In Yellowstone, researchers found ravens present at wolf activity 99.7% of the time in winter—not just at kill sites, but while wolves traveled, rested, and hunted. Why?

Neither needs the other to survive—but together, they’re dramatically more successful.

Ravens lead wolves to food sources they would otherwise miss. Wolves tear open what ravens never could. Together they create a surplus that cascades outward: magpies, foxes, insects, and soil all benefit from a single partnership between two species that chose proximity over independence.¹

It’s not a frictionless relationship. Ravens steal up to a third of a wolf pack’s kill. Some biologists believe wolves evolved pack hunting partly to defend against that loss.²

Real mutualism involves ongoing negotiation, not harmony. The relationship works not because it’s easy, but because what each partner uniquely contributes outweighs the cost of sharing.

If ravens and wolves (and insects, protozoa, fungus…) can get this right, why does it seem humans cannot?

Thank you for reading or listening. Each week, my goal is to help build the knowledge and tools we need to create the regenerative future. I’d love to hear what the piece sparked for you.

Go Seahawks!

Register for our live monthly webcast at www.regenerouslabs.com/innovatingoutloud

Our next guest is Juliana Tioanda from Xbox. February 26th at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET.

AI Disclosure: Researched with Perplexity. Written and edited with the help of my custom Claude assistants. Header image generated by Gemini Nano Banana.

Sources:

* Stahler, D.R., Heinrich, B., & Smith, D. (2002). “Common ravens, Corvus corax, preferentially associate with grey wolves, Canis lupus, as a foraging strategy in winter.” Animal Behaviour 64(2): 283–290. See also: Heinrich, B. (1999). Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds. HarperCollins.

* Vucetich, J.A. & Peterson, R.O., Isle Royale Wolf-Moose Study, Michigan Technological University. 50+ year longitudinal study.

* Hoek, T.A., Axelrod, K., Biancalani, T., Yurtsev, E.A., Liu, J., & Gore, J. (2016). “Resource Availability Modulates the Cooperative and Competitive Nature of a Microbial Cross-Feeding Mutualism.” PLOS Biology 14(8): e1002540.

* The Allegory of the Long Spoons appears independently across Jewish (attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok), Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Middle Eastern traditions. In the Chinese version, the utensils are long chopsticks.

* Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist. Chelsea Green Publishing.

* Image, Parable of the Long Spoons, https://www.iciclefund.org/founding-parable

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Like most of us, I’m trying to wrap my head around what is happening in Minneapolis.

There are so many thoughts I have that add nothing constructive to the conversation. But the reality in Minneapolis is the thing I’ve been trying to make sense of all week—writing about anything else would have been disingenuous. So I looked for a question that I could try to answer that builds on what my team and I have been exploring. The question I landed on is:

When systems operate at scales you can’t influence, what can you actually do?

Read or listen to the full piece on Substack or Apple Podcasts.

Want to support our neighbors in Minneapolis-St. Paul? Check out this post with links to vetted organizations on the ground there. Thanks, Charlie Sellers, for showing us all how it’s done.

Sources:

Eric Roper, “How Minnesota’s civic culture fueled a tough ICE resistance and took the feds by surprise,” The Minnesota Star Tribune, January 29, 2026. Link

Z. Marie, “What’s It Like to Coordinate a Mutual-Aid Network in Minneapolis?” Harper’s Bazaar, January 28, 2026. Link

Organizations mentioned:

Defend612

DHH Church (Dios Habla Hoy) - Link

SEAMAAC (Philadelphia)

Stand With Minnesota (comprehensive giving directory)

Unidos MN, “Our Story.” Link

Community Aid Network MN. Link

Monarca Rapid Response Network. Link

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Last week I asked: What if “enough” is what makes our systems playable? On our latest episode of the IOL webcast, Taryn and I got to explore that question with someone who’s been designing more than “enough” into physical systems for years.

Sean Quinn is the Director of Regenerative Design at HOK, one of the world’s largest architecture and design firms. He was one of the people who first introduced me to regenerative principles when I was leading Microsoft’s data center of the future initiative—and fundamentally changed how I think about problem-solving.

Our conversation wandered from Stanford medical campuses to Napa vineyards to the question of whether a data center could function like a forest. We talked about why patience is the real barrier to change (not cost), why “win-win” isn’t the same as mutualism, and what happens when you ask obvious questions like why do we even have walls?

Never miss an episode - register to attend live at www.regenerouslabs.com/innovatingoutloud

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Consider two paintings by Picasso.

The first: Science and Charity, painted when he was fifteen. A doctor takes a sick woman’s pulse. A nun holds a child. The scene is realistic, technically masterful, emotionally clear. You know immediately what you’re seeing and what to feel.

The second: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted ten years later. Five figures, fractured into geometric planes. Faces that look like African masks. Bodies that seem to exist in multiple dimensions at once. You’re not sure what you’re seeing. You’re not sure what to feel.

Which one do you prefer? Which one do you understand?

Most people find the realism easier. We can say “that’s beautiful” or “I like that.” The Cubism is harder. We have to work to see what’s there. We have to construct meaning rather than receive it. And somewhere in that difficulty, a thought creeps in about the abstract: My kid could have painted that.

But could they?

This week, I wanted to better understand abstraction—what it is and how to get better at it—because I know, intuitively, that it’s a core skill of innovation. I set out to confirm that intuition and landed somewhere I never expected.

------

Thanks for exploring with me! Read or listen to more at Innovating Out Loud on Substack ... and join us next month for our live Innovating Out Loud webcast. Our next guest is Juliana Tioanda of Xbox! Register at regenerouslabs.com/innovatingoutloud.

Sources for your poetry practice:

Start with Poetry 180 (loc.gov/poetry/180) — Former Poet Laureate Billy Collins selected 180 poems for high school students, one for each day of the school year. They’re designed to be understood on first read. No analysis required. Just experience.

Sources

* O'Sullivan et al. (2015), "'Shall I compare thee': The neural basis of literary awareness," Cortex; University of Liverpool fMRI research showing poetry activates central executive and saliency networks

* Biomimicry Institute design methodology

* “The Teaching of English” (1902), quoted in Jackson Hole Classical Academy

* Cambridge University Poetry and Memory Project; New York Times, “Memorize That Poem!” (2017)

* City Journal, “In Defense of Memorization” (2023), citing cognitive development research

* McKinsey (2018), “AI, automation, and the future of work”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

One of the more famous quotes attributed to Einstein (which ironically is just enough of what he said, but are not actually his words) is “make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.” The aphorism was derived from Einstein’s work trying to conceive of an irreducibly simple theory of everything. I’m not afraid to admit my aim is more modest: to design simple enough systems to enable “8 billion individuals to thrive together.” The Lab’s mission.

To that end, we’ve been exploring what “enough” looks like as practical infrastructure—not philosophical stance, but conditions that enable action—with our collaborative partners.

Listen here or read on Substack.

Thank you for entertaining another week of my Innovating Out Loud, Sunday say-it-ugly practice. I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on the ideas and questions presented. Whatever it sparks for you, leave a comment. Join the practice and say it ugly!

And don’t forget to tune in this Thursday, January 22, at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET for our next live recording of the Innovating Out Loud webcast with our guest, the global head of regenerative design at HOK, Sean Quinn. Register Here!

AI Disclosure: Based on research completed with Perplexity, writing and editing with my custom writing companion on Claude, and image generation with Gemini.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Too Dumb to Know I Can't - Replace "I'm not creative" with this and see what shifts

Read by my JoAnn-AI assistant created with ElevenLabs.

This week’s writing practice started with a question: What do I want to understand more deeply right now?

The answer was another question—one I get asked often: How do you do what you do?

For years, my shorthand was a self-deprecating joke: “I’m too dumb to know I can’t.” It felt like an explanation. Recently, I learned a new phrase for it though: compressed complexity.

That sent me down a research rabbit hole that overwhelmingly supports innovation as something learnable. It’s not a born thing—it’s a built thing. Most people were just never trained to think this way or put into situations that required it.²

I love this, because (1) I want to share practical discoveries and (2) every future-of-work headline says the same thing: innovation is the new currency.¹ Yet one of the hardest problems to solve in innovation leadership is that so many people don’t see themselves as creative or as “innovators.”

Listen to hear how anyone can learn the skills of innovation.

Or read the article and leave a comment on Substack.

And don’t forget to register for the next live recording of Innovating Out Loud, the webcast. Jan 22nd (and every 4th Thursday monthly) at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET. Our next guest is Sean Quinn, head of regenerative design at HOK.

Sources

* Shawn Kanungo, “The Infinite Mindset: Why Innovation Now Beats Knowledge” — https://shawnkanungo.com/blog/the-infinite-mindset-why-mediocre-jobs-are-dying-and-innovation-is-the-new-currency

* “The influence of creative self-efficacy, creative self-identity, and innovation support,” International Journal of Business Innovation and Research (2023) — https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/full/10.1504/IJBIR.2023.128334

* Tierney & Farmer, “Creative Self-Efficacy,” Academy of Management Journal (2002); Frontiers in Psychology (2022) — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.937971/full

* Miller, “The Magical Number Seven”; Förster et al. on Construal Level Theory — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology); https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11943103/

* Beghetto, “Creative Self-Efficacy Among Children and Adolescents,” Frontiers in Psychology (2020) — https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02237/full

* Dweck, “Growth Mindsets: The Power of Praising Process and Persistence” — https://www.library.pima.gov/blogs/post/growth-mindsets-the-power-of-praising-process-and-persistence/

* Bandura, “Self-Efficacy Interventions,” Handbook of Behavior Change — https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/handbook-of-behavior-change/selfefficacy-interventions/D4EC41A2F16CB6171058C5B00AE575AB

* “Flexing the Frame: Training Abstract, Concrete, and Ambidextrous Thinking” (Dissertation, UT Arlington) —https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/psychology_dissertations/163/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Happy New Year, Community! This is a new weekly practice I’m trying to build—a companion to our live monthly Innovating Out Loud recording. Every Sunday, I’ll share research and sense-making in progress. Faster synthesis. Five iterations instead of fifty. Stopping before it’s perfect, once I feel there’s value worth sharing. Not treating it as precious—putting it on the table so we can pretty it up together. Building on it in my own thinking throughout the week, and hopefully in yours too.

In other words: saying it ugly. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what this week’s research is about—modeling the behavior we want to see more of.

Listen here or read the full article at innovatingoutloud.substack.com

And, if you want to join the practice, leave a comment or question.

Here’s a question I have:

What’s one way you’re moving from “done to” to “done with” in your organization? I’d like to hear what’s working—and what’s not.

Sources

* Behavior Change Research Compilation, Perplexity — https://www.perplexity.ai/search/find-recent-articles-and-resea-Yr7gtUUgTLe25thuLeGdMg and https://www.perplexity.ai/search/2473db6e-56c1-4a95-9ed0-73524d3e797f

* Forrester, “Build Trust Through Strategic Communication During Reorganizations” (January 2026) — Report RES190191

* McKinsey, “Transformational Behavior Change” (2025) — referenced in source 1

* HR Executive, “5 Ways to Build Transformations That Really Matter in 2026” (December 2025) — https://hrexecutive.com/5-ways-to-build-transformations-that-really-matter-in-2026/

Connections to The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft: B2Me Journey (emotional appeals precede cognitive ones), Trust Levers (establish trust, create personal connection, minimize uncertainty), Do The Work (bridge the knowing-doing gap through practice), Boundary Crossers (translation teams that ensure consistent interpretation across functions), Pattern #2-Innovating Over the Years (building change capacity as ongoing capability, not one-time event).

AI Disclosures: Written with Claude and my custom AI writing partner persona. Infographic created by Gemini nano banana from Perplexity research.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com

Why Your AI Adoption Is Probably Stalled—And What Actually Works

We just wrapped our second Innovating Out Loud session, and it was packed with takeaways and resources for everyone.

Dean Carignan—my co-author on The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft and someone leading AI transformation with a large team inside Microsoft—joined Taryn and me to talk about what’s actually happening on the ground.

Not the hype. Not the theoretical frameworks. The real stuff.

Here’s what struck me most: even inside a technology company building the AI tools, adoption patterns look remarkably similar to what every organization is experiencing. The early adopters are off and running. The early majority is waiting. And a lot of people have tried AI once, found it underwhelming, and written it off entirely.

Dean introduced a concept that we really like: the sampling rate. How often do you go back and try AI tools you’ve dismissed? Because the tools are improving at a pace we’ve never seen in software, what couldn’t work last month might work today.

We also got into:

* Why starting with AI (instead of starting with the workflow you want to change) almost guarantees you’ll stall out

* The “rule of five”—a simple heuristic for deciding what to automate

* How capturing “digital exhaust” from meetings can give you richer information while attending fewer of them

* Why leaders modeling AI use matters more than mandating it (Satya’s onstage demo moment is a perfect example)

* The pioneers, settlers, and town planners framework—and why not everyone should be swinging for the fences

We got into some “say it ugly” territory that I think a lot of organizations need to hear. So if you missed, catch the replay here or on our YouTube channel. And share it with your team.

What resonated with you? Reply and let us know—we read every response.

Coming up next month: We’re diving into regenerative design with the man leading it at HOK for clients in every industry, Sean Quinn. Join us and find out how you can create mutual benefit, accelerate internal and external innovation adoption, and stretch your organization’s imagination by aiming for positive.

Sign up for the next session →Live on January 22, 2026 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET

Thanks for being a part of this community,

JoAnn & Taryn

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Books

ResourceAuthorLinkCrossing the Chasm Geoffrey Moore Amazon | Author’s Site The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft Dean Carignan & JoAnn Garbin Amazon | Simon & Schuster Wonderworks: The 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature Angus Fletcher Amazon | Simon & Schuster Primal Intelligence: You Are Smarter Than You Know Angus Fletcher Amazon | Author’s Site

Podcasts & Shows

AI Daily Brief Daily 15-minute show breaking down how companies are approaching AI transformation. Dean’s recommendation. Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website Finding Mastery Dr. Michael Gervais interviews high performers on mindset and excellence. JoAnn mentioned participating in a vision webcast. Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website JoAnn’s interview on YouTube

Free AI Training

Microsoft Learn - Copilot Training Free courses on Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI fundamentals Microsoft Learn Google AI Essentials Free course on AI fundamentals from Google (under 10 hours) Grow with Google | Google Skills The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft on LinkedIn Learning The many frameworks of innovation, and how to use them, JoAnn and Dean mentioned from their book of the same name.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit innovatingoutloud.substack.com