The Innovation Show – Details, episodes & analysis
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The Innovation Show
The Innovation Show
Frequency: 1 episode/5d. Total Eps: 677

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Apple Podcasts
🇬🇧 Great Britain - technology
15/03/2025#98🇬🇧 Great Britain - technology
10/02/2025#84🇨🇦 Canada - technology
08/02/2025#89🇬🇧 Great Britain - technology
03/09/2024#99
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See all- https://www.stevenkotler.com/
108 shares
- https://www.annieduke.com/
88 shares
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See allScore global : 63%
Publication history
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Peter Compo Part 2: A Primer on Adaptation and Emergence
Season 28 · Episode 544
mercredi 28 août 2024 • Duration 39:34
The Emergent Approach to Strategy: Adaptation, Innovation, and Historical Insights
In this episode, the focus is on Peter Compo's discussion of 'The Emergent Approach to Strategy,' specifically its application to adaptation and emergence in strategy development. The conversation explores the parallel between biological evolution and human innovation, highlighting the importance of adaptive systems in creativity and strategy. Historical examples, such as the early automotive industry led by Henry Ford and modern electric cars pioneered by Elon Musk, are used to illustrate how low-level disciplines and rules can lead to high-level strategic outcomes and industry transformations. The episode delves into the principles of complex adaptive systems, emphasizing the balance between discipline and free-thinking, and how effective strategies emerge from rigorous local actions. Peter Compo also addresses the concept of levels within organizations, stressing the significance of being attuned to low-level operations to drive innovation while avoiding becoming prisoners of past successes.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:08 The Concept of Adaptation and Emergence
03:43 Historical Examples of Adaptive Systems
07:13 Ford's Strategy and Its Evolution
10:39 The Theory of Levels in Creativity and Innovation
18:54 Connecting Levels to Strategy
27:41 Ants and Social Insects: A Case Study
31:48 Intel's Transition to CPUs
35:20 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Link to Peter’s website: https://emergentapproach.com
Link to Peter’s Music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJsn2zbnx8dwvHJrisdkAtg
Link to Scale with Geoffrey West Part 1 of 3: https://youtu.be/P3WowJWdX5w?si=lcgHp-bC6OrAuobG
Link to Aidan McCullen for Keynotes, workshops and event MC.
Find us on Substack for Shownotes and competitions:
https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Peter Compo, Aidan McCullen, emergent strategy, Peter Compo, adaptive systems, innovation, complex adaptive systems, business strategy, evolutionary mechanisms, creativity, Henry Ford, Tesla, Elon Musk, execution, Intel CPUs, corporate discipline, low level rules, high level outcomes, market forces, leadership insights
Peter Compo Part 1 - The Emergent Approach to Strategy:
Season 29 · Episode 543
samedi 24 août 2024 • Duration 01:09:08
The Emergent Approach to Strategy with Peter Compo: A Deep Dive into Adaptive Systems
In this episode, we welcome Peter Compo, author of 'The Emergent Approach to Strategy,' to discuss the chronic failures in strategic planning and how his new book aims to redefine strategy through the lens of complex adaptive systems. Peter explains the importance of moving away from traditional planning methods and embracing an agile, emergent approach that focuses on adaptability and real-time guidance. Drawing from 25 years of experience in corporate America, including his tenure at DuPont, Peter provides practical insights into how organizations can raise their probability of success by understanding and addressing the real bottlenecks to achieving aspirations. We explore key concepts from his book, such as the triad of aspirations, bottlenecks, and strategy, and the role of rules and constraints in fostering innovation. With a mix of theory and practical application, this episode is a must-listen for corporate leaders, business strategists, and anyone interested in innovation and strategic planning.
00:00 Introduction to Strategy Failures
01:32 Guest Introduction: Peter Compo
02:06 Elevator Pitch: New Theory of Strategy
07:29 The Role of Discipline in Innovation
07:47 Music and Corporate Strategy
12:46 Challenges in Strategy Execution
14:00 The Misunderstanding of Strategy
17:43 Planning Under Uncertainty
21:30 The Importance of Adaptive Strategy
35:57 Emergent Strategy and Mintzberg's Teachings
36:44 Deliberate vs. Emergent Strategy
37:55 Understanding Strategic Constraints
39:24 Exploring Different Strategic Approaches
41:33 Overview of Strategy Concepts
43:12 Defining Strategy Across Fields
47:18 The Role of Rules in Strategy
52:22 The Triad of Aspiration, Bottleneck, Strategy
01:02:45 Consulting and Real-World Applications
01:07:22 Conclusion and Resources
Link to Frank Barrett’s episode “Yes to the Mess” part 1 and 2:
https://youtu.be/xgkk-Vlgtt0?si=-Ddv-aGFj8XtsDrF
https://youtu.be/D7dR5Gi7i80?si=bJ3NhwhhnuYWgVbl
Link to Peter’s website:
Link to Peter’s Music:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJsn2zbnx8dwvHJrisdkAtg
Link to Aidan McCullen for Keynotes, workshops and event MC:
Find us on Substack for Shownotes and competitions:
https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
strategy, innovation, complex adaptive systems, Peter Compo, Aidan McCullen, DuPont, emergent approach, strategy definition, corporate strategy, business strategy, adaptive systems, strategy framework, Roger Martin, Michael Porter, Mintzberg, Charlie Parker, jazz improvisation, creativity in strategy, bottleneck, aspirations, goals, execution, discipline in strategy, innovation challenges, long-term planning, organizational change, innovation process, strategic planning, decision making, business leadership, corporate America
Business Experiments with Sarah Spoto and Vincent Ducret
Season 26 · Episode 534
dimanche 14 juillet 2024 • Duration 31:39
In the latest episode of the Corporate Explorer series, brought to you by Wazoku, we discuss the importance of balancing personal instincts with data and evidence in business decisions. Guests, Product Marketing Manager for Electric Vehicles & Customer Experience with Cadillac, Sarah Spoto and Vincent Ducret from ChangeLogic share their experiences of implementing experimental frameworks in China for General Motors. They emphasize the critical steps of assumption analysis, prioritizing hypotheses, and iterative experimentation, while also addressing challenges in corporate environments, such as maintaining cultural buy-in and celebrating failures as learning opportunities. Sponsored by Wazoku, the episode offers deep dives into innovation management, strategic risk-taking, and the use of connected collective intelligence to drive business success.
00:00 Introduction: The Pitfalls of Instinct-Driven Decisions
00:40 The Role of Data in Corporate Exploration
01:07 Sponsor Message: Wazoku's Innovation Ecosystem
01:56 Incubation and De-risking New Business Ideas
02:19 Meet the Corporate Explorers: Sarah Spoto and Vincent Ducraix
02:50 Sarah Spoto's Journey in Corporate Innovation
04:40 Vincent Ducraix's Background and Experience
06:55 The Business Learning Life Cycle Framework
08:10 The Importance of De-risking in Corporate Ventures
13:04 Challenges and Strategies in Corporate Experimentation
14:33 The Role of Leadership and Team Buy-in
21:08 Case Study: Experimentation in China
30:28 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
Find Sarah here: https://sarahspoto.com
Find Vincent here: https://changelogic.com/team/vincent-ducret/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vducret/
Key Takeaways
This conversation explores business experimentation using a framework outlined in the Corporate Explorer book. Here are the key takeaways:
Challenges of Corporate Innovation:
- Reliance on past experience can lead to failure in new ventures due to high uncertainties.
- Traditional methods like surveys might not capture the right data for untested ideas.
The Business Experiments Framework:
- Identify Key Assumptions: List all critical assumptions about your new venture (customer value proposition,problem addressed, etc.).
- Prioritize Assumptions: Focus on the riskiest assumptions that could derail the project.
- Design Experiments: Create creative experiments to test these assumptions with real customer data (not just surveys).
- Collect Learnings: Analyze experiment results to validate or disprove assumptions.
- Iterate: Use learnings to refine your approach and potentially conduct new experiments on remaining assumptions.
Benefits of Business Experiments:
- Reduces risk by validating assumptions before significant resource investment.
- Provides data-driven decision making for building the right product for the right customer.
Challenges of Implementing Business Experiments:
- Balancing Speed and De-risking: There's a tension between demonstrating progress and taking the time to properly de-risk the project.
- Cultural Shift: Organizations need to embrace experimentation and see failures as learning opportunities.
- Team Buy-in: Both leadership and working-level teams need to understand the value of experimentation.
Success Factors:
- Strong Leadership Support: Having advocates who understand and champion the approach is crucial.
- Cultural Investment: Educate teams on the process and celebrate failures as learning opportunities.
- Focus on Learning: Value the insights gained from experiments, even if they disprove assumptions.
Example Implementation:
- Sarah Spoto's experience in China highlights the importance of setting the right incentives and building a cross-functional team for experimentation.
- Assumptions analysis is a valuable starting point, even if full experimentation isn't implemented.
Overall, business experimentation offers a structured approach for de-risking new ventures and making data-driven decisions in the face of uncertainty.
Derek van Bever - Stall Points
Season 26 · Episode 446
dimanche 14 mai 2023 • Duration 01:19:26
Very few large companies manage to avoid stalls in revenue growth. These stalls are not attributable to the natural business cycle. Our guest's careful analysis reveals that most such stalls directly result from strategic choices made by corporate leaders. In short, stoppages in growth are almost always avoidable.
This extensively researched book analyses the growth experiences of more than 600 Fortune 100 companies over the past fifty years to identify why growth stalls and to discover how to rectify a stall in progress or, even better, avoid one. Board members and executives in companies of all sizes will find this book a practical and essential resource.
Our guest investigated the incidence and consequences of growth stalls in major corporations and then probed the root causes.
Examining hundreds of stall points, the authors conclude that the greatest threat to a company's growth is obsolete strategic assumptions that undermine market position and innovation and talent management breakdowns. It is a pleasure to welcome back our recent guest in the Clayton Christensen tribute series, the author of “Stall Points: Most Companies Stop Growing - Yours Doesn't Have To - Derek van Bever
Karen Dillon - The Microstress Effect
Season 25 · Episode 445
lundi 8 mai 2023 • Duration 01:11:04
C.S. Lewis once said, “Good and evil increase at compound interest. That’s why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite importance. the smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may go on to victories you never dreamed of” This quote came to mind as I pondered today's book. Just as the good things we do compound over time, so too do the not-so-good things, it was jinn Dryden who wrote first we make our habits then our habits make us. This is the case for the daily stresses we tolerate, our guest calls these microstresses. “Microstress: tiny moments of stress triggered by people in our personal and professional lives; stresses so routine that we barely register them but whose cumulative toll is debilitating.” In its annual State of the Workplace survey, Gallup concluded that only 33 per cent of those surveyed were“thriving” in their well-being, with 44 per cent of employees reporting experiencing “a lot” of stress in a typical workday—a record high.1 But little recognised or adequately studied is the toll of this new form of stress.
The toll is so subtle that we barely register it, but the cumulative effect can derail even high performers, both personally and professionally. We welcome the author of "The Microstress Effect" Karen Dillon
Aidan McCullen - Here Be Dragons on (The Disruptive Voice)
Season 25 · Episode 444
jeudi 4 mai 2023 • Duration 51:20
This is my guest appearance on The Disruptive Voice Podcast. Exploring the theories of disruptive innovation across a broad set of industries and circumstances with academics, researchers, and practitioners who have been inspired and taught by Professor Clayton M. Christensen. In his book, Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organizations, and Life, Aidan McCullen writes about how, centuries ago, sailors would set out to sea with maps labelled with the Latin words hic sun dracones - here be dragons - which meant that they didn't know much - if anything - about the uncharted waters and unexplored lands that awaited them. In today's volatile and uncertain world, there are parallels to be drawn between the odysseys of past and present. There are also strategies that can be employed, both by corporations and by individuals, to thrive amidst challenging circumstances, and they center on the intentional development of a mindset of permanent reinvention. Aidan himself exemplifies this mindset, having built capabilities as a professional rugby player, a digital media specialist, an innovation and change consultant, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, and host of The Innovation Show podcast, where he's in the midst of a three month series dedicated to the life, work, and theories of Clayton Christensen. In this Disruptive Voice episode, he joins Katie Zandbergen to discuss the experience of putting the series together, including not only re-reading all of Clay's books but also having in-depth conversations with his co-authors; the necessity of building capabilities before we need them; lessons we can learn from immortal jellyfish; insights gleaned from making the time to read eclectically; finding assets in ashes; and, above all, the importance of facing the dragons in our lives and of always becoming - the concept of permanent reinvention.
Sarah Stein Greenberg - Creative Acts For Curious People
Season 25 · Episode 443
lundi 1 mai 2023 • Duration 54:45
Today’s book offers over eighty assignments, countless ideas, and memorable stories collected throughout The Stanford d.school’s decade-plus history. Today’s guest painstakingly curated this collection from some of the world's most inventive minds, including d.school and IDEO founder David Kelley amongst others.
She is with us today to share some of those assignments to spark our creativity because a common characteristic of our audience is - without a doubt - curiosity. It is a pleasure to welcome the Executive Director of the Stanford d.school and the author of Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways, Sarah Stein Greenberg.
Find Sarah here: http://www.sarahsteingreenberg.com
Find d School here: https://dschool.stanford.edu/books
Ambidextrous Leadership - TJ Rodgers and Charles O'Reilly III
Season 24 · Episode 442
samedi 29 avril 2023 • Duration 52:17
In Chapter 5 of Tushman and O’Reilly’s "Lead and Disrupt", the authors share how Cypress Semiconductor used a similar venture funding model, complete with a one-page business plan, for initial funding to grow $40 million in businesses. With their approach called a “Federation of Entrepreneurs”, Cypress is a great case study in ambidextrous leadership.
In June 2019, Infineon Technologies announced it would acquire Cypress for $9.4 billion. The deal closed in April 2020, making Infineon one of the world's top 10 semiconductor manufacturers.
We are joined today by that ambidextrous leader, the former CEO of Cypress TJ Rodgers and the author of Lead and Disrupt, Charles O’Reilly III.
The Corporate Explorer in The Field - Balaji Bondili and Andrew Binns
Season 24 · Episode 441
mercredi 26 avril 2023 • Duration 49:17
In Chapter 5 of the Corporate Explorer, Binns, Tushman, and O’Reilly share how a Corporate Explorer created a new business inside the consulting and accounting firm Deloitte.
His new unit, Deloitte Pixel, uses the “wisdom of crowds” to solve complex management problems. His first experience of the power of crowds came when he was part of a self-organised community that came together to provide relief for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. This taught him that communities of people could self-organise and do work that traditional organisation structures might struggle to perform. He then started to apply similar principles of crowds to management consulting.
It is a pleasure to welcome that very Corporate Explorer, joined by his friend Andrew Binns.
Andrew Binns - The Corporate Explorer
Season 24 · Episode 440
samedi 22 avril 2023 • Duration 01:29:48
There is no formula for immunity to disruption. Invincibility is an illusion. However, one factor explains why some succeed at corporate venture building. Our experience working with midsize and large legacy firms has shown us that innovation is as much about leadership as it is about the method, strategy, organization, and culture. Leaders who ignite and sustain an exploration spirit are more likely to succeed than those who rely on past strengths or success formulas to carry them through.
Corporate Explorers are at the centre of every story of corporate innovations whose intense curiosity makes them dare to go where others do not. These are leaders capable of closing the gap between knowing what needs to be done to grow new businesses and doing so. Today’s book is 20 years in the making. It started when our guest attended an IBM Strategic Leadership Forum at Harvard Business School led by our previous guests in this series, Michael Tushman and Charles O'Reilly III.
Our guest had just joined IBM from McKinsey and was assigned as an internal consultant supporting these budding businesses. We are about to hear that story and so much more.
It is a pleasure to welcome the author of “The Corporate Explorer: How Corporations Beat Startups at the Innovation Game”, Andrew Binns.