0078 - To Be Innovative, Less is Always More: How Constraints Ignite Creativity ft Dr. Simone Ahuja

Ben Owden in a conversation with Dr. Simone Ahuja, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and CEO of Blood Orange, a global innovation strategy firm. Simone talks about Jugaad innovation, a frugal and flexible approach to problem-solving under constraints. She shares how embracing scarcity can actually fuel creativity and drive meaningful innovation from within organizations. Learn about intrapreneurship and practical strategies to overcome organizational resistance, align teams with a Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP), and unlock your team's creative potential. If you're ready to turn limited resources into significant breakthroughs, this episode is a must-listen!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Increasingly, though, there are lots of folks in organizations who want to behave in this way. And I think all over the world, what we're seeing is newer generations who are more entrepreneurial. In the US, it's about 14% of new grads want to even go to a large organization. You know, they want to have they want to go to a startup or start something on their own. I know this is true all over the world that there's more and more movement. Right. So, so how do we how do how do large organizations take advantage of this in the best way? Meaning leverage that entrepreneurial spirit, but also serve the needs of their organization and support those people so they can grow as leaders in their own right through entrepreneurship. Ultimately, what we see over and over and over again is to your point, we aren't necessarily solving the problem in the best way if we have a big budget. We're solving it maybe in the most obvious way. We're gonna bring in people and buy this infrastructure and bring on this, you know, get this software that's very expensive, as opposed to the teams who are operating on the shoestring budget who really have to think creatively about what do we already have? What is the knowledge that we have collectively? Who else can we reach out to in our community? Community is huge in terms of what do you have? What do I know about our end users and how can I connect to them? Um, what are the open source platforms that are available that can help me create a solution? So we see a lot more of a focus on what we already have, which lends itself to uh speed, right? You're not building and studying and starting over just because you can. It leads to more creativity and ingenuity because it's it's forcing you, that box is forcing you to come up with a solution without your traditional resources. So we find it's really useful to start with constraint.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Being in the middle is challenging from balancing the demands of those above with the needs of those below. Balancing between pushing the strategy forward and investing in the developments of your teams, stewarding what is presently working while being a change agent. We understand the tension that exists with being in the middle, where you're asked to be everything to everyone. Dear middle manager, we see you, we've heard you, and we're here to help you. YLeap Consultancy is bringing you Thrive in the Middle, a 12-week cohort-based leadership program designed for those in middle management. An immersive program where leadership isn't just taught, it's honed, refined, and brought to life through a blend of expert guidance, peer collaboration, and immersive practical learning experiences. Join Thrive Today and be more than just a link in your organization. Be its strongest link. To learn more and enroll, email us at Yoda, that is yoda at yleadothers.com. Yoda at whyleadothers.com. Mambo, this is Ben Odin, the Leadership Mr. Miyagi. My hope is that this conversation will help you find the clarity and conviction you need to lead a more meaningful and impactful life. I have curated some of the best thinker practitioners from all over the world to help you get to your leadership novana. So sit tight and let's go on this journey together. Welcome to another episode of the Why Lead Podcast. I am your host, Ben Odin. Now, in 2015, uh John Chambers, who at the time was the chairman of Cisco, uh, was quoted saying, at least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years. That's two years away. If they don't figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies. Simply put, death is imminent for those who refuse to innovate. So today we'll be exploring uh innovation, the inside job. How do we innovate from within? And to have this conversation, I am joined by a top speaker for Fortune 500 Events, a best-selling author and groundbreaking innovation researcher. She's the CEO of Blood Orange, a global innovation strategy firm for the Fortune 500 and beyond. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Simon Ahuja Karibu.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Thank you. It's great to be with you.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Uh thank you so much for you know making the time to have this uh conversation. Uh and and I think to kick things off, I am very, very curious in terms of your own personal story uh in and specifically as to what led you to you know the Jugaard Innovation Framework. And so maybe if you could just you know tell us the story of how you arrived to this point where you said, okay, you know what, maybe there's a when we talk about innovation, there's gotta be a different approach, or there's gotta be a better approach that works for most people on a global scale.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah. Thank you. Because that really is the foundation for all of my research. And I was I was doing research in India actually, and I was working with Best Buy, and one of their senior executives asked me to help them figure out from an innovation perspective, not a market perspective, how do people who have severe resource constraints solve really big and pressing problems? And you know, I didn't really know the answer to that. What I did know though is the India market, what I had a um a good footprint there, a lot of relationships, and I started diving in and doing some research with a partner who at that time was at Forester Research who did know more about emerging markets, especially. And as I was doing this research, one of the things that I kept hearing was this word called jugar. So, for example, I had two teams at the time. I had a US-based team and I had an India-based team, all of them very bright, very um capable. And what I started observing over time is that when I was capturing these video case studies and these business case studies with my teams in India, whenever we would run into a problem, like we didn't have fuel, even though we were in the middle of the desert and not enough water and we're running out of time and budget, they would always say, you know what, let's do some jugat. We'll do some jugat just to figure a way out of the problem. And I was like, what is this jugat? What is that mean? And they would just figure out a way to fashion a solution. So, you know, when we were in a place called Aranavkach, which is a desert with very arid, and we were out there filming with salt farmers, and there was no GPS, and our GPS was a very old man with a long white beard. And we were literally in this position where we're running out of fuel and water and time and budget. Um, my team said the same thing. Let's do some Jugad because what we were trying to do is film the uh a panorama, but the ground was very craggy. So the the camera image was very bumpy and it wasn't usable for our series that was airing on PBS here in the US. And they said, you know what, we'll just fashion something. And I was like, fashion something with Jugad? Great, what does that mean? And I watched them in real time take things that we had, whatever we had in the van. We had some pipes that were like PVC, we had string, and they started putting something together and they put a pillow under it and they created sort of this makeshift steady cam. So a steady cam is something you might buy or rent from a film unit, you know, in in Hollywood or other established film organizations or practices around the world. We certainly couldn't do that. And what they did is we were able to capture the shot we needed in a way that was good enough. You know, it got us to where we needed to go. It got us the footage we needed, it was acceptable for the production. And in doing so, in leveraging their ingenuity, thinking about what do we have in this moment to help us solve this problem, they didn't default to what my frankly reaction was was like, we better get out of here. Things are about to go really bad really fast. They're like, ugh, we could do something. And that to me helped me understand that this linear way of thinking that many of us have, especially if you're in a more resource-rich environment, is really shackling because their attitude was, well, let's we'll figure it out. We've got we've got creativity, we've got knowledge, we've got some resources, maybe not exactly what we thought we needed. And that was an example in my own team that I saw over and over again. Again, the US-based team, very intelligent, very sharp as well, but in a different way. And we all learned from each other. And I learned how to bring that kind of improvisation into our work. And then over the course of several months, our research led us to understand that it wasn't just salt farmers in the rural deserts of India who were using this kind of improvisational frugal mindset. It was actually also even in multinational organizations all over the world, especially more resource-constrained environments like in India. And they then I realized, okay, well, there's actually a set of principles. I mean, after studying large organizations and small organizations that were doing this, not to mention in in the US, if we think of, let's say, bootstrapped entrepreneurs or small-scale farmers, especially from you know a long time ago, there are a set of principles that they use that is useful for everyone, even in a resource-rich environment, even in a large-scale organization, because who doesn't feel resource-strapped at times? Because I often hear leaders say we have resource constraints or people say my team is shrinking. But that doesn't mean that you can't do anything. If you have that belief that, oh, I need headcount, I need this big budget to get started, then you're shackled, then you're stuck. But if you want to get unstuck, you can take on this mindset of I have what I need to get started. That doesn't mean I wouldn't need anything more in the future, but I have enough to get started and to start learning my way forward. That's where it started.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Oh, wow. What a crazy story. Um, and I and I particularly loved, I think there's this concept by I think David Marquet, who's, you know, says uh leadership is language, and how if language is really used as a tool to create these narratives or to you know plant these seeds deep down into our subconscious to a degree where, you know, like in that situation, instantly someone can say a word and collectively everybody understands what mindset they need to switch to in that particular moment, right? To have one word that actually has all of that, you know, and it's just an interesting and fascinating concept. Now, I like what you said there. You said mindset, because not necessarily the reality. And I think uh just listening to what you were saying, it almost sounds like the unintended consequence of abundance is you know a lack of creativity to some degree, because uh you have all the resources. And there are some organizations or people who have a lot of resources. So when you talk about thinking outside the box, when you talk about you know bootstrapping and that mindset of frugality, it's it's hard for it's hard to get into that mindset because I have the resources, right? So for someone who is in a situation or in a context where there's an abundance of resource, um, unrestricted budget, you you you know, you have the freedom to do what you want. And sometimes, you know, in that situation, people tend to do the most obvious thing, and sometimes the most obvious thing is not the most innovative thing. So if someone is in that particular situation, what are some questions uh or steps that they can take to uh even though my reality is that there's an sense of abundance, but uh to condition myself mentally, you know, to uh behave with this mindset of frugality, you know, because then that pushes you to think um outside the box, to look at places that maybe you wouldn't normally look if you depended on the resources you have.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Yeah, I love the way you frame this. And I want to come back later to that comment you made about language and why language is so important, especially around innovation, because innovation creates a very visceral reaction for a lot of people, and for many, it's not very positive. So we could talk about that too in a minute. But in regards to this, what you said, the unintended consequence of abundance, absolutely. There is almost like, you know, there's there's studies around the paradox of choice, right? You have too many things, like I think there was a Stanford study where they went into a store and they sold 30 gourmet jams, and people were like, great, but too many, not gonna buy. But when they came back with six gourmet jams, people were more inclined to buy because there was more clarity. And I think an innovation that happens in many ways. One is because we have too much, so we don't know where to start. I mean, it's important to have blue sky thinking at some point, but at another point, it's important to create some kind of a distillation, right? Where we really think about based on what we've observed, based on user need, based on what actions are taking place, based on pain points, we have to start becoming more focused because what I see organizations doing is like you said, taking on things that are too big or doing too many things and dispersing their energy, dispersing their budgets. And it creates a sort of a kind of sort of exhaustion. And I think the other thing I really appreciate about what you said is doing the obvious thing rather than the most creative thing. And you know, I think in tech right now, that makes reminds me of, you know, they a lot of people are talking about this is actually the year of constraints, right? Or this is the year of efficiency. And they're pair, they're really scared about this. And I think that because I think they've been most people in tech in the US have not been working in it long enough to even have seen the financial downturn of 2008, 2009. And what I'm trying to share with folks right now is it's not to say it's not hard, there are a lot of layoffs happening, there it is a change. At the same time, it can be flipped, that mindframe can be flipped and seen as an advantage because the constraints actually create focus. The constraints make you get very clear on what are your strategic priorities and where are going to be going to focus our efforts and energy. Similarly, what I observed on all these Jugod innovators is that because they were often operating in uh under severe resource constraints, so not just I don't have budget, it's sort of like I don't have an RD lab, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have formal education, I don't have access to affordable finance, I don't have infrastructure, but I'm still gonna solve this problem. And having those constraints and a clearly defined problem allowed those innovators to get very, very focused. They weren't worried about bells and whistles, they were worried about and focused on solving a very specific problem. And that focus allowed them to take the resources they had along with their ingenuity and creativity and leverage those to come up with good solutions. So I think that's a uh what I think in large-scale organizations or organizations that typically have more budget or they're used to uh having more resources is creating constraints. Um, it's a good practice. I mean, I'll give you an example. Often we'll have you know workshops with organizations helping them think about how to think and operate and execute more like Jugod innovators or intrapreneurs, internal entrepreneurs in organizations, and we'll often give them a problem to solve. It's usually a real problem inside their organization, and we'll have give one group X million dollars to solve the problem, and we'll give another group$100 to solve the problem. And you know, there's always like a big groan, oh,$100, what are we gonna do? But ultimately, what we see over and over and over again is to your point, we aren't necessarily solving the problem in the best way if we have a big budget. We're solving it maybe in the most obvious way. We're gonna bring in people and buy this infrastructure and bring on this, you know, get this software that's very expensive, as opposed to the teams who are operating on the shoestring budget who really have to think creatively about what do we already have? What is the knowledge that we have collectively? Who else can we reach out to in our community? Community is huge in terms of what do you have? What do I know about our end users and how can I connect to them? Um, what are the open source platforms that are available that can help me create a solution? So we see a lot more of a focus on what we already have, which lends itself to uh speed, right? You're not building and gutting and starting over just because you can. It leads to more creativity and ingenuity because it's it's forcing you, that box is forcing you to come up with a solution without your traditional resources. So we find it's really useful to start with constraints. So if you're in an organization where that doesn't always happen, you know, some of it's about mindset, some of it can be a practice of implementing artificial constraints, right? So timelines. This is like a hackathon, right? You've got 24 or 48 hours and$500 to solve a particular problem. Go. And that's a way you can start to practice Jugat innovation or entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah. Um and I think this would be a good transition to, you know, I'm glad you mentioned there, entrepreneurship. Because one of the you know, the unintended consequences of abundance is that we have maybe a lot of money as an organization. So things are changing. Now there's AI and everyone is doing AI integration in their organizations, you know. So let's pay ex consulting firm to just come in and you know, set up camp and figure out how we're going to disrupt and innovate within, and you know, so we can afford it. So we'll just pay, you know, the best of the best to come in and do that, right? Uh and which means people are not necessarily embracing this concept of entrepreneurship and disrupting from within. So one, I guess how would you define entrepreneurship? That's one. But at the same time, uh, for organizations that have uh solely relied on uh external uh consultants, you know, to come in and uh be the innovation agents within the organization. Why is it important for them to shift from that mindset to saying actually let's invest in developing you know entrepreneurs within the organization so that innovation can primarily happen from within?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah, thank you. I you know it's interesting when after um my book, Jugod Innovation came out in 2012. I was working with a lot of organizations, mostly in the US, mostly Fortune 500 organizations, helping them think about this different way to think, right? How do we activate innovation through constraints? And it was at that time a pretty hard sell. But it became because of that, you know, actually, I would say 2008, 2009, when I first started writing about this, that was really difficult. But around the time of the downturn, the financial downturn, organizations became more and more interested in this. Like, well, how do we do that? How do we actually, you know, leverage these um constraints? And so as I was teaching this over time, I realized, okay, there's this, I there's this desire to think more quickly and with more frugality and ingenuity and inclusivity, but it's still really hard to move it through the organization. You know, it's one thing to have ideas that are different and new and could potentially add new value, which is I think what the definition of innovation should be for most organizations, adding new value. It wasn't executed upon. It very often would get killed early for so many different reasons, which I described uh in my second book. And that was really the impetus for the second book, disrupt it yourself, was well, even if you have these ideas that'll add new value, how do you actually execute on them? Because there are people who do that, and those people are intrapreneurs or internal entrepreneurs, and they're very action-oriented typically. They're the ones that see these pain points and these places of resistance, and they want to address those. And to be clear, you know, they're not going off the rails. When we talk about intrapreneurship, it's not about, well, you know, we're in CPG and we're going to start figuring out how to extract oxygen from ours. It's how do we advance our existing business goals better and faster and with fewer resources? And so what I observed is that, like these Jugad innovators, there's a lot of parallels with intrapreneurs, including how they would execute through the organization and then some, because it's its own art to understand how to navigate the bureaucracy and the layers of a large organization. So in addition to not waiting for a top-down mandate, intrapreneurs will often do things like they know how to navigate the complexity and ambiguity of organizations, they'll find kind of back channels. They operate, I like in my book, I call it Navy SEALs, not pirates, right? They're not trying to upend the organization, they're just trying to solve problems for end users in a way that the organization doesn't traditionally support because they have an embedded model, and it's hard to change those models. And so again, I codified the approach that they use into basically five steps, which is an innovation experimentation process. What they do is they identify a core problem, validate that it's a problem, and then they start making tiny bets and they start testing out a potential solutions, and they're very small and they often don't require any budget or very little budget. But what I noticed is that they have some data points before they start socializing the idea. I think going with an idea and without a plan is a really dangerous path in most large organizations. So you gather the data in advance, whether it's you know, quotes from your end users or data points about how they used something or looked at a simple prototype and um how it was how they responded to it. Those are the that's how intrapreneurs start to gain credibility in their organizations and they iterate and they do it again and again, very parallel to Jugad innovators who use an iterative and empathetic, you know, small-scale testing and iterative approach and cycling through that, but then also retaining the learning along the way, right? Because there are a bunch of things that aren't going to go, quote, as planned, which you know, a lot of people talk about failure, and I like to call it ROI, return on intelligence or insights, right? How do we capture the value of what we learned so that we're not sweeping it under the carpet, but rather so that we can socialize that so other people can learn from that too. So I think, you know, we see a lot of this in organizations, but it's really ad hoc. Um, and I think increasingly, though, there are lots of folks in organizations who want to behave in this way. And I think all over the world, what we're seeing is newer generations who are more entrepreneurial. In the US, it's about 14% of new grads want to even go to a large organization. You know, they want to they want to go to a startup or start something on their own. I know this is true all over the world, that there's more and more movement. Right? So, so how do we how do how do large organizations take advantage of this in the best way? Meaning leverage that entrepreneurial spirit, but also serve the needs of their organization and support those people so they can grow as leaders in their own right through entrepreneurship. And, you know, how you do it is a shift in mindset, but also approach. I mean, if you want to talk about small-scale things that organizations can do to start implementing and encouraging entrepreneurship, it's just take a standing meeting, something that already exists, and just ask people, you know, we want to know what do you see that's a problem for our end users? Where are the where are the pain points? So these could be internal end users or external. So it could be something like a process that's getting people hung up. It could be something like a user interface, it could be a new product. But just asking that simple question starts to create and signal an environment where we want everyone to start adding into problem solving. And often I hear leaders say that they're very surprised who is coming forward with answers. And this can be done synchronously or asynchronously, right? Because everybody doesn't want to speak up in a meeting. I think that's very important to be aware of as well. Um, and then encouraging folks who have these ideas to go test it out. We have a template, and I can share this with your listeners. It's called recontracting. And this came from someone I met at a large insurance organization, one of the largest in the world. And she told me that she had all these ideas, but that wasn't in her job description to solve any of these problems. And so, you know, in studying her and entrepreneurs like her, we developed something called recontracting, where you go to your manager or leader and say, look, I have observed this problem, and I think solving it would advance these strategic priorities of ours or these business goals and be very crisp about that, right? Because it's not a random event. And then going through a process, it's almost like a mad lib. You can fill in. Do you remember mad libs? Mad libs are when when we were kids, we used to have these papers that would you would just add an adjective or a noun and you would kind of crazy stories, right? That's probably your time a little bit when it was popular. But yeah, I was like a fill in the blank. And this is kind of like a fill-in-the-blank, too, taking into consideration, you know, how does your manager communicate? What is your current role? But how will solving this problem advance existing group priorities? What is your plan to do it? How are you going to check in with them and so on? And so, in doing so, you're reimagining your role as an innovator or internal entrepreneur in the organization. And you don't even have to think of yourself as an innovator because everybody, what I've realized too, is the psychology of innovation is such that some people are really pushed away from it. They don't see themselves that way or they don't want to participate in it for whatever reason. And so, you know, going back to your comment about leadership as language, I was working with one large organization where in healthcare, where there was a lot of there was one group very interested in innovation and another group that had to get bought in who was who was sort of repelled by this idea of innovation and the risks it could create in healthcare. And I what I shared with with the group I was working with who were planning these innovation journeys and events was don't call it innovation. Just ask them do you want to understand and learn a way to solve these problems better and faster and with fewer resources? Do you want to have a more effective organization? Do you want to solve problems in the best way for whoever you're serving? Ask them that because it doesn't matter if you use the word innovation. I mean, you know, for me, when I work with companies, I have a research, well, research methodology, so you can't change the methodology. But change the language for now and later you can decide what you're gonna call it. And that's where I think the power of intrapreneurship comes in. Uh, and consultants can certainly help, but our approach is more get in, share this clear methodology, have people go through that over the course of sometimes a day, but usually several weeks, and then back off. I think that the place where I do think there's a need for external support most often is when we work with Stanley Blackendecker, which is a Power Tool and security company here in the US, uh, was it with a global footprint? We, in order to solve some of the problems in a new and different way, um, we did have to establish an umbrella organization so that we could essentially move around some of the challenges and hiring outside of the organization for very specific skill sets. But ultimately, in doing so, it wasn't difficult or expensive. It was just more bringing in those people for a short period of time and then allowing the knowledge transfer to occur from the external folks to the internal folks. Because in the end, you want people to be empowered to do it themselves and you want them to have the agency to think like this. And what I've learned, Ben, is that when people observe that this can happen, especially if they've been a part of it or close to it, that changes them forever. There's no going back.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah. And I I I like what you said there, right? The the entrepreneurial spirit. Because I think sometimes we tend to think of all of these things as a job or a role, you know, innovation, entrepreneurship. These this is a role that I play versus maybe this is a mindset or a spirit that I embody. And uh which means I could with that spirit, with that mindset, I could exist uh in an organization that from the outside looks very bureaucratic, it looks like it's very set in its own. Um, and I could actually bring that and add value to the organization. Uh, and so going back to this aspect of language, right? Um because I think we've been using words, you know, innovation, um, jugar, and entrepreneurship. And for someone who's maybe hearing all of this for the first time, there's almost like a sense of intimidation, like, whoa, what is what is going on, right? Um but for someone who understands that, you know, it's like you're part of this uh almost like a collective innovation consciousness where you know I say this word and immediately you know exactly what this means. And and and that's quite uh powerful. Um and so I think maybe to just bring everybody else in, um when we say entrepreneurship and this concept of disrupted yourself, um, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

I love that collective innovation consciousness. That's exactly what entrepreneurship is. So, first let's start with innovation. Innovation doesn't have to be something big and massive. I think that's sort of a challenge that we face in innovation. And it feels often like something that's not connected at all to the core business, and that doesn't have to be true either. In fact, most of the value that innovation brings is very much connected to core business and the core engine of business growth. Um, innovation is really about something new that adds value. And if I break that down further, I think the new piece is pretty clear to most people. But what I do want to make clear is that new doesn't have to mean new to the world. It can be new to your industry. So if something occurs in healthcare but it has never occurred in manufacturing, it doesn't mean you can't draw on that and bring it into manufacturing and it becomes innovation in manufacturing. That's one. The second thing I want to talk about is this adding new value, because adding new value can mean anything from saving time, reducing resistance or friction felt by your customers, um, inclusivity, right? More access. Those are all different ways of adding new value. And I think the way that people can easily see themselves as innovators or better problem solvers or just problem solvers in their organization is asking them this one question, which is what is something that you've seen in your organization that makes you ask, why do we do it that way? And there's nobody I've met in any organization who can't answer that question. And it gives you a starting point to think about is that something that I could help address? Right? Another way that we often talk about it in our practice is what's your path to highest impact? Because when we're working with entrepreneurs, some of them already have established ideas of the problems that they want to solve. Some people just know that they've got this in their blood, but they feel like, ah, this isn't part of my job title, so I can't really weigh in. And when we say path to highest impact, it really means what is the one thing you could do that would have the greatest impact in solving a problem for whoever you serve, whether that's an internal or external customer. So that's to me the simple version of innovation and intrapreneurship are the action-oriented internal entrepreneurs who attack those problems and know how to solve them on the inside.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Wow. Um, and there is something else that you talk about as well, this concept of like a like an immune system, a company's immune system. Um and of course, when you think of you know immunity, for the most part, it's supposed to protect you from threats. Um but sometimes psychological immunities can sometimes uh prevent you from actually uh taking steps forward. And in the context of a company, you know, many companies, it could be a system, either, you know, culturally they're more bureaucratic, and that is some sort of an immune system towards innovation. So it's very hard for innovation to take place just because of you know, everything has to have like 10 layers of approval, um, and people don't really have the freedom. Sometimes it's the lack of psychological safety, people aren't as comfortable. Uh, sometimes people have uh, you know, just there's no engagement. People feel like I'm not a part of this, so I'm hard, you know, people are one foot in, one foot out. So how how do we use this tool of you know massive transformative purpose um to really make sure that uh this uh sense of identity of entrepreneurship is really deeply embedded within you know the larger majority um within the organization? Um so and what are the steps to develop this to a point where we have a critical mass within the organization.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Okay, so let's break that down. Actually, can we pause for one second, Ben? Because I'm not I just I think I messaged Zencast, right? I meant to message you. I'm not hearing you quite as well right now. Can you put your microphone up a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Oh, okay. Uh my bad. Yeah. Can you hear me now?

SPEAKER_02 36:06

That's a lot better.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Oh, okay, great. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Okay, great. Can you just should we just start that one over again? That question?

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

You talked about you were talking about uh immune system and MTP.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Yes, yes. Um the concept of you know uh an a company having an immune system, right? Um, where in the traditional sense, you know, having an immunity system, it's a good thing because it prevents um threats from outside from penetrating your system and you know, sometimes destroying it. But sometimes psychologically or systemic, um, especially in an artificial, uh, artificially engineered system, you know, organizations are that. Um systems, processes, and you talk about this as well, how you know sometimes process can hijack innovation as well. Um, or culture is another example, right? All of this can tend can be these immunity systems that uh prevent innovation from happening. Um so I I want to see if this can tie in with this concept of you know having a massive transformative uh purpose um as almost like an antidote, right, to um having this uh negative immunity, if I was to use that word, something that actually prevents you from being more innovative. And talking about this, you know, MTP, how what are the steps to actually getting to a point where we develop that? Because most organizations are only embracing this idea of having a purpose. Um, most were you know comfortable with just having a vision, this is where we're heading, and that's about it. But this idea of having not just a purpose, but a massive transformative purpose.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, I love this question about the immune system and how an MTP can help to fight against that immunity that we see that keeps innovation at base. Let me break a couple of those down. So when we talk about the organizational immune system, some people in large organizations, most of us would recognize that as kind of the not invented here. You know, we didn't invent that here, or it's never been done that way, or I've tried that with senior leadership, it's not gonna work, they're not gonna like it. I mean, there are all these excuses and there are reasons for those. And I think this is the, you know, I think the the change in innovation for me over the last 15 years has been from innovation is great. Everybody, it's very earnest, you know, it's very earnest. Like everyone should do it. It's the way forward, it's sustainable growth. Well, of course, that's all true. But the psychology of innovation is something very different, and that's what the immune system is. It's partially about psychology of individuals, it's partially about organizational design because it's very hard. I mean, most or large organizations today, particularly multinationals, were built for relative stability and practices and uh processes and models that used to last for decades sometimes. That's not true anymore, but yet the organizational structures haven't changed much. So trying to embed something new and different into uh uh a model that doesn't support it, it's first of all, it's complicated. Uh, often leaders even don't know how to do it, or they simply don't have the bandwidth to do it, which is why I think that recontracting framework I referred to is really useful because you're saying you don't really have to do anything. Maybe you can help me in this very one specific way, like introduce me to a subject matter expert in financial modeling, but you're doing that heavy lifting for them, and it kind of is its own antidote to the immune system because you're you're basically in advance solving the problems that might come up. Well, does this advance our business goals? Well, we don't, you know, we haven't done this before, or I don't have the budget for that, or I'm not sure how this fits into the model, or I'm not sure what we're gonna learn. You're addressing all of those questions of the immune system. And so, in order to ensure that we can get beyond that, what I love about entrepreneurship is that it's micro. I always say to folks, just to get started, make it micro, make it small. If you're a manager or leader where there's a huge immune system in your organization, that doesn't mean that you can't foster entrepreneurship in your group. You certainly can. And so that to me is really empowering. And sometimes when we have little seeds like that across an organization, some connective tissue starts to build between them, it starts to gain visibility, particularly as there's more enthusiasm and some successes, even, that starts to become a burgeoning culture of its own and can impact the larger culture. Now, having said that, if you want real, quote, enterprise-wise transformation, which is very challenging, you know, majority of which tend to fail, you can't have you have to have both. I think you've got to have that bottom-up and top-down approach to have real meaningful change and push against the immune system. Now, this question about whether you can combat the immune system with an MTP or a massive transformative purpose, right? A lot of organizations today are talking about purpose versus mission. So if a mission is, by definition, what we do and for whom, purpose is the why we do it, right? The thing that actually pulls at people's hearts, it's the emotional connection, it's the thing that we can all rally around. And if we expand that to a massive transformative purpose, it's highly aspirational. It's something that has really transformative capabilities. Uh, and it's that purpose, right? It's the why. So I think it's a great start. And I would say, you know, that's something I ask leaders. I often have leadership retreats, and that's something we ask folks to do is really think about it. What is your massive transformative purpose? And remember, that is not your mission, you know, blown up a little bit. That's in it's entirely, it's in different, it might be related, but it feels and sounds different. Usually, if we read a mission statement, I want to fall asleep, or maybe I don't know, they usually are pretty frustrating to read. There's so many words and they kind of don't say anything. But an MTP is a great start. I would say that's a foundation of um innovation that can happen when you kind of uh quell the immune system. You still have to have a few other things though. So if you don't have incentives, and what I mean by incentives are things like you know, I often will ask leaders what makes things move in your organization. Many of them will say, well, it's metrics. And if you don't have metrics, whether they're in an annual review, I often recommend metrics for leadership so they have skin in the game. Are they supporting innovation? Are they supporting advancing that MTP? Because if they're not, probably nothing's gonna change or very little will change. You've got to have those kinds of you know reinforcing mechanisms in addition to communication about it. You want to share the stories, what's working and what's not working, why the what's not working was valuable, what can we all learn from that? Uh, and then the modeling. Look, what does this look like? And I think training is important too. So if people, you know, if some people can create their own shape, a lot of people need a loose process. That's why I love the entrepreneurs code, which is something else I can share a worksheet for your um listeners about you know, what are the steps that we take to activate entrepreneurship on this small scale? So those are, I think it's MTP is a partial solution to uh quelling the immune system. But I think you've got to have other reinforcing mechanisms to back it up.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

Now, speaking of the psychology and the mindset, one of the reasons most people are not innovative, especially successful organizations and leaders who've been a part of successful organizations, is because we know what works. And there's almost this tendency of canonizing what has worked. And it's worked. So why change? If it ain't broke, why fix it? So why is it so hard to move away from this mindset where we get comfortable with what has worked, where we almost protect what has worked? And I think, you know, in organization, there's this concept of maximizing. It's like it's milking the cow until you know there is nothing else. So how do we move away from that mindset to a mindset of saying, yes, while this has worked, we know that with the complexities of the world we live in, it won't work for very long. So let's start thinking of, you know, what's the next approach that we can take with this? What's the next angle we can look at this from, right? Um, to not really fall in love with what has worked and, you know, use it while it's useful, but also already start thinking ahead and start thinking that, okay, maybe there is a different way, maybe there is a newer approach, maybe there is a more effective approach as well. How do we how do we get to that mindset? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

So I think this is very closely connected to the immune system and this idea of staying really closely connected and guarding our ways that we used to do things is in part because it's it's really it's very challenging. Often, you know, senior leaders will come to me and say, you know, we want, can you help us? We want to build a better culture of innovation. And I think a lot of times the subtext is we just want to build a better culture and we want a different way of doing things, but it's really, you know, we don't we don't know how. And I think I don't want, I'm not, you know, this is not to say that these aren't talented leaders, but rather that it's very challenging to change large cultures and systems, especially if you're continuing to have success from milking that same cow. You're still getting, you know, still getting that milk, right? So I think that's one. And I think that, you know, they they the other thing is um risk aversion, right? There's a fear of failure. So what happens if we do things differently and it doesn't work? And then I'm attached to that and I'm on the hook for it. And sometimes I think this is why people hire consultants, especially brand name consultants, because it's almost like a little protection for well, you know, consultancy X said this, and so, you know, therefore, I'm not as much on, they're kind of on the hook for any risk taking that I did. I said this kind of goes back to your other questions about consultants. So I think risk aversion is the second thing. And the third thing is I think that leaders and managers, but leaders too, even senior leaders, sometimes they just don't know where to start. And that is a part of the reason I love entrepreneurship, because intrapreneurship is not about upending your entire organization and gutting and starting over. If that's what you're gonna tell people, it's just too overwhelming. It's a you know, leadership is a very lonely place to be right now. And I think leaders are overwhelmed because while there's a lot of conversations around employees sharing how they feel and bringing their authentic selves and managing, you know, home and professional lives together, managers are fielding a lot of that. Senior leaders often don't have that luxury. So I think that entrepreneurship, the concept of it, gives them a great place to start. So as they're so to be to be clear, you can't really drive big large-scale innovation without having an innovation strategy and ensuring that that innovation strategy is connected to your broader business strategy. So that also has to be considered, in addition to some of the things we talked about, like organizational design, you know, creating more clean lines of you know, between, let's say, layers, fewer layers, metrics. But I think that entrepreneurship allows you to get into this mindset of innovation and then understanding actually that this can happen so that the idea of putting away previous models starts to become more realistic or it feels more realistic. It's a small-scale way to start up so you don't feel like you're throwing everything away altogether. I'll just share, you know, just one more oh, sorry, I just wanted to share one more quote from Jim Lurie, who is the um former CEO of Stanley Blackendecker, who said in my book, Disruptor Yourself, you know, there's only one way to continue to be relevant, and that's continuing to innovate with purpose and openness and ever-increasing speed. And, you know, in order to do that, organizations have to get rid of some of their old approaches. It has to be, they have to be more flexible. Um, and it doesn't mean you're discarding all the past for you know processes or successes, but it is the way forward for organizations today.

unknown 49:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:30

I'm gonna have to wrap up the page.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Openness, purpose.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Sorry, I'm just gonna have to wrap up in a couple of minutes here.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Oh great. I'm gonna ask you there's one final question and then I'll sort of like wrap up for us. Um something else that you mentioned as well, this idea of um making it permissionless in the book. Um, and you know, how a tight ship is useful today, but maybe not tomorrow, and how you know control lets you thrive in the present, but you lose in the long game of innovation. Now, you know, some organizations are theologically designed to be tight ships, you know, high-stake industries like you know, banking, um, when you talk about the military, you know, hospitals and whatnot. Um, so in these high-stake um industries where people feel like control is the best way to go about it, and usually that's why you see that the most the least innovative industries as well. Um, you know, how what is the healthiest way to make it, you know, permissionless and to loosen the grip on the control? Now I know you have to go, so but if you can just give us like a quick one um as you know, as a as our wrapping up um question.

SPEAKER_02 50:39

Well, it's interesting. I was talking with a very large uh insurance organization recently, and they were bringing me in for a keynote, and they said, you know, you've got this chapter in your book called Permissionless. We just love that concept of empowerment and you know bringing everyone into innovation, but can you just not use that word in your keynote? This is a true story. And I said, Well, no, actually, I do have to use that word because it's in it because and and let me share with you what that word means. It doesn't mean that it's a free-for-all. It doesn't mean you know that everybody, anyone's just going off the rails and doing whatever they want. What it means is that there's more autonomy and there's more trust. And I think that one of the greatest examples I observed in real time is we had clients during the pandemic, some of whom were really wanting to be more innovative, but because there was, they were so tightly held, because there wasn't a lot of autonomy, they had a lot of problems with innovation. And during the pandemic, we saw the structures loosen. I mean, for one thing, they also got very clear on their purpose, they got very, very clear on their priorities and they weren't as scattered. But another thing that happened was this autonomy because they simply had to. They had to have people who were closest to the problems. This was an HR, actually, and HR, as you can imagine, was solving a lot of problems from am I working from home to bereavement benefits. I mean, the very intense situation for HR folks. Those people had to be innovators at that time, and they were supported in doing so. But that wasn't what their typical culture was. And what we found is that that flatter matrix and that more decentralized decision making accelerated decision making, it accelerated innovation, it created more customer satisfaction, and it didn't create a whole bunch of problems. Now, I think sometimes the problem for leaders is that in the end, it's about do I trust my teams and do I trust how I'm leading the teams? Because it can feel like it can feel scary for leaders, but if you're communicating very clearly, these are our priorities, and what you're doing should be advancing those priorities, not everything, you know, across the whole ocean, then you're gonna have some folks who are gonna really help you come forward and you have to trust them to experiment their way forward. That's not to say that you're not gonna ever provide guidance. So when to so, you know, very simply, how do you create a permissionless organization? One, you mentioned psychological safety. That's huge, right? And you have to let people share ideas and not shoot them down before you really understand what it is, or before they have a chance to try out what they think that they're trying to solve if we don't have any information about that. Because that, you know, and then there's an organizational level. Is there a value placed on learning? Are we learning organizations or are we fearful organizations that are perfectionistic and never want to make a mistake? Um, two is leaders have to role model this, right? So here's here's um how I've done this before or in the past, and here's what worked, here's what I didn't work, here's what I learned. And I think there's that metrics piece has to be there. You've got to reinforce with not just talking about it. And I don't work with organizations anymore who aren't willing to make some changes to their metrics because then it becomes just a marketing piece and kind of a PR exercise as opposed to a really meaningful uh shift in culture and outcomes eventually.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Wow. Uh thank you for that concise uh you know and packed response. Uh and and thank you for you know making the time to have this conversation around a topic that I think should be dear to every organization anywhere in the world. And you know, we'll put all the links um on the description in some of the tools that you're referencing uh and you know in your book and you know and your website and in the works so that people, even those who want to get in touch with you, can get in touch with you. Uh, but once again, thank you so much um for making the time. And this has been the YLEED podcast, and I'm your host, Ben Odin.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

Thanks, Ben. That was a lot of fun. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

This podcast is brought to you by YLead Consultancy. We are dedicated to helping organizations develop leaders who inspire conviction, commitment, and congruence. If your organization wants to develop leaders worth following, please email us at Yoda as in yoda at why leadathers dot com. That is yoda at whyleadhers dot com. Or visit our website at www.yleadhers.com.