The Innovation Show

Latest Episodes:

The Age of Heretics with Art Kleiner Part 3 Jan 17, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of the multi-part series, we highlight labor organizer Saul Alinsky, who pioneered the use of shareholder activism to open Kodak's doors to more African Americans. Alinsky was the embodiment of the activist principle that behaving badly is sometimes necessary because, in the words of the civil-rights anthem, "The nice ways always fail." If ever a neighborly company existed, that was Eastman Kodak. to those outside the company, particularly the black people of Rochester, the company was an object of seething resentment. It was the largest employer in Rochester, and it had never let them into the family.

In 1964 twenty thousand black residents lived in Rochester, crowded into a few neighborhoods where landlords rented to them. Most of them had come up from the southern states in search of jobs; now they lived in tenements with twenty-four or twenty-eight families squeezed into houses designed for two.

Enter Alinsky, whose organization, the Industrial Arts Foundation, had an unparalleled track record for teaching slum dwellers to improve their own neighborhood conditions, often beginning by winning over the neighborhood's delinquent gangs. In principle, Kodak managers agreed that opportunities for blacks should be increased, but they didn't see that this was Kodak's responsibility. Let the blacks pull themselves up, as every other ethnic group in America had done, to the point where Kodak would want to hire them. Anyone who looked at both organizations could see that an impasse was inevitable.

We also discuss shareholder activism, CSR, ESG, and corporate activism. We welcome back the author of, "The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management"

More about Art: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artkleiner/

Rare Breed with Sunny Bonnell Jan 12, 2022

Show notes

Whether you're building your career or a business of your own, you have a big advantage: Nobody ever sees the rebel coming. The established players in any industry are always fat, sluggish, and content. You're defiant, swift, and hungry. Because your ideas are daring (and probably defiant), you'll blindside the competition. By the time they catch on, you've picked their pockets, stolen their best customers, and won the admiring press. As a rebel, you will meet resistance, but you look forward to it. Rebellion is an act of war. The established order always counterpunches and usually wears brass knuckles.

Rare Breeds don't get what they want by adapting to the conventional rules: instead, they use the traits often considered shortcomings as tools for creation and growth. Combining examples and practical tools, our guest identifies seven vices-turned-virtues—Rebellious, Audacious, Obsessed, Hot-Blooded, Weird, Hypnotic, Emotional—to help disruptors and trailblazers discover their inner Rare Breed and tap into them to realize their full potential in work and life.

We welcome the author of Rare Breed: A Guide to Success for the Defiant, Dangerous, and Different, Sunny Bonnell

More about Sunny: https://rarebreedleaders.com

The Age of Heretics Part 2 with Art Kleiner Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

Part 2 in this wonderful series When postwar American business was a vast sea of gray flannel suits and tasteful ties, a few unorthodox individuals were not so quietly shifting the paradigm toward the breezier, Google-ier work-place of today. These change agents include a raft of idealistic social scientists as well as nonacademics, like labor organizer Saul Alinsky, who pioneered the use of shareholder activism to open Kodak's doors to more African Americans. Alinsky, who was literally willing to smash dishes to get attention, was the embodiment of the activist principle that behaving badly is sometimes necessary because, in the words of the civil-rights anthem, "The nice ways always fail." Today's guest uses religious terms to title each of the chapters of his book— "Monastics," "Pelagians,""Mystics," and so forth. At first that seems an odd choice for a study of modern corporations and other secular institutions. But he is insightful to do so. Like the heretic whose rejection of religious orthodoxy might send him to the pyre, our guest's organizational heretic "is someone who sees a truth that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the institution to which he or she belongs—and who remains loyal to both entities, to the institution and the new truth." The person who is willing to make a great sacrifice to change an institution he or she loves is a hero as well as a heretic because, our guest writes, "the future of industrial society depends on our ability to transcend the destructive management of the past, and build a better kind of business." We welcome the author of "The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management" and the earlier subtitle was Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change, Art Kleiner.

Flux with April Rinne Jan 04, 2022

Show notes

Whether you're leading an organization through new realities, building (or rethinking) your career, forging new relationships, seeking peace, or simply not sure what to do next, you'll gain tools and insights for how to think, learn, work, live, and lead better with a Flux Mindset. Flux shows you how to slow down responsibly, identify what really matters, make wise decisions, and let go of the rest. Flux challenges your assumptions and expectations in ways that enable you to lean into the future with hope rather than fear, and with clarity and confidence anchored in what makes you, you.

We welcome the author of Flux, 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change, April Rinne

More about April: https://aprilrinne.com

The Age of Heretics with Art Kleiner Jan 01, 2022

Show notes

When postwar American business was a vast sea of gray flannel suits and tasteful ties, a few unorthodox individuals were not so quietly shifting the paradigm toward the breezier, Google-ier work-place of today. These change agents include a raft of idealistic social scientists as well as nonacademics, like labor organizer Saul Alinsky, who pioneered the use of shareholder activism to open Kodak's doors to more African Americans. Alinsky, who was literally willing to smash dishes to get attention, was the embodiment of the activist principle that behaving badly is sometimes necessary because, in the words of the civil-rights anthem, "The nice ways always fail."

Today's guest uses religious terms to title each of the chapters of his book— "Monastics," "Pelagians," Mystics," and so forth. At first, that seems an odd choice for a study of modern corporations and other secular institutions. But he is insightful to do so. Like the heretic whose rejection of religious orthodoxy might send him to the pyre, our guest's organizational heretic "is someone who sees a truth that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the institution to which he or she belongs—and who remains loyal to both entities, to the institution and the new truth." The person who is willing to make a great sacrifice to change an institution he or she loves is a hero as well as a heretic because, our guest writes, "the future of industrial society depends on our ability to transcend the destructive management of the past, and build a better kind of business."

We welcome the author of "The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management" and the earlier subtitle was Heroes, Outlaws, and the Forerunners of Corporate Change, Art Kleiner.

More about Art here:

https://wiseadvoc8.com

Smart Growth with Whitney Johnson Dec 29, 2021

Show notes

Because the fundamental unit of growth in any organization is the individual, our starting point for talking about growth is you.

Some of the questions we will answer are:

• Why, despite the desire to learn, can it be so difficult to start something new and stick with it?

• What does it take to gain and maintain momentum?

• Once we've made considerable progress, why do we sometimes tire of what we're doing and even feel we can no longer do it? Why do we outgrow things so quickly?

The more you understand about your deep longing to grow and how

to grow yourself, the greater your capacity to grow your people, to grow your company. That's smart growth.

The S Curve of Learning is a map to look at your life: where you were, where you are, and where you want to go—a continuous pathway to achieving potential.

When you can picture yourself moving along this growth curve, you can more easily plan a trajectory and plot your progress.

You can get smart about your growth.

We welcome the author of "Smart Growth: How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Company", Whitney Johnson.

Timeline:

3.00 To Want to Grow is Human

5.12 S-Curve as a Map, Post-Traumatic Growth

10.15 Speed of Change

13.08 Transforming Leadership, Leaders must lead from the front

15.00 Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally and rituals

16.20 Principles and Values

20.30 Feedback, Collector Phase of S-Curve

29.53 Shadow Values

33.50 Inner Child, Feeling Seen

35.50 New S-Curves don't always work out

39.50 What do you do when you have more than one really great choice?

45.54 Watch your self talk at the launch phase?

48.48 C.A.R. Framework: Origins in Self-Determination Theory

Connectedness

Autonomy

Relatedness

52.15 Myron Scholes, all is explained by the tails

56 When leaders peak

60 An ecosystem of/for growth, keystone species

In whose ecosystem are you a keystone species?

Whitney is available here:

https://whitneyjohnson.com

https://smartgrowthbook.com

Radical Empathy with Terri Givens Dec 20, 2021

Show notes

Structural racism has impacted the lives of African Americans in the United States since before the country's founding.

Although the country has made some progress towards a more equal society, political developments in the 21st century have shown that deep divides remain.

To bridge our divides, our guest, a renowned political scientist calls for 'radical empathy' – moving beyond an understanding of others' lives and pain to understand the origins of our biases.

Deftly weaving together her own experiences with the political, she offers practical steps to call out racism and bring about radical social change.

We welcome the author of, "Radical Empathy, Finding A Path to Bridging Racial Divides", Terri Givens.

More about Terri: https://www.terrigivens.com

Behemoth, Amazon Rising with Robin Gaster Dec 14, 2021

Show notes

Amazon is the most extraordinary and important business story of our time. Facebook has more members and is our social network. Google sits right at the heart of the information tsunami. Apple has by far the prettiest toys.

But starting 25 years ago as a tiny online bookstore, Amazon now stands astride the e-powered river of goods that flows through the many economies. It is a retailer, a marketplace, an electronic infrastructure, a publisher, an advertising channel, a distributor. It is increasingly the arbiter of retail, the pacesetter for employment, and private taxing authority, taking its bite of every transaction on its Marketplace.

And Amazon is just getting started.

Across all its business, Amazon is automating rapidly and leveraging the power of enormous and growing capabilities in AI and machine learning. The sheer range and pace of change is formidable. It's an extraordinary story, and it raises plenty of questions:

Where did Amazon come from?

How did it grow so big so fast?

What can we learn from history?

Can we distil key lessons about objectives, strategy, tactics, and especially corporate culture?

Where is Amazon going?

What will it look like ten years from now?

What should we – the collective we – do about it?

Is Amazon a threat?

Should we simply applaud?

Are there characteristics to worry about?

And if so, what should we do? Our guest today addresses these questions and many more.

We welcome the author of "Behemoth, Amazon Rising: Power and Seduction in the Age of Amazon", Robin Gaster

The Uncertainty Mindset with Vaughn Tan Dec 07, 2021

Show notes

Innovation is how businesses stay ahead of the competition and adapt to market conditions that change in unpredictable and uncertain ways. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, high-end cuisine underwent a profound transformation. Once an industry that prioritized consistency and reliability, it turned into one where constant change was a competitive necessity. A top restaurant's reputation and success have become so closely bound up with its ability to innovate that a new organizational form, the culinary research and development team, has emerged. The best of these R&D teams continually expand the frontiers of food—they invent a constant stream of new dishes, new cooking processes and methods, and even new ways of experiencing food. How do they achieve this nonstop novelty? And what can culinary research and development teach us about how organizations innovate?

Our guest opens up the black box of elite culinary R&D to provide essential insights.

Drawing on years of unprecedented access to the best and most influential culinary R&D teams in the world, he reveals how they exemplify what he calls the uncertainty mindset.

Such a mindset intentionally incorporates uncertainty into organization design rather than simply trying to reduce risk.

It changes how organizations hire, set goals, and motivate team members and leads organizations to work in highly unconventional ways. A revelatory look at the R&D kitchen,

His book upends conventional wisdom about how to organize for innovation and offers practical insights for businesses trying to become innovative and adaptable.

We welcome the author of "The Uncertainty Mindset: Innovation Insights from the Frontiers of Food", Vaughn Tan

More about Vaughn:

https://uncertaintymindset.org

www.productivediscomfort.org

https://twitter.com/vaughn_tan

The Human Edge Live with Greg Orme Dec 01, 2021

Show notes

Our first face-to-face live episode with Greg Orme.

Even before the pandemic, it seemed the world was spinning so fast it's difficult to keep up. Arguably a lot of the technological disruption that was around in 2019 simply got accelerated – remote working, digitization, and AI to name just three. Our guest today notes in his book: Two hundred and fifty years ago the Industrial Revolution replaced our arms and legs at work. The fourth Industrial Revolution is now replacing our brains. He says

The Machine Age is engulfing both organizations and people. This shift is challenging the very essence of what it means to be human.

His book The Human Edge, how curiosity and creativity are your superpowers in the digital economy won Business Book of the year in 2020. He explores the skills you need to survive and thrive in a world of smartphones and AI.

He urges you to stop competing, and instead do things machines can't. To become a more human, human.

We welcome the author of "The Human Edge" Greg Orme. https://gregorme.org

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