The Innovation Crowd with Helen Dawson: Recent Episodes
Helen Dawson
This podcast is dedicated to helping leaders deliver more value from corporate innovation. It's a place where you can learn from others about how to beat the odds and innovate faster, cheaper and more successfully. In each episode, Helen Dawson interviews experts about the ingredients for success and the lessons they had to learn the hard way.
About me: I'm Helen Dawson. I help innovation leaders unblock progress so they can deliver value to the bottom line, via coaching and consultancy. Find me at www.linkedin.com/in/helen-dawson/
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Group Marketing Director of Specsavers, Carolyn McKeever, join us to talk about:
- How to transform a successful business at the pace of its customers.
- Adapting to a younger generation while still serving the main customer base
- Investing in legacy systems rather than living with "sticky-back plastic" tools
- Working in a founder-owned business versus a large corporate
- Why 'growing your own' talent is vital
- And why being right is less important than building relationships.
In this episode, Helen talks to Warren Minde of Innovation Leap about innovation as a human-centred activity.
We talk about:
- The Ikea Effect - why gatekeepers have more buy-in if they can co--create.
- Innovation's not a process, it's a human activity. And it's not linear, it's like a pinball machine.
- How to avoid the trap of listening to the Highest Paid Person's Opinion.
- How Warren's experience on Lynx deodorant taught him that 'customers don't give a f**k about you'
- Why benefits come before features when talking to stakeholders
- Thinking backwards from the future to get more radical new business models.
- Serious play and why work should be fun.
- And why you should call it out when things get weird.
You can find Warren at https://innovationleap.co.uk/
In this episode, Nils Jeners joins Helen to dive into methodology and how to build the skills needed to be an innovator. We cover:
- Why innovators are great networkers
- How to use workshops to harvest ideas using the Double Diamond Approach
- Why curiosity is the key attribute for team members
- The importance of visualising information to help teams make decisions and using those two by two matrices.
- Why your MVP should stay small
- Why networking with 1-2-1 virtual coffees is one of our favourite ways to meet people
Resources:
Double Diamond approach: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/skills-learning/the-double-diamond/
Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas
Lean Start-Up by Eric Ries
Sprint by Jake Knapp
Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alex Osterwalder
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Neel Arya, founder of Mettle Consulting, and Helen discuss the attributes needed by today's leaders, operating at the limits of their organisational structure and traditional problem-solving. Rather than definitive answers, we debate:
- Approaching the zone of confusion through child-like eyes.
- How do you create a space where people feel safe and can bring their true selves? The mindset needed for serious play.
- Vertical development for leaders.
- The importance of emotions in leadership and the workplace.
- The role of serendipity in success.
- Why we should be wary of case studies holding up organisations as exemplars in innovation.
- Doughnut economics and how systemic change might be needed.
- The importance of divergent thinking to hold potential futures lightly.
- The strengths needed by leaders and how that might differ for corporations versus start-ups
Resources for further reading:
- The four Cs that we talk about are: Courage, Curiosity, Collaboration, Compassion
- Cynefin framework: A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making (hbr.org)
- Bob Moesta’s Jobs to Be Done: What Is the Jobs to Be Done Framework (JTBD)? | Built In and 8 Elements of Jobs to Be Done: How to Uncover Customers' JTBD (therewiredgroup.com)
- Kate Raworth Doughnut Economics Doughnut | Kate Raworth
- Hogan profiles Hogan Assessments | Personality Tests That Predict Performance
Richard Holdsworth of V-Box joins us to talk about ways in which collaboration across the maritime industry is helping to use innovation to create better conditions for seafarers.Â
We talk about:
- The power of crowd-sourcing ideas from employees.
- Why corporations should resist the urge to buy bean bags and hoodies and instead, focus on forging partnerships with start-ups. Richard gives us practical tips on how to make those collaborations work.
- How rewarding it is to test ideas with customers.
- And how everything boils down to Sales 101 in some way.
And Richard shares some real examples to bring this to life.
Find out more at www.v-box.io
Andrew Webber from tech & innovation company Whitespace pulls on his years of experience building successful ecosystems both as part of Microsoft, during the pandemic with the Emergent Alliance and on behalf of companies like Rolls Royce and BP. The key is collaboration and making sure all boats rise with value for both start-ups and the corporate or public sector organisation. We talk about the mindset needed to work in an open way, objectives beyond revenue, making friends with procurement and the power of diverse thinking.
Elizabeth O'Neill joins us to explain why corporate innovation is not a tech problem but a people and culture problem. Liz is not only a tech leader herself but coaches CTOs to be inspirational technical leaders. Liz explains why positive conflict is a core skill, the myth of "IT being slow," why innovation can create the tech equivalent of space junk, and the actions leaders should take to develop their teams, especially women.
Mark Evans-Smith of Bear & Brute Consulting joins us to talk about building ecosystems within Rolls Royce and GSK. One of the ingredients of successful corporate innovation that we often talk about is building a network of partners covering start-ups, technology companies, academia and thought leaders. We dive into how Mark had 78 meetings a week with the ecosystem he built, how to partner with start-ups, why you should never reinvent the wheel and how to create a culture shift.
Tim Bennett joins us to give a flavour of life leading Shell's mobile refuelling business (TapUp) in the UK. We discuss the differences between being in a corporate venture or start-up versus the parent company, tracking the right sort of KPIs to measure success, recruiting the right talent and using corporate venturing to create strategic options for the future. A practical down-to-earth discussion about leading innovation inside a large multinational company.
Jeff Roberts from Jump Innovation's Futures team (Dive Without Fear) discusses avoiding linearity and hype cycles. Instead, he suggests weaving together an understanding of how external actions might cascade into your world. Join us to hear about how simplification is not your friend, but science is; the demise of the Blackberry; being anti-trend; weaponised integration; and Life After Cheap Money. And start thinking differently about the future.