Can You Cultivate Innovation in Your Team?

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Quick Take Podcast, the show where you get targeted advice and coaching for executives by executives. I'm Susie Tomenchok. And I'm James Capps. Give us 15 minutes and we'll give you three secrets to address the complex topic of issues that are challenging executives like you today. Hey, Quicksters. Welcome to Quick Take. I'm Susie along with James. Hi, James. Hello. Hello. How are you?

[00:00:31] I'm good. I'm good, good, good. How are you? Good. I thought I'd use our time today for selfish reasons. All right. I wish I could do the ha ha ha ha ha. Like the evil laugh. Thank you. Can't do wah ha ha. I am doing a leadership session with almost 200 people and they want me to help people think innovatively. Okay.

[00:00:56] And it's what's really interesting to me is there's so many companies that say we need to think in innovation and it's like such a buzzword. But the application of it is not always something that people think about. They like put it on their mission or vision or their goal is to be innovative thinkers. Right. But the application of it is different.

[00:01:17] And so I'm approaching it by one, thinking about yourself, like the mindset, be aware of your mindset, growth mindset kind of thing, self-awareness, understanding like how you're moving into things. And then talking a bit about team dynamics and what happens with teams when they get that set mindset or group think. And how do you break those? Oh, for sure. Those aspects. And then culturally, how do you support that? The psychological safety?

[00:01:46] How do you make it okay to fail fast? How do you all of those things? And I just think it's really interesting that people understand those concepts, but I thought it'd be interesting for us to talk about what does that look like in real life? Part of me thinks that you're kind of setting it up wrong. I mean, everything you described is really totally applicable and is a great way to ensure an organization executes.

[00:02:12] I felt like those were great strategies and approaches to execution, but I don't think those were necessarily specific to innovation. Oh, tell me more. Well, I feel like, you know, there was a really interesting study. I guess he was a designer of some kind in the automotive industry. And he actually was the designer or the architect of the commercial Hummer.

[00:02:38] So obviously the Hummer was a military vehicle, was very popular during, I guess that was the desert storm, I suppose, maybe back then. And then GM decided to make a commercial version. Obviously a car that exists can be deviated and changed into lots of things. So they were trying to figure out how to deal, figure out what that car should look like.

[00:02:59] The article I read was about this guy who basically got volunteers and they took them into a shopping mall or someplace where they could do like a group survey. Kind of, you know, you have big conference tables and chairs and bad donuts and you ask a series of questions. And so like most group events like that, they did all those things. And they spent a lot of time asking all these questions that just took up time and really ultimately tried to make them tired.

[00:03:27] Then he made everyone take a nap. And then when he woke them up, immediately after he woke them up, that's when he started asking questions about the car. And the research showed that by pulling them out of the moment and out of the sleep and immediately interrogating them, it put their mind in a different place. And I never forgot that.

[00:03:50] And I always think about how truly innovative thinkers are the ones that work really hard to get themselves into a different mindset and then work around that. How do I get that innovative thinking? How do I track that innovative thinking? How do I execute on that innovative thinking? But it's that creation of a situation in which your brain is functioning differently than it does on a daily basis. And I think that's an important element of innovation.

[00:04:18] How would you design that within a company? Well, I think famously Google did that in some regard. There were things like you had a certain percentage of your time that was supposed to go to creative or outside thinking. There were, you know, the Google campus says, and, you know, many places Google started it. Certainly I know BlackRock had it.

[00:04:42] I know that Comcast has it where, you know, they have these creative spaces or areas where you can go and have quiet time or just play card games. I think that was really the genesis of the ping pong table was getting you to a place where your brain was thinking differently. And I think culturally you had to find a way to allow your people to see the forest through the trees. It is interesting.

[00:05:06] I wonder how many leaders spend time considering how do I get my team in this different conditions or they just go through. I think that maybe that's the problem is we're so set in our kind of like meeting to meeting. This is how we do it. This is the agenda. This is how I run my one-on-ones. And it just becomes this regular thing. And that's why we limit our ability to think innovatively because we're so set in our ways. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:36] I think you get caught up in the back-to-back meeting and the insanity of it. You know, we've talked about how we fetish the overwork mindset. And I think that unless we have a culture or a leader or a ceremony or something that breaks that cycle. And I mean, it has to break it on a daily basis, you know, at a daily level. It can't like, oh, look, it's creative third day of the month or whatever. You know, it just doesn't work that way.

[00:06:05] You've got to create a situation in which people can get their heads in a different area. And it doesn't just apply to a product or a system. It could be the way we're approaching this workflow or the way we design project management within our company or the way we create proposals. Anything. Everything is better with a little bit of fresh air. That's the bumper sticker today. Exactly. It's just a matter of how do you get that to happen.

[00:06:36] It's so hard to do that. And I think, you know, it's funny. You see companies try to make that happen in meetings and stuff. And you still see those people in the room that are ignoring it. Oh, I'm just going to do email really quick. Why are we supposed to be turning our brains off? I'm going to go do this. And so it's not just like the big bad boss marching out in from the corner office saying, work harder. And everybody's dying to be creative.

[00:07:02] The employee and the employer are both culpable in this. But there's got to be a means and a method to get you to be more provoked in your thinking. It can't be a one and done. It's just like doing a team event. And I come in and it's a rah-rah. And everybody loves each other when you leave. And you learn more insights about how to work better with one another. But if you don't make commitments and apply it into the everyday, you just kind of click back into the normal.

[00:07:29] So even setting those conditions and having a conversation about it doesn't mean that that's it. You have to then commit to, then we're going to try it and stick with it and do it differently this way. Which is also difficult to do when the rest of what you have to get done has to get done. One of the other artifacts that I've seen work with success is the little black book.

[00:07:55] If I take what you're describing and build on that, which is we have the work to do. We have a head-down mindset. We've got to get ready for the proposal. We've got the big board meeting. We've got whatever. I don't have time for this goofy thing that James is describing, which is a Zen garden session with some hot tea. But we can have moments of brilliance. And if nothing else, capturing those in the little black book.

[00:08:22] So many people that I've known over the years who have been seen as those truly creative innovators have always had somewhere they could write those things down. They could quickly just jot it and keep that so that that brilliant moment wasn't lost. Certainly, it was always somewhere different. It was never in their daily notekeeper or whatever. It had to be in a special place because it was ceremonial. But it was a means by which they could recognize that as a creative moment.

[00:08:50] Capture that in a time and space where we don't have a lot of time and space. I really recommend you have that little device that helps you remember to be creative. To make that space. So we've talked about a portfolio, an innovative portfolio or things that identifying what areas of what you do, you need to spend time thinking about being more innovative. You know, the portfolio. Yes.

[00:09:18] Gosh, thank you for remembering that portfolio idea. That was brilliant. I think the portfolio is more of a place where you can showcase the work you've done. What I'm saying is that when you're stuck at the elevator for the third time because it's lunchtime and you can't get up to your floor and you have this idea for a X, Y, Z, you should have a place to put that. And that's less of a portfolio and more of just an epiphany scratch pad that allows you to keep those things together.

[00:09:45] And you may not look at it for a month, but you can remind yourself of those great ideas if you capture them. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Because innovation really is about being creative on how you approach something that you do regularly or that you need to improve. Something that's going to improve. I guess it is. It's all about improvement of whatever you're facing, whether it's a workflow, a project, a product.

[00:10:14] Well, it's looking at it differently, right? Maybe not improving necessarily. I just think, you know, sometimes I like to have a solution in mind and then look at it differently and it reinforces it. Right. Right. And I think that's what the, you know, we could talk about lots of ways you can do that. I mean, having that diversity and perspective is valuable, whether it's you or someone else or whatever. It just, it's a matter of how do you manifest that as best you can.

[00:10:43] Well, I think what we're proving in this discussion is that it's important to talk about what is innovation and what's important about it in the organization with your team. Don't just assume everybody sees it from your lens. Talk about it. Come up with ideas that you can innovate more frequently with one another. I go back to the way you started the conversation by saying you have this event and this is kind of your thinking.

[00:11:12] I would be interested in like just really interrogating that very thought. What is innovation for you? And I'd bet, you know, a pound of donuts, a pound, a dozen donuts. Can you buy donuts by the pound? I would like to know that. I'm sure I can. I'd bet that those, that innovation in that dialogue would be not that interesting. You know, it's like, well, we could, we could do exactly what we're doing, but 2% better.

[00:11:40] No, we're talking radical ideas. We're talking, thinking about things in a way that you never conceived of. I love that you so often hear really great thinkers and leaders say, you know, it came to me in the shower. Yeah. Right. Because what do they do? They're not thinking about the office in the shower. You're thinking about whether or not you need to wash your hair.

[00:12:02] And so that's the moment that your brain is just like those folks, you know, in the shopping mall working on the design of the Hummer after their, that quick nap is where they've let go so they can re-grab it. If you're thinking about how do you get people to behave and think about innovation, it's really how do you get their brains to turn off? Here's a good example. I've mentioned this before, working with a senior team, talking about their strategy for the next year.

[00:12:29] And they have, tell them to think big. What are you going to do? And really think big. And then they present. And then you say to them, now double those results. Right. What are you going to do? Yes, yes, yes. That is such a great. First, they are paralyzed by, I've already stretched what you mean. But if you have to think like that, you can come up. Yes, it might cost money. You may need more resources. There's not limits around it.

[00:12:58] Don't have limits around it. But expand the way you're thinking so that you can look at a world that way. And then maybe you come, your end is not that big. Maybe you bounce halfway back. I think we're kind of circling the same idea, which is we want people's brains to be in an uncomfortable state so that they can think about things differently. And that's the challenge is how do I, you know, get comfortable with the uncomfortable? That's exactly right.

[00:13:26] Because it takes time and it takes effort. That's right. And those are the things. And it's uncomfortable. Yeah. And it's not the part of it every day. So you have to, you know, you have to deviate from your standard process to get to that point. So very interesting. At first blush, it sounds sexy. That's the problem. It's challenging. Not easy. I don't know that I have the answers on exactly how I'm going to approach it. So no thanks to that. But this is an interesting conversation.

[00:13:55] I think there's definitely value for. Thanks, James. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Quick Take, where we talk about the questions that are on the minds of executives everywhere. Connect with us and share what's on your mind. You can find us on LinkedIn, YouTube, or whatever nerdy place on the internet you find your podcasts. All the links you really need are in the show notes.