The Innovation Show

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

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 workplace 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 se

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

When postwar American business was a vast sea of grey flannel suits and tasteful ties, a few unorthodox individuals were not so quietly shifting the paradigm toward the breezier, Google-ier workplace of today. These change agents include a raft of idealistic social scientists as well as nonacademics, like labour 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 gues

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 friend of the Innovation Show and

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

"Your margin is my opportunity” –Jeff Bezos 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 are formidable. It’s an extraordinary story, and it raises plenty of questions: Where did Amazon come fro

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

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”

Our guest today is an American psychologist who has carried out experiments on the theory of cognitive dissonance and invented the Jigsaw Classroom, a cooperative teaching technique that facilitates learning while reducing interethnic hostility and prejudice.  In his 1972 social psychology textbook, The Social Animal, he stated his First Law: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy," thus asserting the importance of situational factors in bizarre behavior. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major awards: for writing, for teaching, and for research.  In 2007 he received the William James Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Association for Psychological Science, in which he was cited as the scientist who "fundamentally changed the way we look at everyday life.”  A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked him as one of the most cited psychologists of the 20th century. He offici

What drives a sixty-four-year-old woman to hurl herself over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Why do we often create bigger risks than the risks we try to avoid? Why are corporate boards worried about risky personal behaviour by CEOs? Why are some nations quicker than others to recognise and manage risks like pandemics, technological change, and climate crisis? The answers define each person, organization, and society as distinctively as a fingerprint. Understanding the often-surprising origins of these risk fingerprints can open your eyes, inspire new habits, catalyze innovation and creativity, improve teamwork, and provide a beacon in a world that seems suddenly more uncertain than ever. How you see risk and what you do about it depend on your personality and experiences. How you make these cost-benefit calculations depend on your culture, your values, the people in the room, and even unexpected things like what you’ve eaten recently, the temperature, the music playing, or the fragrance in the air. Being a

To compete with today's increasing globalisation and rapidly evolving technologies, individuals and organisations must take their ability to learn to a much higher level. Today’s guest combines recent advances in neuroscience, psychology, behavioural economics, and education with key research on high-performance businesses to create an actionable blueprint for becoming a leading-edge learning organisation. Today’s book examines the process of learning from an individual and an organisational standpoint. From an individual perspective, the book discusses the cognitive, emotional, motivational, attitudinal, and behavioural factors that promote better learning. Organisationally, it focuses on the kinds of structures, culture, leadership, employee learning behaviours, and human resource policies that are necessary to create an environment that enables critical and innovative thinking, learning conversations, and collaboration. His work also provides strategies to mitigate the reality that humans can be refl

We have the real pleasure of exploring what it was like trying to innovate from within Kodak with none other than the Inventor of the Digital Camera - Steve Sasson. We discuss so many aspects of Innovation and the struggle to let go of a successful business model. In 1880, George Eastman invented and patented a dry-plate formula and a machine for preparing large numbers of plates. He also founded the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York. In 1884, he replaced glass photographic plates with a roll of film, believing in “the future of the film business.” Like many startups, Kodak faced severe challenges but soon became a household name. When selling cameras, Kodak used a razor-blade strategy: selling the cameras for a low cost, fuelling growth and profits from the film. With success came blind spots and little by little Kodak leadership paid less and less attention to hardware. This was the case despite Eastman’s original guiding principles: mass production at low-cost International distribution exte

Part 2 leans more on the theories of disruptive innovation: What is Cramming? The Nypro case study The case study of RCA versus Sony Long-life learning The death of "4 in 40" and the growth of adult learning. We welcome back the author of “Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns: Michael B Horn. More about Michael: https://michaelbhorn.com/

Part 2 coming week of 25th Oct 2021 A groundbreaking and timely prescription for education reform―from a leading expert in innovation and growth Recent studies in neuroscience reveal that the way we learn doesn’t always match up with the way we are taught. To stay competitive―academically, economically, and technologically―we need to rethink our understanding of intelligence and reevaluate our educational system. Disrupting Class offers a groundbreaking and timely prescription for education reform that incorporates customized learning, student-centric classrooms, and new technology. Featuring fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, this book will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently about learning and education. We welcome the author of “Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns: Michael B Horn. More about Michael here: https://michaelb

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus, we don't like to talk, or even think, about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain".  Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behaviour. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain. We

The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, our guest explains, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide an understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by"—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. It is an immense honour and real treat to welcome the author of a plethora of titles including the focus of today's show: Metaphors we Live By”, George Lakoff.

Today’s book is a provocation. Its goal is to help you to increase your CQ and your organization’s CQ. It encourages you to integrate both wonder and rigour into your daily life in order to produce new and novel products, services, and experiences that deliver greater value to your community and your organization. To this end, you’ll gain three major tools from this book: Catalyzing inquiry Integrating improvisation, and elevating intuition. When you build these three practices into your work on a daily basis, you will discover true creativity— and its output, innovation— beginning to take place. We welcome the author of "The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation, and Intuition at Work", Natalie Nixon More about Natalie https://www.figure8thinking.com

Our guest today is a learner who courageously took on challenging turnaround roles in industries where he had no prior experience. He used his rigorous French education and elite training as a McKinsey consultant to lead five companies as CEO, culminating in the transformation of Best Buy. During these years, he went through a personal transformation, from seeking to be the smartest person at the table to becoming a passionate and compassionate leader of people. By the time he became CEO of Best Buy in 2012, he had led turnarounds as head of EDS France, Vivendi’s video game division, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, and Carlson Companies. Despite his achievements by his early forties he was feeling disillusioned from chasing success. This is what inspired him to take “a step back and spend time looking into his soul to find a better direction for his life.” In his study with Catholic monks and a number of CEOs in France, he realized that work is a noble calling to serve others and an expression of love. He beli

Today’s book is an almost anthropological examination of the nature of corporate scandal: Why do values go awry? What happens when the wrong person gets a big job? Why is it so tempting to post false profits instead of telling the truth? How distorting is the prospect of stock market riches? In retrospect, Enron did not conceal their dubious transactions from the investing public, but Enron’s brass didn’t go out of their way to point them out, but for anyone willing to wade through the company’s financial documents, the numbers were clear. We are joined today by a brilliant journalist who did that work, who asked the questions others did not, and whose work would expose one of the biggest scams of all time. We welcome the author of “The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron”, Bethany McLean