Paint & Pipette: The Art & Science of Innovation

How can AI transform the way we work and innovate? In this special episode of The Paint and Pipette Podcast, we team up with Matt Abrahams, a lecturer of Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business and host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast. We dive into the world of generative AI in the sports industry, focusing on the groundbreaking work being done by the Portland Trail Blazers. Joining us are David Long, VP of Digital Innovation for The Portland Trail Blazers @ the Rose Quarter, and Christa Stout, their Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer. Together, we explore how AI is driving improvements across three key areas: revenue generation, customer experience, and operational efficiency. Christa and David share how they’ve empowered employees to experiment with AI, encouraging creativity and innovation across their organization. From automating routine tasks like customer feedback analysis to using AI for creative problem-solving, the Trail Blazers have created a supportive environment where AI is seen as a co-worker rather than a replacement. We also examine the importance of active leadership in normalizing AI adoption, ethical considerations, and best practices for helping teams embrace this technology. Whether you’re curious about AI’s potential in sports or looking for ways to introduce AI in your own business, this episode offers practical insights and real-world examples!

 Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing Christa Stout and David Long from the Portland Trail Blazers.
• Details on Jeremy’s new podcast, Beyond the Prompt.
• An overview of the NBA team, the Portland Trail Blazers.
• Christa and David’s roles within the organization.
• Three key areas where they are using AI to improve: revenue generation, customer experience, and operational efficiency.
• Jeremy’s collaboration with Christa and David.
• How they created a space for employees to experiment and share how they use AI.
• The benefits of framing AI as a co-worker for your team internally.
• How AI can empower workers: the impressive demo that one employee built using AI.
• Key takeaways for helping workers learn to use generative AI more effectively.
• Effective strategies for encouraging people who are skeptical about generative AI.
• Their approach to ethics, rules, standards, and instituting guardrails.
• Creative uses of AI from production to broadcasting to support the Portland Trail Blazers.
• How to vote for Think Fast, Talk Smart to win the Signal Award.
• Best practices and advice for anyone wanting to innovate with AI.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Matt Abrahams on LinkedIn
Christa Stout on LinkedIn
David Long on LinkedIn
Portland Trailblazers
Rose Quarter

Think Fast Talk Smart

Episode 134: Leveraging AI to unlock new levels of creativity and communication innovation

LinkedIn Live: Think Fast Talk Smart Explores GenAI @ Portland Trail Blazers

Cast your vote for the Signal Awards

Beyond the Prompt

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utle

Have you ever wondered how traditional leaders can be motivated to support creativity in the workplace? What is the secret to fostering creativity and driving innovation? Today, on the podcast, we welcome Teresa Amabile to help us explore the crucial role that managers play in shaping the inner work lives of their employees through the lens of her book, The Progress Principle. Teresa Amabile is a distinguished scholar and researcher in organizational behavior. She is renowned for her groundbreaking work on creativity, motivation, and the work environment. Joining as a co-host is Diego Rodriguez, a board member at LendingTree, whose expertise extends to pioneering tough tech, fintech, and shaping the future of transportation. In our conversation, we unpack her interest in ‘garden variety’ creativity, why reward incentives are not good motivation tools, and what kills creativity. Discover the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, typical progress inhibitors, and how failure can lead to innovative breakthroughs. We discuss the power of small wins, what extrinsic motivators are necessary, the role of AI in creativity, why the meaningfulness of work is essential for productivity, and much more. Join us as we uncover Teresa’s progressive unifying theory of design thinking and how it applies to the culture of creativity for organizations. Tune in now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Her shift in focus from studying exceptional individuals to ordinary people's creativity.
• Learn about the impact of social environments on creativity.
• How companies, like IDEO and Hewlett Packard, foster a culture of creativity.
• Teresa unpacks The Progress Principle concept and how it applies to organizations.
• Discover the value of “intrinsic motivation” and the steps to creating it.
• Effective strategies leaders can leverage to overcome a company crisis. 
• Hear how a major failure can lead to an innovative breakthrough.
• Potential of AI to gain deeper insights into motivation and creativity.
• Ways traditional leaders can be intrinsically motivated to drive creativity.
• Explore the concept of AI augmenting human intelligence and creativity.
• Our guests share advice and their final takeaways for listeners.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Teresa Amabile 

Teresa Amabile on LinkedIn

The Progress Principle

Diego Rodriguez on LinkedIn

LendingTree

IDEO

Hewlett Packard

‘Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and a World of Surprises’

Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

To what extent are our inner lives shaped by the stories we tell ourselves? And how can we learn to see the world as it truly is? Today on the podcast we have Diana Chapman, Co-Founder of The Conscious Leadership Group, an organization that helps leaders and their teams build trust and create conscious cultures through coaching, training, and more. She is also a facilitator, CEO coach, speaker, and co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, a book that distills decades of accumulated knowledge from working with CEOs and other leaders. In today’s conversation with Diana, we delve into the complexities of what it means to accept our inner emotions, how we can learn to understand our reactivity to other people, and how these skills can help us foster environments that preserve psychological safety without sacrificing candor. Tuning you’ll learn about the profound lessons Diana learned at The Hendricks Institute, the impact they had on her life, and how she and her team help organizations foster conscious leadership and collaboration. We also delve into the importance of play, why the enneagram is such a useful tool for leaders, and what it means to operate in your Zone of Genius. Tune in to hear all of Diana’s insights on life, leadership, and learning how to see the world as it truly is!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Get to know today’s guest, Diana Chapman, and how she discovered the Hendricks Institute.
• The tools Diana acquired there and how they changed her life.
• Understanding the radical concept that ‘I am the creator of my own suffering’.
• Reactivity, acceptance, and how to change your behavior (and the outcomes).
• Unpacking the concept of radical responsibility.
• Learning to get comfortable with all the emotions and sensations in your body.
• The intelligence underlying our emotions and what they can teach us.
• How to preserve psychological safety without sacrificing candor.
• Diana’s approach to creating an environment where candor can propel innovation.
• The practices she and her team give organizations to foster these environments.
• Diana’s insights on the importance of play.
• How to assess whether there is enough play in your life.
• Advice on bringing more play into your life.
• Why the enneagram is such a meaningful tool for leaders.
• Learning to embrace the gifts and shadow side of your enneagram type.
• How you can use the enneagram as a parent to deepen your connection with your kids.
• The Zone of Genius: what it is, why it’s important, and how can discover it.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Diana Chapman on LinkedIn

Diana Chapman on X

The Conscious Leadership Group

The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership: A New Paradigm for Sustainable Success

The Hendricks Institute

Bernard Roth

Brendan Boyle

Jennifer Brandy Wallace

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

Creativity is not an exact science and ideas often strike when we least expect them. But what if we could curate an environment ideal for sparking creativity? Today we are joined by Josh Ruff and Marcus Hollinger from Stoked to discuss their incredible new workshop, Ideascience. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about how music inspired their Ideascience creation, why they create a space for checking in with their team at the beginning of every meeting, how task switching overcomes cognitive fixation, and how meditation has improved ideas in brainstorms. They then go on to tell us about what Ideascience actually entails before walking us through the process of the workshop. Our guests even delve into some neuroscience facts and how they relate to creativity. Finally, we explore the importance of being goofy and allowing yourself to play in any creative process. You don’t want to miss this one so press play now! 

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing today’s guests, Josh Ruff and Marcus Hollinger. 
• They tell us about the product that they are launching, Ideascience. 
• The inspiration for this incredible program and the goal of Ideascience. 
• How music is linked to Ideascience and the importance of ‘getting real’ with your partners. 
• Why they like to ‘protect’ the first 15 minutes of every meeting to check in with everyone. 
• How our guests continue to make downtime to have space for creativity a priority. 
• Testing the theory that task switching overcomes cognitive fixation. 
• Our guests explain their art walk section of these studies. 
• How meditation improved the quality and quantity of ideas in brainstorms. 
• They tell us about the Ideascience Council.
• What Ideascience actually is and what the launch experience will entail.
• How theta brainwave activity contributes to creativity and how that’s part of Ideascience. 
• They walk us through the steps of the Ideascience workshop.
• The importance of the sequence of events of the workshop. 
• How their nine-by-nine method intersects with Ideascience. 
• Going from concept to habit and the rewards that motivate people.
• The importance of play in creativity to lighten the load of hard work. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Joshua Ruff on LinkedIn

Joshua Ruff on Instagram

Marcus Hollinger on LinkedIn

Marcus Hollinger on Instagram

Marcus Hollinger on Threads

Ideascience

Stoked
Stoked on LinkedIn

Stoked on Instagram

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

Today, we join forces with Henrik Werdelin to launch Beyond The Prompt, a podcast that explores how companies leverage AI to streamline operations and better serve their customers. Henrik is a remarkable entrepreneur and one of the visionary founders of Prehype, a community of entrepreneurial individuals dedicated to assisting one another and collaborating with companies to foster innovation and create innovative ventures. In this episode, we sit down with Greg Shove, CEO of next-generation business upskilling platform Section, to discuss his experience of leveraging AI in the context of optimizing, accelerating, and transforming various aspects of Section's operations. Employing its exclusive sprint format, Section collaborates with renowned business school professors to provide top-notch business education that translates into tangible real-world results. In this conversation, Greg unpacks the adoption of AI in the workplace, the challenges and opportunities it presents, and specific use cases within Section. Tuning in, you’ll discover the importance of trust and transparency in AI adoption, the everyday tasks that AI can help with, and a framework for AI integration. You’ll also gain insight into AI’s role in education, the reinvention of education delivery, common misconceptions around AI, and much more! For a valuable look at the pragmatic considerations, hurdles, and possibilities associated with integrating AI into everyday business and educational contexts, listen in now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Greg's role at Section and his motivation for pivoting to online learning and AI.
• How the pandemic was a catalyst and a false signal for Section.
• The pivotal moment when Greg realized the power of AI.
• Aspects of leadership and trust needed for AI adoption.
• Three modes for approaching AI: optimize, accelerate, and transform.
• AI’s potential in high-value tasks and decision-making processes
• Challenges in prompting AI effectively and learning from your mistakes.
• Examples of tasks that are suitable and not suitable for AI.
• Strategies for experimenting with and adopting AI into your workflow.
• Common misconceptions and pitfalls of using AI.
• The role of AI in education and the potential disruptions it may cause.
• Why a dynamic AI strategy, experimentation, and knowledge of advancements are critical.
• Greg’s thoughts on the future trends and potential of AI.
• Jeremy and Henrik’s main takeaways from the conversation. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Greg Shove 

Greg Shove on X

Greg Shove on LinkedIn

Section

Claude

ChatGPT

Bard

Perplexity

Fathom

Superhuman

Whisper

Voice AI

Anthropic

Henrik Werdelin 

Henrik Werdelin on X

Prehype

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

Writing and researching to produce content is a full-time job that demands hours and hours of dedication. Today’s guest is the wonderful Billy Oppenheimer, writer and research assistant for Ryan Holiday, and he is here to share his creative process with us. Tuning in, you will hear all about what it’s been like to see his audience grow, his research process, his notecard system and how he measures them, the time he spends reading, the idea of honing your filter, and why he likes making physical notes instead of digital ones. We then delve into his incredible newsletter and how it has evolved before Billy tells us about how he aims to achieve his ultimate goal; to write books. Finally, we discuss Billy’s definition of ‘creative health’ and why he is basically always working. To hear all this and more, press play now!

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to today’s guest, Billy Oppenheimer. 
• How Billy has grown his audience and what it’s been like to watch it grow. 
• Why Billy relies on his research to create content and he shares his notecard system. 
• How often he spends reading and how he knows when to give up on a book. 
• What honing your filter means and how Billy does that. 
• Billy walks us through his entire process when reading and making notes on a book. 
• The pros and cons of physical notes as opposed to digital ones and why he prefers physical. 
• Billy’s newsletter, the process, its evolution, and how it helps him consume information. 
• Why Billy considers social media after he’s written his newsletter. 
• He tells us about his ultimate goal to write books. 
• What his mentor, Ryan Holiday has taught him about writing. 
• How Billy divides his time between working on his newsletter and working for Ryan. 
• The (very small) role ChatGPT plays in Billy’s work. 
• Why Billy measures the number of notecards he makes every single day. 
• Billy’s definition of ‘creative health’.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Billy Oppenheimer

Billy Oppenheimer Newsletter

Billy Oppenheimer on LinkedIn

Billy Oppenheimer on X

Billy Oppenheimer on Instagram

Ryan Holiday

Super Communicators

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

From psychology to neuroscience and beyond, concepts of intelligence, genius, and hyperfixation are key to our understanding of human potential. During this episode, David McRaney joins us to discuss a topic of great import to our course on transformative design; the complexity of the concept of genius. David is a famed journalist, author, podcaster, and expert on belief, currently researching his next book. Join us as we explore the origin story of genius, the role of obsessively pursuing one’s interest, and the inevitability of genius and the implications of labels. In closing, David answers two key questions on the autism spectrum and varying cultural contexts behind the concept of genius. Thanks for tuning in! 

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing David McRaney, journalist, author, and podcaster. 
• Why the topic of genius is important enough to him to research. 
• Different ways to approach the topic of genius, from psychology to neuroscience and beyond. 
• The origin story behind genius, and the concept of a birthday party. 
• David’s findings from spending time interviewing individuals with extraordinarily high IQs.
• Jeremy’s current thesis that giving people the opportunity to pursue their interests until the point of saturation. 
• Accounting for bias in the realm of genius and the danger of labelling. 
• The relationship between hyperfixation, genius, and the autism spectrum.
• How works of genius usually come into existence. 
• Cultural context for the concept of genius. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

David McRaney

David McRaney on X

How Minds Change

David McRaney on Instagram

David Krakauer

So Good They Can’t Ignore You

The Collins Institute

James Alcock

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

In today’s world, we’re caught between two failure cultures. One tells us that it must be avoided at all costs, while the other tells us to "fail fast” and often. The issue is that both approaches lack the necessary distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. Today, we’re joined by author, scholar, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, and champion of psychological safety, Amy Edmondson, who believes that we need to reframe our understanding of failure and discover what it means to “fail well.” In this episode, we discuss her latest book, The Right Kind of Wrong, and gain some insight into the inherent relationships between organizational learning and change management, psychological safety and innovation, and failure and the creative process. Tuning in, you’ll learn when to quit, when to experiment, and how to measure your failure performance, plus you’ll also hear some remarkable stories that illustrate what it means to be a hero of failure! Believe it or not, there is a science to failing well, and Amy Edmundson is here to provide us with a practical framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Amy’s roots in organizational learning and the journey her career has taken since.
• The NYT article that put her studies of psychological safety on the global map.
• A look at the relationship between psychological safety and idea generation.
• Cultivating the idea of failure as input rather than outcome: it’s part of the process!
• What we can learn from “failure heroes” like Thomas Edison and Buckminster Fuller.
• How to know when you should quit and when you should persist.
• The playfulness and willingness to experiment that comes with being a hero of failure. 
• Failure diagnostics: practical ways to measure your failure performance.
• What it takes to be excruciatingly present, why context is shaped by the level of uncertainty, and more from our lightning round with Amy!
• Insight into Amy’s creative process, which starts with a whole lot of conceptualizing.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Amy Edmondson

Right Kind of Wrong

Teaming

The Fearless Organization

Amy Edmondson on LinkedIn

Amy Edmondson on X

Thinkers50

Richard Hackman

'What Google Learned in Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team'

Quit

IDEO

Only the Paranoid Survive

American Icon

The Widow Clicquot

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

The likelihood is that the tactics that were effective for businesses just a few years ago may no longer yield the results needed. Profound shifts in the business landscape have exposed a significant disparity between conventional strategic approaches and the evolving dynamics of the contemporary real-world environment. In this episode, we sit down with Rita McGrath, a celebrated author and captivating speaker, to discuss how leaders can navigate the complexity of cultural shifts in modern business practices. Rita is a renowned expert in steering innovation and growth through uncertain times, and she consistently ranks among the world’s Top 10 management thinkers. As a Columbia Business School professor, advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs, and author of bestsellers like Seeing Around Corners and The End of Competitive Advantage, her work has had a lasting impact on the business world. In our conversation, we unpack the strategies managers can employ to secure investments in innovation, the reasons behind organizational resistance to innovation, and the challenges of traditional hierarchical structures. We explore her Stepping-Stone Strategy for innovation, the value of a call option, the potent concept of level-skipping, and the steps for identifying debilitating assumptions. Gain insights into how innovators can advance their careers, effectively allocating resources, crafting the perfect project, and much more! Tune in and discover how to redefine traditional career pathways and drive innovation in your organization with strategy guru Rita McGrath!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Accomplishments Rita is most proud of and the role of Twitter in her life.
• What managers can do to ensure investment in innovation is not undercut.
• Unpacking why the concept of innovation is not adopted by organizations.
• Advice for people in the innovation space to safeguard their careers.
• Why hierarchy is the enemy of the truth and level skipping is explained.
• Steps for implementing level-skipping within an organization.
• The role of expertise and when it can become a liability to innovation.
• Getting real about how the landscape of industry has changed.
• Pragmatic ways of identifying the assumptions limiting your potential. 
• Maintaining a balance between planning and taking action.
• Human capital and deploying resources against an opportunity.
• Allocating resources for exploration, research, and development.
• Discover the differences between funding and budget models.
• Learn the fundamentals of managing a diverse team. 
• Rita shares her approach to writing a book and how she decides on a project.
• Redefining career pathways to align with the new era of business.
• She offers some final words of wisdom for listeners.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Rita McGrath 

Rita McGrath on X

Rita McGrath on LinkedIn

Rita McGrath on Instagram

Rita McGrath on YouTube

Columbia Business School

Design for Belonging

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn

Are you looking for some tips, tricks, and techniques to propel your spontaneous speaking to higher levels? Our guest today is of the belief that there is no right way to communicate, there are better ways and worse ways but no one right way! Joining us today is Matt Abrahams, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter: How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot. As you tune in you’ll hear from Matt about the phenomenon of reverse plumbing, how to reframe your anxiety, and how the Rule of Lung works. He highlights why you should be maximizing your mediocracy and takes us through some simple, pragmatic exercises on how to do it. This is a truly insightful episode filled with valuable insights including why heuristics are important, how to hack them, and why having structure can amplify your creativity and freedom. Be sure to tune in now, thanks for listening!

Key Points From This Episode:

• We dive into the launch of Matt’s book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter.
• Matt describes the phenomenon of reverse plumbing and why it happens.
• He highlights a technique for reframing anxiety, and putting it into perspective.
• What’s really happening when we reframe our anxiety.
• The Rule of Lung and how it works. 
• How to incorporate the Rule of Lung (in spontaneous or improvisational speech).
• Maximizing mediocrity and why he believes we should seek to be mediocre.
• A quick note on why memorizing does not work for planned speaking. 
• Simple pragmatic exercises to strengthen your muscle and maximize your mediocrity. 
• We talk about heuristics and how they can be helpful in thinking and responding.
• He expands on the concept of meta-awareness.
• Why heuristics are important, why we need to hack them, and how to do that practically. 
• A short list of environments where you can use a heuristic.
• Matt shares useful hacks (and heuristics) to use in an apology setting. 
• His thoughts on the biggest communication mistake people make.
• Tapping into not what we know but what the audience needs, in a spontaneous moment.
• We discuss the concept of cathedral versus brick. 
• He talks about his podcast, Think Fast Talk Smart.
• How he prepares for spontaneity in his podcast. 
• He highlights why having structure can allow for creativity and freedom to flow. 
• The value of mistakes and how to reframe them. 
• Matt and Jeremy answer a question from the audience about adding connection points when answering or responding.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Matt Abrahams on LinkedIn

Matt Abrahams

Matt Abrahams on X

Matt Abrahams on YouTube

Matt Abrahams on Instagram

Matt Abrahams on TikTok

Matt Abrahams on Threads

Dan Cline on LinkedIn

Ed Catmull

Patricia Ryan Maddison

Scott Galloway on X

Jeremy Utley

Jeremy Utley Email

Jeremy Utley on X

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn