In today’s episode, my co-host, Aaron Eden, and I are really excited to have our guest, Kyle Nel. Kyle is the Executive Director of Lowe's Innovation Labs and has a very unique approach toward innovation which was fun to explore in this episode. They leverage a narrative-driven approach that uses story (and comics) as a strategic tool to map out the future for Lowe’s that they are working to bring to life.  They then work backward to build that future, rapidly testing technology prototypes to solve everyday problems.

In the episode, Kyle takes us through his journey of making this the working reality of Lowe's Innovation Labs.

Other topics we cover are:

• How to get an innovation lab up and running
• How to use comic books to build leadership buy-in and excitement
• How Lowe’s is applying virtual and augmented Reality
• How to understand the motivation of the people in your organization
• How to leverage behavioral economics to drive organizational transformation

We’re really excited today to have our guest, Ryan Staggs. Ryan is the Assistant Vice President of Integration & Mobility Services at the Hospital Corporation of America. Ryan’s work revolves heavily around increasing innovation within the the IT department and making it more nimble and responsive.  In this episode, we dive into how he’s been able to make that happen. When thinking about innovation, people quickly default to new products so hearing about the impact that Ryan has been able to drive by transforming IT department functions is refreshing.

Other topics include:

• Innovating how the core business works (within IT, HR, finance, et cetera)
• Transforming how the IT department functions to be more nimble and responsive
• Creating a more fulfilling work environment by discovering and creating new value
• Innovating at scale in a Fortune 70 healthcare organization
• Leveraging the SEE model for IT - Stabilize, Enhance, Expand
• Being fearless and willing to fail
• Building an interactive data visualization for ER in 12 weeks

In today’s episode, we’re really excited to have with us Vanessa Moore, the VP of Programs and Operations at the San Diego Food Bank. They are striving to end hunger in their area by serving over 370,000 individuals every month.

Not too long ago, they went through one of our Lean Innovation Bootcamps tailored for Non-Profit and Social Impact organizations. As a result, they reinvented their volunteer program to better serve their stakeholders and have changed the way the organization functions when it comes to creating new value.

We’re also lucky to have as my co-host, Amelia Klawon, one of the leaders of our Non-Profit and Social Impact organization programs and services. If you’re interested in learning more about that, please don’t hesitate to reach out to her via email at [email protected]

Other topics that we’ll discuss include:

• How the San Diego Food Bank goes about identifying new ways to create value
• How to put a repeatable, creative system in place
• How they reinvented their volunteer program
• The huge importance of having leadership buy-in
• How to do customer development with leadership and other employees
• How to go from empathy and experiments to a brand new initiative and roll-out

As an intrapreneur, dealing with compliance can certainly be a hurdle to overcome. In today’s episode, Moves the Needle CEO Brant Cooper and I are excited to have Stephen Poor talk about how compliance departments can better enable innovation and how law firms can be more innovative. Stephen is the Chairman of Seyfarth Shaw, an international law firm comprised of over 900 lawyers. Whether you’re a lawyer or an intrapreneur, you’re in for a treat.

 

If you’d like to have a conversation around how you can transform your organization to make discovering new value business as usual, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]. I’d be happy to help you get a call scheduled with one of our Innovation Champions. With that said, let’s jump into the show where we’ll discuss:  

 

- Similarities and differences between innovating in the legal industry vs other types of organizations

- The ideal relationship between innovation departments/intrapreneurs and compliance

- How Seyfarth goes about innovating upon their legal services

- How to establish a set of guidelines with the compliance team in your organization

- How to restructure teams and language to enable innovation

- The importance of resilience as a lawyer and innovator

John leads the empowered innovation program within BAE, which is a nearly $20 billion multinational defense, security and aerospace company.   In the episode we dive into how they’ve organized their innovation strategy into 4 operational buckets and how they not only identify new products, but innovate on the core business. We also talk about how they have done a fantastic job getting rid of the distance between the end customer and new product development teams amongst other things.   Also, we’re getting great feedback on our Lean Innovation Assessment tool, so if you want to try it out and identify opportunities for growth in your organization, email me at [email protected] and I’d be happy to pass it along in exchange for some feedback.   Other topics in today’s episode include:

• Balancing internal innovation with external innovation scouting.
• How BAE organizes their innovation strategy into 4 operational buckets.
• Innovating upon the core business functions in addition to exploring and implementing new products.
• How BAE moves products from discovery/search mode into the execution engine of the business.
• Implicit vs Explicit needs, and how BAE maintains a competitive advantage by constantly searching and creating solutions for the implicit needs of customers.

Millennials play a vital part in the workforce of today and tomorrow. Yet per HBR's article, What Do Millennials Really Want at Work? The Same Things the Rest of Us Do, ‘it’s likely that companies pursuing millennial-specific employee engagement strategies are wasting time, focus, and money'.

 

This episode features a recording from a live webcast discussion between Aaron Eden and Marilyn Gorman!

Aaron Eden focuses on helping organizations act more entrepreneurial as the Co-Founder and COO of Moves the Needle. Prior to MTN, Aaron was the first Product Manager at Intuit (in HR) and played a key role in helping his team stop thinking about HR as a cost center and think about it as a way to drive competitive advantage. As a result, he re-designed the personal growth & development program, university recruiting program and leadership development program. Beyond his work in HR, Aaron played a key role in the development of Intuit's Innovation Program through launching a series of successful Lean Startup workshops within Intuit.

Marilyn Gorman focuses on the intersection of HR processes like Learning & Development and Organizational Design and entrepreneurial skills. Prior to founding the Gorman Group, Marilyn worked with GE and led cultural change initiatives and high-visibility, Chairman-sponsored programs as a Global Program Leader for Executive Development and Culture at GE. She also was Innovation coach for Performance Development transformation at GE, engaging with culture, systems and HR processes.

In this episode, we’re really excited to have Cholpon Rosengren, Director of Family Support at United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, on the show together with my co-host and leader of our Non-Profit and Social Impact programs and services Heather Hiscox.   In this episode, we'll discuss: - How to effectively apply lean innovation within a non-profit and social impact context.
- What mindset shifts occurred during our Lean Innovation bootcamp with NPOs.
- How the United Way was able to drive impact and create new value using lean innovation.
- How Cholpon overcame various challenges to get the ball rolling with this new way to work.
- How this new way of working transforms the way non-profits and social impact organizations function.

Usually we're focused on helping you create innovation from within, yet M&A’s play an integral role in a well rounded innovation strategy.   In today’s podcast episode we’re excited to switch things up and focus on lessons learned doing mergers & acquisitions.   Some of the key topics we cover in this episode are:  

• The role M&A has in a company’s innovation practice.
• Acquiring technology vs. human capital.
• Ways to prevent culture clash and a deal from going bad.
• How the 3 E’s (Empathy, Experiments and Evidence) apply to M&A.
• How to run experiments on M&A’s.

  Listen here or don’t hesitate to pass it along to someone else in your organization who you think may enjoy it.

When trying to transform organizations to become more innovative, it’s easy to forget about the interpersonal side and get caught up in the process.

In today’s episode we dive into just that: how can you better understand your colleagues’ preferred styles of communication and leadership, so you can work together in a way that they’ll be most receptive.

Our guest Tony Cooper, CEO of Market Force, has become an expert at helping people and organizations these traits so companies can remove these “invisible blockers” and drive the impact their after. Our other guest, Kyle McCray, Innovation Manager at American Pacific Mortgage company, shares stories of how he’s leveraged this awareness to drive impact through innovating on the core business instead of focusing on flashy new products.

We also have an offer in there for that’s currently exclusive to our podcast listeners so be sure to check it out.

Today’s episode may be our best one yet (and no, I don’t say that every time).

In this episode, we go through some of the most powerful snippets from all of our podcasts in 2016. In it we have clips from the Operations Lead at Spotify, an Innovation Leader at Intuit and much more.

The topics we cover are:

- What is the end goal of innovation.
- How have Pearson and Spotify scaled their innovation initiatives.
- How does Pearson evaluate and allocate funding to new products.
- How does Intuit measure success.
- What do leaders want to see most.
- Why we’re driving innovation and how breakthrough innovation really occurs.

This one is not to be missed. Also, we’re getting ready to do a Q&A episode so if you have any questions you’d like to hear our founders Brant Cooper or Aaron Eden answer, please pass it along via email to [email protected]!