TEI 234: 3-ways to grow your innovation capital for more product & career success – with Nathan Furr

The three dimensions of skills needed to move your ideas forward.

When I started this podcast I created the Product Mastery Roadmap that describes the path from product manager to product master. I’ve used it as a guide to the topics we explore here. Recently I updated it to better reflect the journey I have seen many of you and your colleagues taking towards mastery, focusing more narrowly on what is most important so you can progress more quickly.

A pivotal element of this journey is the influence you have in your organization — influence to get others to support your ideas. Recently a fellow listener expressed this well when I asked him about how this podcast has helped him. He told me that “I have helped create a monster” because he now gets everything he asks his company for — that he has virtually zero barriers and almost no questions asked. That is influence.

My guest has a different term for it, which he calls Innovation Capital. It is a concept he deeply explores in the book he co-authored by the same title. Innovation Capital is what you can build up over time that makes it easy for others to support you when you want to do something new. It consists of three components:

* Who you are,

* Who you know, and

* What you’ve done.

In a sense, this is a personal brand building and is seen in the best innovators in all size organizations.

My guest is Nathan Furr, who also co-authored two other very important books, The Innovator’s DNA and The Innovator’s Method. He is a professor of strategy and innovation at INSEAD, which is recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. His Ph.D. is from Stanford University. In addition to studying how companies innovate, he helps each year to create the Forbes’ list of the world’s most innovative leaders and companies.

For Everyday Innovators on the path to being a product master, this is one of the most important discussions you need to hear. I hope you enjoy it.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[3:03] How did this book come about?

A lot of my work has been about where ideas come from and what’s the process to test ideas. If you’re in an established organization, how do you change the culture to allow innovation to happen and create the support to do something new? If you look at Tesla and Edison, both were incredible idea generators but Edison was really good at getting backing for his ideas and Tesla struggled to do that.

[7:02] What is innovation capital?

It’s an intangible thing that you build up over time. It facilitates your winning support and backing for ideas and change. We synthesized the research and created a way to score people based on their innovation capital. It comes from who you are, what you know, what you’ve done, and how you’ve used those things to amplify support for your idea. It sounds simple, but has a deep basis in academic research and management theory.

[11:45] How can someone build their innovation capital to win support for their ideas?

We found four top things that were associated with people who had success in building human capital. One is that they’re forward-thinking and not afraid to promote ideas that seem unpopular at the time if they believe that’s where the future will be. Another is that they are proactive problem solvers and are always looking for ways to solve problems. Persuasion and influence skills also matter, as does creativity and the ability to generate new ideas.

[16:47] How does who a person knows factor in?

What are your connections to other leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs? These are all people who can help you build intellectual capital. We tend to focus on strong ties or people we know well, but weak ties matter too.