliminate risks. It’s to proactively identify, plan for, and minimize risk. Innovation is inherently uncertain, so its tools are purpose-built to proactively identify, plan for, and minimize risk. They also help you gain clarity and act decisively—even in the most chaotic environments.

Here are just three of the many tools that successful companies use to find clarity in chaos.

Find the Root Cause

When performance dips, most leaders jump to fix symptoms. True risk management means digging deeper. Root cause analysis—particularly the “5 Whys”—helps uncover what’s really going on.

Toyota made this famous. In one case, a machine stopped working. The first “why” pointed to a blown fuse. The fifth “why” revealed a lack of maintenance systems. Solving that root issue prevented future breakdowns.

IBM reportedly used a similar approach to reduce customer churn. Pricing and product quality weren’t the problem—friction during onboarding was. After redesigning that experience, retention rose by 20%.

Focus on What You Can Actually Control

Trying to manage everything is a recipe for burnout. Better risk management starts by separating what you can control, what you can influence, and what you can only monitor. Then, allocate resources accordingly.

After 9/11, most airlines focused on uncontrollable external threats. Southwest Airlines doubled down on what they could control: operational efficiency, customer loyalty, and employee morale. They avoided layoffs and emerged stronger.

Unilever used a similar approach during the global supply chain crisis. Instead of obsessing over global shipping delays, they diversified suppliers and localized sourcing—reducing risk without driving up costs.

Attack Your “Deal Killer” Assumptions

Every plan is based on assumptions. Great risk management means identifying the ones that could sink your strategy—and testing them before you invest too much time or money.

Dropbox did this early on. Instead of building a full product, they made a simple video to test whether people wanted file-syncing software. They validated demand, secured funding, and avoided wasted development.

GE applied this logic in its FastWorks program. One product team tested their idea with a quick prototype. Customer feedback revealed a completely different need—saving the company millions in misdirected R&D.

Risk Management Needs Innovation’s Tools for a VUCA World

The best risk managers don’t just react to uncertainty—they prepare for it. These tools aren’t just for innovation—they’re practical, proven ways to reduce risk, respond faster, and make smarter decisions when the future feels murky.

What tools or strategies have helped you manage risk during uncertain times? I’d love to hear in the comments.

Image credit: Pexels

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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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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?

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Ignoring Your Customers is the Key to Happiness

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Ignoring Your Customers is the Key to Happiness

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“Now I know why our researchers are so sad.”

Teaching at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) offers a unique perspective. By day, I engage with seasoned business professionals. By night, I interact with budding designers and artists, each group bringing vastly different experiences to the table.

Customer-centricity is the hill I will die on…
In my Product Innovation Lab course, students learn the innovation process and work in small teams to apply those lessons to the products they create.

We spend the first quarter of the course to problem-finding. It’s excruciating for everyone. Like their counterparts in business and engineering, they’re bursting with ideas, and they hate being slowed down. Despite data proving that poor product-market fit a leading cause of start-up failure and that 54% of innovations launched by big companies fail to reach $1M in sales (a paltry number given the scale of surveyed companies), they’re convinced their ideas are flawless.

We spend two weeks exploring Jobs to be Done and practicing interviewing techniques. But their first conversations sound more like interrogations than anything we did in class.

They return from their interviews and share what they learned. After each insight, I ask, “Why is that?” or “Why is that important?

Amazingly, they have answers.

While their first conversations were interrogations, once the nervousness fades, they remember their training, engage in conversations, and discover surprising and wonderful answers.

Yet the still prioritize the answers to “What” over answers to “Why?”

…Because it’s the hill that will kill me.
Every year, this cycle repeats. This year, I finally asked why, after weeks of learning that the answers to What questions are almost always wrong and Why questions are the only path to the right answers (and differentiated solutions with a sustainable competitive advantage), why do they still prioritize the What answers?

The answer was a dagger to my heart.

“That’s what the boss wants to know,” a student explained. “Bosses just want to know what we need to build so they can tell engineering what to make. They don’t care why we should make it or whether it’s different. In fact, it’s better if it’s not different.”

I tried to stay professional, but there was definitely a sarcastic tone when I asked how that was working.

“We haven’t launched anything in 18 months because no one likes what we build. We spend months on prototypes, show them to users, and they hate it. Then, when we ask the researchers to do more research because their last insights were wrong, they get all cra….OOOOHHHHHHHH…..”

(insert clouds parting, beams of sunlight shining down, and a choir of angels here)

“That’s why the researchers are so sad all the time! They always try to tell us the “Whys” behind the “Whats” but no one wants to hear it. We just want to know what to build to get to work. But we could create something people love if we understood why today’s things don’t work!”

Honestly, I didn’t know whether to drop the mic in triumph or flip the table in rage.

Ignorance may be bliss but obsolescence is not
It’s easy to ignore customers.

To send them surveys with pre-approved answers choices that can be quickly analyzed and neatly presented to management. To build exactly what customers tell you to build, even though you’re the expert on what’s possible and they only know what’s needed.

It’s easy to point to the surveys and prototypes and claim you are customer-centric. If only the customers would cooperate.

It’s much harder to listen to customers. To ask questions, listen to answers you don’t want to hear, and repeat those answers to more powerful people who want to hear them even less. To have the courage to share rough prototypes and to take the time to be curious when customers call them ugly.

So, if you want to be happy, keep pretending to care about your customers.

Pretty soon, you won’t have any left to bother you.

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