The Innovator's Journey

Do you ever get frustrated at work because everything keeps changing? Your boss is being demanding. Your client changes their mind (again). Interest rates go up. There's a war on the other side of the planet. Someone sneezed and you caught it. Stuff happens.

Lyssa Adkins got frustrated being a project manager in a big organisation with ever more complicated projects. So frustrated she threw in the towel. It was a crisis moment. And then, almost accidentally, she discovered a new way to get things done.

The podcast charts her course from stressed-out manager to happy and successful author and an 'agility and leadership coach'. Today Lyssa works with leaders and teams that are making their own journey to agile ways of working. It's an approach that she believes can also help us tackle some of the world's most intractable problems.

(00:00) Introduction to Lyssa Adkins

(03:23) THE PAST - My Life and Career Journey

(10:54) Discovering agile

(18:24) Creative artefact

(21:32) THE PRESENT - My Work and Innovation

(30:10) THE FUTURE - Future of Work

(32:36) What's the future role of technology?

(33:48) What's special about humans?

(35:32) Concluding advice

Links and credits

Cover image: based on the timeline graphic in Lyssa's book Coaching Agile Teams, published by Pearson.

Agile fundamentals: https://lyssaadkins.com/blog-1/category/videos/agile-fundamentals/

Book: Coaching Agile Teams https://lyssaadkins.com/product/coaching-agile-teams-paperback/

What is agile coaching? https://www.icagile.com/what-is-agile-coaching

Health systems around the world are under strain. In the UK, post-pandemic backlogs in the NHS are at an unprecedented level, particularly for elective (non-emergency) procedures.

Nowhere is innovation more needed - or more challenging, given the scale and complexity of the NHS. So here's a welcome good news story: cataract surgery in Scotland is receiving a boost of innovation pioneered in Dundee. 

Opthalmologist Dr John Ellis and his team have been using six-sigma techniques to achieve dramatic gains in productivity. And unlike so many other innovations dreamed up in Dundee, this one is not driven by technology. It is an essentially human story of teamwork and team spirit.

If you’re interested in high-performing teams, the future of healthcare professions, or the ups and downs of life as an innovator then I encourage you to listen to this episode. And if you’re inspired by Dr Ellis and his team, do share it with your colleagues and friends.

(00:00) Introduction

(02:58) THE PAST - My Life and Career Journey

(14:30) Creative Artefact

(16:45) THE PRESENT - My work and innovation

(27:53) THE FUTURE - Future of work

BONUS MATERIAL - How to tackle the waiting list challenge: https://youtu.be/TD-biK2NS1U

RELATED - YouTube documentary by Sirjhun Patel: A day in high volume eye surgery: https://youtu.be/r9GEk5dMKuM

This includes practical details including some of the 7 innovations put forward by the team, to achieve high volume:

1. Timed patient batches

2. 'Jump seats'

3. Intraoperative dilation

4. Patient clothing

5. Nurses mark eye

6. Topical anaesthetic

7. 60 minute 'time bank' training method

Theodore P. Zoli, III is one of the bridge engineering and design industry's most recognised American figures, and the first structural engineer to receive the prestigious MacArthur Foundation 'genius' Award. In this podcast interview he talks about his life and career story and how this led him to focus on new areas for innovation in bridges. Some careers seem to have a sense of destiny, or even inevitability, and this is one of those intriguing stories.

Zoli is a man on a mission, building bridges with a strong sense of "taking public dollars for public good", and his choice of creative artefact (a feature of these podcasts) reveals a deeply-held philosophy of engineering and design, rooted in age-old ideas. In his view, new technology has failed to deliver some of its expected benefits and an overly-scientific mindset has limited our ability to see where innovation is really needed. Ted Zoli talks about the uniquely human skills needed for the bridges of the future.

(00:00) Introduction to Ted Zoli

(03:21) THE PAST - My Life and Career Journey

(17:09) Creative Artefact

(20:31) THE PRESENT - My work and innovation

(31:00) THE FUTURE - future of work

Cover image: poem 'Deer Park' by Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei (701-761)

To view the Lake Champlain bridge: https://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2013/04/24/10667635/TR_CrownPointBridge_2011_110736_b.jpg

Will your job be taken over by an artificial intelligence? That seems more likely with the advent of generative chatbots like ChatGPT. 

My guest Beth Rudden is a cognitive scientist and a former chief data officer at IBM. As founder of Bast.ai she is working at the cutting edge of language and AI towards a safer, better world in which tools like ChatGPT can be a force for good.

Beth has practical advice for anyone wondering how best to respond to this new technology, and her life journey reveals how the threads of experience can weave together to make an exciting career.

(00:00) Introduction to Beth Rudden

(03:56) THE PAST - My Life and Career Journey

(19:18) Creative Artefact

(20:42) THE PRESENT - My Work and Innovation

(27:48) THE FUTURE - Future of Work

Image credit: Midjourney.com

A podcast about the lives and careers of creative people, technology, and the future of work. 

With Jonathan Winter.