Creating A Connected Human Experience

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Empathy Meets Technology

Creating A Connected Human Experience

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Because of AI, so much has changed in the way companies do business. The technology hit a tipping point when ChatGPT and other generative AI solutions moved from behind the scenes to public awareness in November 2022. Even if the public didn’t know exactly what ChatGPT-type products were, they had an idea. This created both excitement and fear. For companies and brands, it created opportunities to employ more powerful technology at a lower price. It also created confusion about which technology to choose, how to implement it quickly and whether to implement something as new as this at all.

One company that quickly adapted and transformed itself is C1, a technology solutions provider that serves nearly half of the Fortune 500 (and many others) and partners with more than 140 technology vendors that they help match to their clients’ needs. I had a chance to sit down with Jeffrey Russell, formerly a “transformation leader” and president of Accenture Canada, and now the CEO of C1, who shared how he is leading his company to grow through acquisition and meeting the company’s and its customers’ ever-changing goals.

In our interview on Amazing Business Radio, Russell shared, “In a financial restructuring, you really need to have your story right from the outset.” His formula is simple.

  1. Know what you’re really good at—your company’s superpowers.
  2. Know how you want the organization to change and how you plan to get there. Clarity is essential to getting an ownership group and other stakeholders to support your plan.
  3. Everyone on the team must tell the same story and communicate it clearly. You can’t afford miscommunication. You want to communicate the company’s vision and its long-term value and demonstrate confidence in the company’s future success.
  4. Finally, you must have patience. Over-communicate throughout the process to keep everyone aligned as you move forward.

Russell states, “In the end, leading a change like this is about taking control of your destiny so you can come out on the other end as a financially stronger organization in a better market position to innovate, deliver value to customers and sustain growth.”

While leading C1’s growth and transformation in the era of the AI technology boom, Russell never took his eye off what was most important to a company: the human experience. In addition to taking us through that overview, he also shared how to create a powerful connected human experience for both customers and employees, which is the focus of what follows. Below are his ideas (in bold) followed by my commentary:

  1. Two words that aren’t typically found in the same sentence are technology and empathy. Russell says, “Technology is stark. It’s cold, and often a barrier between the company and its customers.” The easiest way to explain this is that companies must find a balance between technology and the human-to-human (H2H) experience. While technology expands capabilities, you can’t afford to do it at the cost of the relationship. The concept of empathy means understanding what matters to customers. People must be the No. 1 consideration in a plan to acquire and implement new technology.
  2. Ensure technology serves human needs. As you seek a balance between tech and H2H, consider how the technology helps people. Does it make life easier for both customers and employees? And, to emphasize Russell’s concern about the overuse of tech, will it enable better connections?
  3. Use human experience to add new levels of business value. Without technology, what would the experience look like? Then, after implementing the technology, be sure it supports rather than disrupts the experience.
  4. Walk in the shoes of your customer! As “cool” as technology can be, pretend you’re the customer who isn’t quite as savvy with technology as you are. What’s the experience like? It must be easy, intuitive and almost human-like.

As we came to the end of the interview, Russell shared three A’s people should consider when referring to AI:

  1. Authentic Intelligence: Even if it is artificial, does the solution promote an authentic experience? Or will the technology come across to the customer as cold or stark?
  2. Augmented Intelligence: Think of augmented reality and how it enhances the virtual experience. AI augments intelligence. It may or may not work by itself, but when combined with the H2H experience, it supports and makes it easier for employees to help customers with their questions and problems.
  3. Actionable Intelligence: When you activate artificial intelligence, the implementation process should begin with what happens to the customer experience when it is applied. Just having something new or cool isn’t the reason to implement it. This concept takes us back to how the best companies seem to master the balancing act between technology and the H2H experience.

Rapid advances in AI technology bring both opportunities and challenges for businesses. As companies and brands explore, experiment and make their choices for what works best, Russell emphasizes never losing focus on creating a meaningful and connected experience. By balancing technology with empathy and understanding, businesses can not only survive but thrive in this new era.

Image Credits: Pixabay

This article originally appeared on Forbes.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:

  1. Identify Indicators: Select 7-12 key indicators relevant to the focus area.
  2. Prioritize Indicators: Rank the indicators based on their importance and impact.
  3. Rate Current State: Assess the current state for each indicator.
  4. Assess Future State: Define the desired future state for each indicator.
  5. 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:

  1. Stop: Identify and eliminate ineffective practices to free up resources and provide clarity.
  2. Enhance: Improve what’s already working well, capitalizing on strengths.
  3. Borrow: Look outward for inspiration and adapt successful practices from other sources.
  4. 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:

  1. Focus & Description: Define your key action and relate it to your team’s objectives.
  2. Expected Outcomes & Metrics/KPIs: Detail what you aim to achieve and the metrics to measure these outcomes.
  3. Resources & Team Collaboration: Identify needed resources and potential for cross-functional collaboration.
  4. Stakeholders: Identify relevant internal and external stakeholders and their attitudes toward the action.
  5. 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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Profiting From Fear and Mistrust

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Profiting From Fear and Mistrust

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

When I lived and worked in Ukraine, it was commonplace to see men in camouflage fatigues and Uzi’s in the waiting rooms of offices around town. They weren’t there as security, or to rob the place, but to help transfer money between businesses. It was cumbersome and inefficient, but in an atmosphere of mistrust, it was a necessity.

In most countries, we’re still a long way from armed couriers as a daily routine, but according to Edelman’s recent Trust Barometer, we’re headed in that direction. Entitled “Innovation in Peril,” it details an overall collapse of confidence, finding that roughly two thirds believe that journalists, government leaders, and business executives, are “purposely trying to mislead.”

That’s a problem for all of us. Mistrust is corrosive to the norms that help our society run efficiently and the costs are very real. Our lack of trust in government prevents us from making needed investments. Suspicions about law enforcement undermine public safety. Mistrust in the workplace undermines performance. We desperately need to rebuild trust.

The Value Of Trust

Trust isn’t our natural state. Economists have developed a number of models to show how fragile it can be. For example, in a prisoner’s dilemma, two suspects are brought in for questioning. If they both stay true to each other, they get the best collective outcome, but if each follows his or her own self-interest, both will confess and get the worst overall outcome.

Related concepts are the tragedy of the commons, in which everybody has access to a common field to graze their livestock, depleting the resource so that everybody’s herd suffers, and the free rider problem which often occurs with respect to public goods. These situations are known as Nash equilibriums because nobody can change their preference without making themselves worse off.

When you take a moment to think, it’s kind of amazing that we operate with as much trust as we do. Local businesses faithfully serve communities for years, even decades. Corporations spend billions to build brands and governments work to earn legitimacy. That is what allows us to easily transact business throughout the day. When trust collapses, we get Uzis in waiting rooms.

Yet it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Research by Accenture found that “trust events” cost businesses billions of dollars every year. For example, a consumer-focused company that had a sustainability-oriented publicity event backfire lost an estimated $400 million in future revenues. Another company that was named in a money laundering scandal lost $1 billion.

Profiting From Our Mistrust

Our brains are geared for mistrust in a number of ways. The first is a bias for loss aversion. We will do more to avoid a loss than we will for an equivalent gain. That makes trust hard to build and easy to lose, which is why the “trust events,” like those cited in the Accenture study, are so costly.

Another contributing factor is availability bias, our tendency to overweight easily accessible examples, such as a specific trust event, and ignore vague concepts, like years of good service. Once we accept a belief, our confirmation bias will lead us to seek out information that supports our prior beliefs and reject contrary evidence.

These effects are multiplied by tribal tendencies. We form group identities easily, and groups tend to develop into echo chambers, which amplify common beliefs and minimize contrary information. We also tend to share more actively with people who agree with us and, with little fear of rebuke, we are less likely to check that information for accuracy.

That, essentially, is the economics of disinformation. Fear breeds mistrust, which makes us feel insecure and leads us to seek out people we identify with to reinforce our beliefs. Research suggests media companies, especially social media companies, profit from the passions that the most polarizing information unleash in the form of greater engagement with their platforms.

Facts, Identity and Fear

We tend to think of truth as a simple matter of knowledge and understanding. We see the world as a set number of facts and believe that any disagreements arise from a lack of clarity about what the true facts are. In this view, mistrust can be corrected by better access to good information. Once people are informed, how could there be any disagreement?

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, a study at Ohio State found that, when confronted with scientific evidence that conflicted with their views, people would question the objectivity of the science. Another thing to consider is that, as Sam Arbesman explained in The Half-Life of Facts, our ideas about what’s true changes over time.

We can’t rigorously test every proposition, which is why we adopt the views of those around us, a phenomenon that psychologists call social proof. What makes the effect even more insidious, is that the relationship is reciprocal. We internalize the ideas of the tribes we join and then propagate those same ideas to others, intensifying the echo chamber.

Our beliefs are far more than mere acceptance of sets of facts, but become inherently part of our identity. Wars are not fought over ideologies because people disagree about empirical evidence, but because they see their sense of selves under attack. If truth is a force for good, then those who refuse to accept our version of it are, in the most basic sense of the word, evil.

From Victimization To Empowerment Through Purpose

Our ability to trust others is, to a great extent, a function of how we see ourselves and our situation. If we see ourselves as secure and in tune with our environment, it’s relatively easy for us to build bonds of trust. If we feel those around us share our values, it’s easier to feel a shared sense of identity and purpose.

However, if we see our surroundings as hostile, we will take steps to protect ourselves and that, to a great extent, is where we are at today. First the Internet, and then social media have tended to promote and juxtapose the most extreme elements, creating an atmosphere of heightened conflict among tribes, which further undermines our sense of security and trust.

This is what Marshall McLuhan meant when he wrote that the global village would result in a “release of human power and aggressive violence” greater than ever in human history. When we are confronted with ideas and values that are different from our own, it can feel more more like an assault and an affront than a refreshing interaction with the variety of life.

Here Ukraine offers a lesson. Over the past decade it has built a new identity and found a new purpose. Today most Ukrainians, especially the younger generations, feel a stronger affinity for European values than for their post-Soviet past. In fact, they have so internalized their European ambitions that they are willing to risk a war to maintain them.

We have a similar challenge before us. If a common identity is forged from shared values and shared purpose, on what foundation will we build our future? To what common project can we devote our energies? What are our ambitions and how best might we fulfill them? These are the questions that we need to answer if we are ever to rebuild the bonds of trust.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog
— Image credits: Pixabay

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Don’t Slow Roll Your Transformation

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Don't Slow Roll Your Transformation

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Business pundits love to talk about transformation, and consultants drool at the opportunity to tap into a limitless budget, but the truth is, transformations suck.

At minimum, transformation consists of re-engineering your operating model while continuing to operate, with even greater disruption involved if you are revamping your business model at the same time. Now, if you are a privately held enterprise, you might be able to sell this to your board as a “pivot,” and indeed, in the venture world, there is some accommodation built in for such moves. Not so, however, for companies whose shares are publicly held. If this describes you, fasten your seatbelt and read on.

Transformations come with “J curves”—financial projections that have you swimming underwater for some considerable period before you emerge reborn on the other side. Public investors hate J curves. They also worry prospective customers, as well as ecosystem partners, not to mention your own employees. Only a VC loves a J curve, but their attention is on a younger generation.

Nonetheless, everyone understands there are situations where transformation is warranted. For public companies, the most common cause is when the entire franchise is under existential threat. A new technology paradigm is going to categorically obsolete the core franchise, as digital photography did to Kodak, as digital media did to BusinessWeek, as wireless telephony is doing to wireline. It was an existential threat that caused Microsoft to displace its back office software business with Azure’s cloud services, even though the gross margins of the latter were negative while the net margins of the former were stupendous. It was an existential threat that drove Lou Gerstner to reengineer IBM’s hardware-centric business model to focus on services and software. Failure to transform means dissolution of the enterprise. If you are to survive, there are times when you simply have to bite the bullet.

That said, you still have to confront the issue of time. Everyone understands that a transformation will take more than one year, but no one is willing to tolerate it taking three. That is, by the end of the second year you have to be verifiably emerging from the J curve, head out of water, able to breathe positive cash flow, or else you are likely to be written off. That means transformational initiatives should be planned to complete in seven quarters, plus or minus one. That’s the amount of time you can be in the ICU before you risk getting transferred to hospice care.

So, if a transformation is in your future, and you really cannot work around it, then start your planning with the end in mind and calendar that end for seven quarters out. Now, work backward to determine where you will have to be by each of the intervening quarters in order to meet your completion date. When you get back to the current quarter, expect to see you are already two or three quarters behind schedule (not fair, I know, but I already told you that transformations suck). Suppress panic, conduct triage, and start both your engines and the clock.

Final point: given the lack of time and the amount of risk involved, there is only one sensible way to approach a transformation. Prioritize it above everything else, and keep everyone focused on making the intermediate milestones until you are well and truly out of danger. Transformations are no joking matter. Most companies lose their way. Don’t let that be true of you and yours.

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

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2024

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Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2024

2021 marked the re-birth of my original Blogging Innovation blog as a new blog called Human-Centered Change and Innovation.

Many of you may know that Blogging Innovation grew into the world’s most popular global innovation community before being re-branded as Innovation Excellence and being ultimately sold to DisruptorLeague.com.

Thanks to an outpouring of support I’ve ignited the fuse of this new multiple author blog around the topics of human-centered change, innovation, transformation and design.

I feel blessed that the global innovation and change professional communities have responded with a growing roster of contributing authors and more than 17,000 newsletter subscribers.

To celebrate we’ve pulled together the Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2024 from our archive of over 2,500 articles on these topics.

We do some other rankings too.

We just published the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024 and as the volume of this blog has grown we have brought back our monthly article ranking to complement this annual one.

But enough delay, here are the 100 most popular innovation and transformation posts of 2024.

Did your favorite make the cut?

1. Organizational Debt Syndrome Poses a Threat – by Stefan Lindegaard

2. FREE Innovation Maturity Assessment – by Braden Kelley

3. The Education Business Model Canvas – by Arlen Meyers, M.D.

4. The Role of Stakeholder Analysis in Change Management – by Art Inteligencia

5. Act Like an Owner – Revisited! – by Shep Hyken

6. Iterate Your Thinking – by Dennis Stauffer

7. SpaceX is a Masterclass in Innovation Simplification – by Pete Foley

8. What is Human-Centered Change? – by Braden Kelley

9. A 90% Project Failure Rate Means You’re Doing it Wrong – by Mike Shipulski

10. Should a Bad Grade in Organic Chemistry be a Doctor Killer? – by Arlen Meyers, M.D.

11. How Netflix Built a Culture of Innovation – by Art Inteligencia

12. Fear is a Leading Indicator of Personal Growth – by Mike Shipulski

13. Sustaining Imagination is Hard – by Braden Kelley

14. No Regret Decisions: The First Steps of Leading through Hyper-Change – by Phil Buckley

15. The Art of Adaptability: How to Respond to Changing Market Conditions – by Art Inteligencia

16. Sprint Toward the Innovation Action – by Mike Shipulski

17. Marriott’s Approach to Customer Service – by Shep Hyken

18. Top 5 Future Studies Programs – by Art Inteligencia

19. Reversible versus Irreversible Decisions – by Farnham Street

20. 50 Cognitive Biases Reference – Free Download – Courtesy of TitleMax

21. Free Human-Centered Change Tools – by Braden Kelley

22. Designing an Innovation Lab: A Step-by-Step Guide – by Art Inteligencia

23. Why More Women Are Needed in Innovation – by Greg Satell

24. How to Defeat Corporate Antibodies – by Stefan Lindegaard

25. The Nine Innovation Roles – by Braden Kelley

26. Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023 – Curated by Braden Kelley

27. Human-Centered Change – by Braden Kelley

28. Visual Project Charter™ – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) and JPG for Online Whiteboarding – by Braden Kelley

29. FutureHacking – Be Your Own Futurist – by Braden Kelley

30. ACMP Standard for Change Management® Visualization – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) – Association of Change Management Professionals – by Braden Kelley

Build a common language of innovation on your team

31. Overcoming Resistance to Change – by Chateau G Pato

32. Are We Abandoning Science? – by Greg Satell

33. How Networks Power Transformation – by Greg Satell

34. What Differentiates High Performing Teams – by David Burkus

35. The 6 Building Blocks of Great Teams – by David Burkus

36. Unintended Consequences. The Hidden Risk of Fast-Paced Innovation – by Pete Foley

37. The Role of Employee Training and Development in Enhancing Customer Experience – by Art Inteligencia

38. The Pyramid of Results, Motivation and Ability – by Braden Kelley

39. Your Strategy Must Reach Beyond Markets to Ecosystems – by Greg Satell

40. What is the difference between signals and trends? – by Art Inteligencia

41. Next Generation Leadership Traits and Characteristics – by Stefan Lindegaard

42. Latest Interview with the What’s Next? Podcast – Featuring Braden Kelley

43. A Tipping Point for Organizational Culture – by Janet Sernack

44. Accountability and Empowerment in Team Dynamics – by Stefan Lindegaard

45. Design Thinking for Non-Designers – by Chateau G Pato

46. The Innovation Enthusiasm Gap – by Howard Tiersky

47. The One Movie All Electric Car Designers Should Watch – by Braden Kelley

48. The Ultimate Guide to the Phase-Gate Process – by Dainora Jociute

49. Innovation Management ISO 56000 Series Explained – by Diana Porumboiu

50. How to Create an Effective Innovation Hub – by Chateau G Pato

Accelerate your change and transformation success

51. Imagination versus Knowledge – Is imagination really more important? – by Janet Sernack

52. Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire – by Braden Kelley

53. A Shortcut to Making Strategic Trade-Offs – by Geoffrey A. Moore

54. How to Make Navigating Ambiguity a Super Power – by Robyn Bolton

55. Three HOW MIGHT WE Alternatives That Actually Spark Creative Ideas – by Robyn Bolton

56. Problems vs. Solutions vs. Complaints – by Mike Shipulski

57. Innovation or Not – Liquid Trees – by Art Inteligencia

58. Everyone Clear Now on What ChatGPT is Doing? – by Geoffrey A. Moore

59. Leadership Best Quacktices from Oregon’s Dan Lanning – by Braden Kelley

60. Will Innovation Management Leverage AI in the Future? – by Jesse Nieminen

61. The Power of Position Innovation – by John Bessant

62. Creating Organizational Agility – by Howard Tiersky

63. A Case Study on High Performance Teams – by Stefan Lindegaard

64. Secrets to Overcoming Resistance to Change – by David Burkus

65. How to Write a Failure Resume – by Arlen Meyers, M.D.

66. 9 of 10 Companies Requiring Employees to Return to the Office in 2024 – by Shep Hyken

67. The Five Keys to Successful Change – by Braden Kelley

68. What is Social Analysis? – by Art Inteligencia

69. Dare to Think Differently – by Janet Sernack

70. Parallels Between the 1920’s and Today Are Frightening – by Greg Satell

71. What is Trend Spotting? – by Art Inteligencia

72. Driving Change is Not Enough – You Also Have To Survive Victory – by Greg Satell

73. 5 Simple Steps to Team Alignment – by David Burkus

74. Building a Better Change Communication Plan – by Braden Kelley

75. The Role of Leadership in Fostering a Culture of Innovation – by Art Inteligencia

76. 4 Simple Steps to Becoming Your Own Futurist – An Introduction to the FutureHacking™ methodology – by Braden Kelley

77. Four Hidden Secrets of Innovation – by Greg Satell

78. Why Organizations Struggle with Innovation – by Howard Tiersky

79. An Introduction to Strategic Foresight – by Stefan Lindegaard

80. Learning About Innovation – From a Skateboard? – by John Bessant

Get the Change Planning Toolkit

81. 800+ FREE Quote Posters – by Braden Kelley

82. Do you have a fixed or growth mindset? – by Stefan Lindegaard

83. Generation AI Replacing Generation Z – by Braden Kelley

84. The End of the Digital Revolution – by Greg Satell

85. Is AI Saving Corporate Innovation or Killing It? – by Robyn Bolton

86. The Experiment Canvas™ – 35″ x 56″ (Poster Size) – by Braden Kelley

87. America Drops Out of the Ten Most Innovative Countries – by Braden Kelley

88. 5 Essential Customer Experience Tools to Master – by Braden Kelley

89. AI as an Innovation Tool – How to Work with a Deeply Flawed Genius! – by Pete Foley

90. Four Ways To Empower Change In Your Organization – by Greg Satell

91. Agile Innovation Management – by Diana Porumboiu

92. Do Nothing More Often – by Robyn Bolton

93. Five Things Most Managers Don’t Know About Innovation – by Greg Satell

94. The Fail Fast Fallacy – by Rachel Audige

95. Top Six Trends for Innovation Management in 2025 – by Jesse Nieminen

96. How to Re-engineer the Incubation Zone – by Geoffrey A. Moore

97. Flaws in the Crawl Walk Run Methodology – by Braden Kelley

98. Master the Customer Hierarchy of Needs – by Shep Hyken

99. Rise of the Atomic Consultant – Or the Making of a Superhero – by Braden Kelley

100. A Shared Language for Radical Change – by Greg Satell

Curious which article just missed the cut? Well, here it is just for fun:

101. Is Disruption About to Claim a New Victim? – by Robyn Bolton

These are the Top 100 innovation and transformation articles of 2024 based on the number of page views. If your favorite Human-Centered Change & Innovation article didn’t make the cut, then send a tweet to @innovate and maybe we’ll consider doing a People’s Choice List for 2024.

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 1-6 new articles every week focused on human-centered change, innovation, transformation and design insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook feed or on Twitter or LinkedIn too!

Editor’s Note: Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all the innovation & transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have a valuable insight to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, contact us.

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024After 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:

  1. Greg Satell
    Greg SatellGreg 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.
  2. Janet Sernack
    Janet SernackJanet 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.
  3. Mike Shipulski
    Mike ShipulskiMike 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.
  4. Robyn Bolton
    Robyn BoltonRobyn M. Bolton works with leaders of mid and large sized companies to use innovation to repeatably and sustainably grow their businesses.
    .
  5. 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
  6. Geoffrey A. Moore
    Geoffrey MooreGeoffrey 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
  7. Shep Hyken
    Shep HykenShep 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
  8. David Burkus
    David BurkusDr. 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.
  9. John Bessant
    John BessantJohn 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
  10. Braden Kelley
    Braden KelleyBraden 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.

  11. Howard Tiersky
    Howard TierskyHoward 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.”
  12. Stefan Lindegaard
    Stefan LindegaardStefan 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.
  13. Dainora Jociute
    Dainora JociuteDainora (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.
  14. Teresa Spangler
    Teresa SpanglerTeresa 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.
  15. Soren Kaplan
    Soren KaplanSoren 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.
  16. Diana Porumboiu
    Diana PorumboiuDiana 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.
  17. Steve Blank
    Steve BlankSteve 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.
  18. Jesse Nieminen
    Jesse NieminenJesse 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.
  19. Robert B Tucker
    Robert TuckerRobert 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.
  20. Dennis Stauffer
    Dennis StaufferDennis 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

    21. Accelerate your change and transformation success

  21. Arlen Meyers
    Arlen MyersArlen 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/
  22. Ayelet Baron
    Ayelet BaronAyelet 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.
  23. Leo Chan
    Leo ChanLeo 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.
  24. Rachel Audige
    Rachel AudigeRachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.
  25. Art Inteligencia
    Art InteligenciaArt 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.
  26. Paul Sloane
    Paul SloanePaul 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.
  27. Phil McKinney
    Phil McKinneyPhil 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.
  28. Ralph Christian Ohr
    Ralph OhrDr. 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.
  29. 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
  30. Dean and Linda Anderson
    Dean and Linda AndersonDr. 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.

  31. Shilpi Kumar
    Shilpi KumarShilpi 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.
  32. Scott Anthony
    Scott AnthonyScott 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.
  33. Anthony Mills
    Anthony MillsAnthony 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.
  34. Paul Hobcraft
    Paul HobcraftPaul 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
  35. Jorge Barba
    Jorge BarbaJorge 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
  36. Chateau G Pato
    Chateau G PatoChateau 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.
  37. Douglas Ferguson
    Douglas FergusonDouglas 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.
  38. Alain Thys
    Alain ThysAs 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.
  39. Bruce Fairley
    Bruce FairleyBruce 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.
  40. Tom Stafford
    Tom StaffordTom 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:


Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020 PDF . . . Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022 . . . Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023

Happy New Year everyone!

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The Innovation Danger of All-or-Nothing Thinking

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The Innovation Danger of All-or-Nothing Thinking

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

All-or-nothing thinking is exciting – we’ll launch a whole new product family all at once and take the market by storm! But it’s also dangerous – if we have one small hiccup, “all” turns into “nothing” in a heartbeat. When you take an all-or-nothing approach, it’s likely you’ll have far too little “all” and far too much “nothing”.

Instead of trying to realize the perfection of “all”, it’s far better to turn nothing into something. Here’s the math for an all-or-nothing launch of product family launch consisting of four products, where each product will create $1 million in revenue and the probability of launching each product is 0.5 (or 50%).

1 product x $1 million x 0.5 = $500K

2 products x $1 million x 0.5 x 0.5 = $500K

3 products x $1 million x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = $375K

4 products x $1 million x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = $250K

In the all-or-nothing scheme, the launch of each product is contingent on all the others. And if the probability of each launch is 0.5, the launch of the whole product family is like a chain of four links, where each link has a 50% chance of breaking. When a single link of a chain breaks, there’s no chain. And it’s the same with an all-or-nothing launch – if a single product isn’t ready for launch, there are no product launches.

But the math is worse than that. Assume there’s new technology in all the products and there are five new failure modes that must be overcome. With all-or-nothing, if a single failure mode of a single product is a problem, there are no launches.

But the math is even more deadly than that. If there are four use models (customer segments that use the product differently) and only one of those use models creates a problem with one of the twenty failure modes (five failure modes times four products) there can be no launches. In that way, if 25% of the customers have one problem with a single failure mode, there are can be no launches. Taken to an extreme, if one customer has one problem with one product, there can be no launches.

The problem with all-or-nothing is there’s no partial credit – you either launch four products or you launch none. Instead of all-or-nothing, think “secure the launch”. What must we do to secure the launch of a single product? And once that one’s launched, the money starts to flow. And once we launch the first one, what must we do to secure the launch the second? (More money flows.) And, once we launch the third one…. you get the picture. Don’t try to launch four at once, launch a single product four times in a row. Instead of all-or-nothing, think one-in-a-row, where revenue is achieved after each launch of a single launch.

And there’s another benefit to launching one at a time. The second launch is informed by learning from the first launch. And the third is informed by the first two. With one-in-a-row, the team gets smarter and each launch gets better.

Where all-or-nothing is glamorous, one-in-a-row is achievable. Where all-or-nothing is exciting, one-in-row is achievable. And where all-or-nothing is highly improbable, one-in-a-row is highly profitable.

Image credits: Unsplash

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The Tool for Planning Your 2025 Changes – Flash Sale

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Holiday Sale on Charting Change

Wow! Exciting news for the new year!

My publisher is having a holiday flash sale that will allow you to get the hardcover or the digital version (eBook) of my latest best-selling book Charting Change for 50% off to arm yourself with the very best tools for 2025 change planning!

When you buy the hardcover version of my book directly from the publisher you get FREE SHIPPING worldwide!

I created the Human-Centered Change methodology to help organizations get everyone literally all on the same page for change. The 70+ visual, collaborative tools are introduced in my book Charting Change, including the powerful Change Planning Canvas™. The toolkit has been created to help organizations:

  • Beat the 70% failure rate for change programs
  • Quickly visualize, plan and execute change efforts
  • Deliver projects and change efforts on time
  • Accelerate implementation and adoption
  • Get valuable tools for a low investment

You must go to SpringerLink for this Cyber Sale:

  • The offer is valid until January 4, 2025 only using code FLSH50

Click here to get this deal using code FLSH50

Quick reminder: Everyone can download ten free tools from the Human-Centered Change methodology by going to its page on this site via the link in this sentence, and book buyers can get 26 of the 70+ tools from the Change Planning Toolkit (including the Change Planning Canvas™) by contacting me with proof of purchase.

SPECIAL BONUS: For a limited time you can also get a hardcover copy of my first best-selling book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire on Amazon at a nice discount off the cover price – currently 44% OFF while supplies last!

*This offer is valid for English-language Springer, Palgrave & Apress books & eBooks. The discount is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates. This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.






Be Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With

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Be Ridiculously Easy To Do Business With

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

You can’t argue with the evidence. Being easy to do business with attracts new customers, keeps existing customers and gives you a competitive advantage. Consider what we learned in our customer service and Customer Experience research (sponsored by RingCentral). Each year, convenience ranks as the most important customer service experience. These findings from the study back this up:

  • 94% of customers feel convenience is important
  • 70% are willing to pay more if the experience is more convenient
  • 87% will likely recommend a brand or company if it provides a convenient service experience

David Avrin’s latest book, Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With, is filled with tip after tip on how to avoid friction that loses customers. The book’s subject is one I’ve been studying and endorsing for years. In 2018, I wrote The Convenience Revolution, which featured the five convenience principles: eliminating friction, providing self-service solutions, using technology, delivery and access (location, hours of operation, etc.). Avrin’s addition to the very few but important books on the topic goes in-depth with very specific ways any business can be easier to work with. With that in mind, here are seven of the many ideas and tactics he shares in the book. Make it ridiculously easy …

1. To cancel, return or change your mind. An easy return or exchange policy reduces the customer’s risk and increases trust in the brand. Easy and hassle-free returns are one of the top reasons customers come back.

2. To provide feedback. When your customers provide you with feedback, both good and bad, it’s a gift. They’ve taken the time to share their thoughts, so don’t make it hard for them to do so.

3. To be easy to reach. If a customer has a question, and you make it hard for them to find your contact information, what do you think happens next? They continue their search with a different company. We suggest to our clients that contact information (phone, email, etc.) is available, at least in the footer, on every page of their website. Really, it should be easy to find on anything that has your company or brand’s name on it.

4. To navigate the website. One of the reasons people love shopping with Amazon is how easy it is to do business with, and it starts with a 100% self-service solution. They make it easy to compare products, pricing and more. Most importantly, it is an intuitive experience. You know where to go. It’s easy to get to the shopping cart, and to check out. While not every company can be like Amazon, they can take lessons from how its website is designed. If nothing else, remember that a website is designed by people to be used by people.

5. To pay you. Avrin shared a great example of a vending machine that required him to use a QR code to pay for his snack. Traditional machines have the option of cash or credit card, but making a QR code the only way to pay requires extra steps. It can be an option, but taking away what’s most convenient could hurt sales.

6. To track the status of your order. Let your customers know when their order is shipped and when they can expect to receive it. And, so there’s no hassle in checking on the order, include tracking information. Once an order leaves the warehouse, one of the major carriers typically takes over, such as FedEx, UPS or the USPS. It’s much easier for your customer to click a button and enter a tracking number than to search for your phone number, call you, wait on hold and eventually ask an agent, “When will I receive my package?”

7. To resolve issues. When a customer has a problem, do you offer self-service solutions? Do they need to call? It doesn’t matter what channel the customer uses to get their problem resolved, they just want it to be easy and fast. I refer to a metric I call “Time to Happiness.” The shorter the time, with little (or no) friction, the better.

Why do we make the effort to be easy to do business with? The answer is summed up in Chapter 25. When you create an easy and frictionless experience, you make it ridiculously easy to choose you over your competition!

Image Credits: Pixabay

This article originally appeared on Forbes.com

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