The future is innovation, and an innovative culture is key to a successful business.
But how do you foster a culture that values the free exchange of ideas?
It takes courageous leadership to do innovation and this episode’s guest is just such a person. Bryan Mattimore is the Cofounder and Chief Idea Guy at Growth Engine, an innovation agency working with some of the largest national and international brands. He is also the author of multiple books and an instructor in the Caltech Executive Education Department. Bryan’s work focuses on what companies and leaders can do to create, foster, and sustain innovative cultures through ideation, not just in product development, but around values and vision as well. This wide-ranging conversation includes:
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Which ideation techniques to use in problem solving
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The traits of good, innovative team members
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How to solicit ideas from all levels of your org
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And much more
Bryan also explains why every medium to large company should have an Ideation Strategist, how to think about virtual ideation, and HOW to get your team to innovate (his answer will surprise you). Don’t miss this one!
Mentioned in this episode:
Transcript
Bryan Mattimore: If you have a team that is going to be tasked with implementing an innovation, get them involved in the process as early and as soon as you can.
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Build a Vibrant Culture podcast with professional speaker, coach and consultant Nicole Greer.
Nicole Greer: Welcome to the Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the vibrant coach and I am here today with Bryan Mattimore. He is the Cofounder, and I love this title, Chief Idea Guy at Growth Engine. It is a 21 year old innovation agency based in New Canaan, Connecticut. His three seminal books on ideation and innovation process include Idea Stormers and 21 Days to a Big Idea. Bryan has managed over 200 Successful innovation projects leading to over 3 billion, don’t miss that that was with a B, for his Fortune 500 clients. Bryan is also a marketing and innovation instructor for Caltech in their Executive Education Department. I am absolutely delighted to be talking with Bryan. Hey, how are you?
Bryan: I’m great. Thanks. Thanks for having me Nicole. You know, when I hear that bio, I get tired.
Nicole: Yeah, you need a nap. Right? Do you need to lay down? If you need to lay down for this it’s okay. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, we always start off the podcast talking about what leadership is. I’m collecting definitions. So Bryan, I’m wondering if you’ve got a definition of leadership?
Bryan: Yeah, well, I hope this is not, you know, a hammer trying to find a nail. But because of my background in creativity and innovation, I did break down my own definition for leadership. So I have inspiring people to do their creative best in delivering on the leader’s vision, mission and values. That’s my definition.
Nicole: I love that. Yes. So to use all the genius God gave you, and to pay attention to what the leader is asking for be it on mission and vision. I love it. That’s a fantastic definition.
Bryan: And you have to have values.
Nicole: I apologize. Everybody write that down values? Yes. Yeah.
Bryan: The reason I say that, because we we’ve actually done vision, mission and values work. And of course, the vision and mission are the responsibility of senior leadership. But my bias is the value should be created through the organization. I mean, that’s what Zappos did, they spent a year polling their employees getting their values, and they got, you know, hundreds and hundreds of submissions in and they culled through those. And then they came up in their case with 10.
But when when we’ve done this work, the key for us, is getting people to live those values, of course. And so we’ve done ideation sessions with our clients, on how to essentially, people in their daily jobs, how they can manifest those values in creative ways. So therefore, this becomes a living experience. It’s not some plaque on the wall. But it’s something that’s a living document is the wrong word, but a living experience where people are continuing to, to practice those values, but be creative about how they apply them.
Nicole: Yeah, I love that. And I’m a big fan of the Zappos methodology. One of their core values is be a little weird, and I thought I could work there, that would not be a problem for me.
Bryan: Well, that Tony Hsieh unfortunately passed away in a fire. And but but he you know, one of his be a little weird things was he got a tattoo, I believe on his head to reflect that weirdness. So, yeah, it’s impressive.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. And it is sad that he is gone. That is for sure. All right. Yeah. So I totally love that. So you said I’ve had idea ideation sessions so that people can have a living experience of their values. I’m so curious about what an ideation session might look like. If somebody hired you to have that session? What would it look like?
Bryan: Well, so let me talk generally, and then specifically. So generally, ideation is different than brainstorming in that I mean, brainstorming is the generic term but ideation techniques use specific triggers to trigger the brain in you know, appropriate ways. We call this focused ideation, which of course, is an oxymoronic term, but you know, it’s it’s using visuals and words and phrases, etc, to trigger people appropriately to come up with different ideas. And so my work, you know, like spent the last 30 years really researching and applying and empirically validating which kinds of techniques have the greatest likelihood of solving different kinds of challenges. So we’ve identified four classes of techniques, you know, metaphorical techniques, visual techniques, questioning techniques and fantasy techniques.
And so when we do sessions, a new product session will be structured very, very differently than a strategy session or cost cutting session. So to answer your question about a value session, we would probably and we, you know, we’ve experimented with different approaches, but one technique we would for sure use is sort of target market wishing, you know. And so we get people to think of who they serve, right? And what would the wishes be of those people that they serve? And then given their jobs, what should they be doing differently to serve those those customers better? So that’s just a simple example.
Nicole: Oh, that’s fantastic. And you went so quickly, the four classes of techniques were metaphor, visual, I missed the third one, and then fantasy, what was the third one?
Bryan: Was that a question you asked? I’m kidding. It was questioning. I caught ya. Yeah.
Nicole: All right. No, I know what I got on my hands here. I got it back, I got myself a live one on the line, everybody. But you would anticipate that that guy is all about creativity. Okay. So, questioning.
Bryan: Nicole, I’m actually going to talk about questioning because because that’s, that’s critical. We typically start with that. And, and this is, this is, we do a lot when we do strategy work. This is critical, obviously, but also any kind of work. It’s about framing the challenge appropriately or correctly. And, and the example I sometimes tell is when we were hired by, you know, a famous company that manufactures irons, you know, we went into that session, not saying, how do we invent a new iron? We said, how do we do invent a new anti wrinkle device? And that framing is, allows much, much greater creativity, because why?
Because there are so many assumptions tied into what a an iron is, right? We it all, we get a visual picture. And, and then already, we’re, you know, limiting our thinking about what what this thing could be. And so questioning is, is really critical. And frankly, if you’re looking to invent new business models, the other really powerful one is questioning assumptions, and problem redefinition and 20 questions, but questioning assumptions is a really good one as well.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. So your two books that you have out. If we want to find more about these techniques, which which book is the right book for that?
Bryan: Well, actually, I have five books out.
Nicole: Alright. You only told me about two. He’s holding back on me people.
Bryan: No, it’s my fault. I just, you know, we ran out of words, in the bio. But the best one, I think for leaders is Idea Stormers that’s published by Wiley Jossey-Bass, and that’s, that really shares our history, and, and frankly, unique approaches to dealing with real world challenges. And what I personally love about that book, is that there are no Swiffer or Apple stories in there. And what I mean by that is, it’s all based on our work. So when we had to name a new product for Ben and Jerry’s, or, you know, invent a new cookie for for Nabisco or Mondelez, or, you know, doing the strategy session for VSP, the largest insurance, vision care insurance company, it’s all or help IBM evolve a culture.
These are all real world stories. And by the way, just for the aspiring authors out there, it took me like three months to get all these permissions to include these, you know, these stories, because these are obviously confidential and, and Procter and Gamble, just so you know, was was the most difficult to get, you know, the approvals. It was months and months and months. And the thing that I don’t know if it can I say the word pissed me off.
Nicole: Yes you can, it’s okay.
Bryan: The thing that bothered me the most, is that they actually improved the stories. And so, you know, in typical P&G fashion that they really pushed me, and I ended up writing, if you will, a better account of the work we had done with them if I if I hadn’t gotten their permission. So, anyway.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. And it’s just because they probably have a team of lawyers over there.
Bryan: They’re very. I mean, they’re great. I mean, they’re some of the best marketers on the planet. And it was really fun working with him. You know, luckily, we’re working in different categories. And we’re with Unilever. Because, you know, they’re, they’re tough competitors from each other. So.
Nicole: That’s fantastic. Yeah. All right. Well, you know, you’ve got some philosophy right on your website. And don’t miss this everybody. Bryan can be found at www.growth-engine.com. And when you go there, you’ll see that he’s got his philosophy and I love this bullet on here. He said, we believe ideas drive attitudinal and culture change. And so I know most people are all about, you know, changing the attitudes of people in the culture. So tell me how innovation and ideas helps that.
Bryan: Oh, my gosh, thank you for that question. I’ve never been asked that question. And thank you for the research you did on that. You know, ideas are exciting, right? They’re also threatening, right. But, you know, when my father who started what became the second largest research firm under the auspices of Time, Incorporated, it was called Sammy, he named it after our dog. And it competed with Nielsen and about ultimately was sold to Sammy Burke, etc, etc. Anyway, it was such tremendous excitement in his division at Time Incorporated, because they were just doing something new and succeeding in a big way. And so, you know, people, yes, the status quo is threatened by change, and you you’ve got to deal with all these obstacles. On the other hand, oh, my gosh, it is so incredibly exciting.
You know, when we, I mean, this may sound odd, but when we help, you know, Thomas’s English muffin, invent the new hearty grains line, oh, God, it was so much fun, it became that huge success, it made English muffins healthier for certain target market consumers. And it became 30% of their business and it margined up the business. I mean, it was just so exciting to be part of that. And, and the other part of it too, and this gets back to my original definition of leadership, you know, people want to self actualize. People want to grow. And in my, and they want to, and they want to work together in unique and profound ways. And I don’t know any other better way to do that than, frankly, creating something together. Because it requires trust, it requires openness, it requires creativity, it requires you to bring all you can bring to to solve what are, you know, really difficult challenges.
I mean, innovation is really hard. And if and if you screw up, you know, I can say screw up, right? Okay. If you mess up, you know, if you know you have if it’s a new product, and you have the price and the package and the promotion, etc, etc. If you get one of those elements wrong, you’re going to have a failure. And so it requires great creativity, great flexibility, great team trust. And, you know, what’s more exciting than that? The other thing I would say, by the way, is that when people look at the legacy, you know, their legacy in an organization, and more and more millennials have pushed us and I’m so happy about this, you know, to work for organizations where they feel they’re making an important contribution to the world. You know, I had done work with Con Ed, and I asked when I was riding the trucks with them, which was a fantastic experience.
After 911 I because I was giving a workshop, a training workshop to their leaders on creativity. And I asked all the the employees I met that day, when I did my tour and you know, crawling through the steam, you know, steam heating in Rockefeller Center, you know, looking for leaks, etc. They all said, without exception, and this was a eureka moment for me. They all said, yeah, well, I said, what are you most proud of, and they said, oh, I created this thing. And, and so we got our guys to have cell phones, and therefore we can respond to the customer faster. Or we came up with a new system for the electric grid or whatever it was. It was always about creating something together. And so that’s that’s an extraordinary thing. That’s, that’s underleveraged in terms of team building, in my opinion, and leadership.
Nicole: I love it. Okay, so just to repeat what he just said that over and over again, the thing that Bryan heard was creating something together was really the linchpin that brought those folks together, the trust went through the roof, starts to create a legacy. I think that’s awesome.
Bryan: And by the way, if if you happen to we’ve led a lot of creative teams, we’ve done a lot of quote, innovation, creativity training. And it’s very rare, but occasionally, we had one company where we had, we created what was called the disruptive innovation group. And this group was about creating truly breakthrough innovations, which by the way, is is very different than creating a wine extension, for instance. So you know, profound market changing disruptive inventions. If you have even one toxic individual on that team, it’s really tough. Because you can spend so much time analytically justifying moves that are really based on consumer insight, gut intuition, etc. And so I hate to say this, but you need to get that person off the team. And there are very few of these people on the planet. But there are some of these, you know, these are Darth Vader’s missionaries.
You got to get them off the team because your, that trust factor is so critical and they’re and what’s weird is that they tend to be very bright, very analytical and it’s almost like you can’t argue with them. Yes, well, we should do a market study in order to validate. Well, okay. But we don’t have time for that we got to move on. And so I hate to bring that up. But if we’re getting real here, when you form especially disruptive innovation groups, you know, those who are doing breakthrough ideas, you need special individuals, or not even special but but not negative people on that team?
Nicole: Yeah, well, I would assume that they need to be people who are excited, fun, understand this as a business. We got to up the margins, people who want to grow and people who like to create together. I mean, those are all the things you said just a minute ago, those are the kind of people you got to have on the team. Right?
Bryan: Yeah. And the other two, I would add, were, which are implicit in what we said, there was one, you know, sort of flexibility of spirit, right, which is kind of implicit in that. And the other one that’s really, really important that I think people often miss, they have to be comfortable dealing with ambiguity. We’ve had a lot of clients, we’ll be doing focus groups or qualitative research, and they’ll be in the back. And consumers, they’ll say, conflicting things. And they’re freaking out, because they go, oh, my gosh, there’s no one saying this, and one saying that, but, and to us, we’re very excited about that.
Because this ambiguity or paradox, or questioning or contradictions that are occurring, those are potentially invitations to great insights, and great thoughts, and even great breakthroughs. And so you need people who are less about checking off the box, which some clients are, because they’re crazed, we’re all crazed. And they’re moving down that road a la Stage Gate, which which we hate, generally. But but, you know, they, they have to be comfortable with ambiguity, because that’s the nature of innovation and creativity.
Nicole: That’s right. That’s right. And, you know, I was reading this morning, a book called Persuasion. And he was talking about the duality of life. And this word, duality keeps coming around to me, and I just heard that from you. Like, yes, we have to check the box. But also, we have to be okay with ambiguity for today and not check the box. It’s kind of this that will eventually get the box checked. But right now, we’re just holding the space between these two things.
Bryan: Yeah, it’s, that’s extremely well said. I love that you said holding the space. Between these two things. I couldn’t agree more. It is about holding the space. And part of our jobs as consultants is to hold that space to not prematurely commit, because you’re nervous, you know, you know, you don’t want control. We all want control. Right? But but a big part of our job is holding that space. Where where that that ambiguity or confusion can reign, because that because you need to, you know, learn more in order to know which way to go.
Nicole: Yeah. 100%. Well, I’m super curious about maybe an innovation that came out of your disruptive innovation groups. Can you share a story of something you said it wasn’t an extension of a product line? Maybe that was more like your English muffin folks. But you know, you got something like totally radically, amazingly new. I’m so curious to hear of the coolest thing you think you’ve ever been part of.
Bryan: Well, I have so many stories, it’s it’s it’s hard to choose. They’re all sort of my babies, if you will, I think. But I’m going to tell this story, because I think it’s important for the listener in terms of the principle behind it. And what we’re just talking about. So we had been hired by Craftsman tool. Actually. Danaher. Danaher, is a large manufacturing firm, unbelievably successful, extremely profitable, the darling of Wall Street. At the time, they were manufacturing, the ratchets, wrenches and sockets for Sears. Okay. And so, anyway, one of the ideas that came out of that work that their team had developed was this idea of a laser etched socket. I hope this doesn’t sound too technical, but what all and by the way, this is you wonder why on these ads during you know, during Christmas, they always have the ratchet wrenches and socket sets, right?
They have those because it’s about a $350 million business. And and we couldn’t understand that because they have lifetime guarantees. If you lose something or break something, they’ll replace it. So like what’s going on here. Turned out when we did all the research and we did a lot of research around the country with with tuners and you know, motorcycle owners, etc, etc. We discovered that people like to have multiple sets, and especially now women who were doing a lot of the you know, at home repairs, they want their own set, don’t touch my tools. Anyway, so they we had this idea of ratchets of a laser etched socket which allowed them to use lasers to make the size about 10 times higher bigger than it was. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a socket, but it’s like stamped 7/8s, you can hardly see the damn thing.
And I tell this story because the buyer at Sears when he first saw that it would be 10 or 20% more said, people are not going to pay for that, you know, it’s yeah, it’s nice. Yeah, you can read it, but they can read it anyway, give me a break. To his credit, we did some qualitative research. And he was in the back room, you know, behind the glass. Consumers went zoo for this, they’re like, oh, my gosh, I’ll be under, I’ll be able to see this thing. My grandfather who does repairs, his vision is going, he’s gonna and on and on and on. And what was so cool about that, and the reason I tell this story, is because the buyer at Sears when he saw this, he said, oh, my gosh, I’m wrong. You know, how many times do a client say they’re wrong? We are launching this next month. And they did and it was a huge success.
And so what’s the principle there? You know, the, one of the principles is, the best clients are the best ones to work with. Number one, you know, the clients that need us, the least are the ones we like to work with the most. That’s number one. But number two is, you know, you sort of begin and end with the consumer, right? There’s also flexibility in the buyer here, but you know, the consumer will tell you, and and we do a lot of iterative, qualitative, we go back and forth, back and forth. By the time you do that enough, you’re gonna you’re gonna get something that’s that people say, yeah, I want that. And so I tell that story, because it goes back to making sure that you’re continually and constantly checking in with the consumer for or the customer or if it’s b2b, whatever.
Nicole: Okay. All right. So the principle begin and end with the customer or the consumer, which is actually on his philosophy page.
Bryan: Thanks for noticing, yes. Did we start with that one? I hope we did.
Nicole: Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. All right. Well, I love this one. Employees at every level of an organization have the potential to make creative contributions to the enterprise. I have always thought that the people on the quote unquote, frontline really know what’s going on. Tell us a little bit about that.
Bryan: Well, you know, when my business partner Gary Fraser was he we co founded Growth Engine 21 years ago, he was my lead client at Unilever. At one point, he was running the oral care division of Unilever and their team created Mentadent which became a $250 million brand, you know, against the two toughest marketers on the planet, Colgate and Crest, right. And, you know, what was extraordinary, there were there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of challenges. I don’t remember Mentadent, but it had a dual dispenser, and the baking soda and peroxide merged on the toothbrush, it was since bought by Church and Dwight with baking soda. And they kind of killed the brand, frankly, and it was a fantastic product. But I mentioned that because they couldn’t the team could not figure out how to do this plastic duel dispenser to manufacture at high speed.
They had engineers working on it for months, and they couldn’t figure it out. Well, you know, who solved it? It was the guys on the frontline that the manufacturing the guys, they went to them and said, what do you think we should do? And they had to, you know, nest two pieces together in order to make this thing work. And the manufacturing guy said, well, let’s just have them, you know, slowly, slowly vibrate them together. And at the end of the line, they’ll they’ll come together successfully. And and you see this over and over again, to your point, the people on the front line have such extraordinary contributions to make. You know, when we did, and this was also for Unilever, we did 25 cost cutting sessions around the country.
And we did it because we knew if we went, you know, to the manufacturing plant in Missouri, these people would have all kinds of ideas on ways to cut costs. And that absolutely is true. And that led to about $50 million in savings. So I couldn’t agree more the people on the frontlines man, you you got to go talk to them, and you got to have them contribute. And by the way, if if you have a team that is implementing, it’s going to be tasked with implementing an innovation, get them involved in the process as early and as soon as you can. And this could include the finance guy, right? The the, the, you know, the logistics guy, etc. Because or girl, excuse me, gal, whatever. You you want them because you want them to have ownership. Because you want the team again to come together to manifest thing and you need all these different talents to make it work.
Nicole: Absolutely. I love that. Yeah, I’m working with a credit union right now to kind of revamp how they give customer service. So I’m taking lots of great notes, get people in there early, and so that they will take ownership. That’s the bottom line there. I love it. Yeah. So you say innovative is all about passion. I think that the word passion and excitement and fun all of those kind of go together. So when you’re putting together the people who will be part of your, you said the disruptive innovation group at your at your place of business, how do you pick? How do you know? How do you get? How do you seek out the passionate ones?
Bryan: Oh that’s a great question. And, you know, sometimes we if I do a one shot, you know, a couple, last month, whatever it was, I worked with a manufacturing company that had of their 700 employees, over 300 of them were blind. Okay, so how could I not work with that organization? Right? I mean, how cool is that, but, and these are, these are passionate, passionate people to work with. In terms of the innovation team, you know, you want cross functionality, for sure. You know, you want the finance guy on the team, etc, etc. But you know, when when I do, because occasion, I will do one shots. A company will call me up. Like this manufacturing firm, this was the one shot, right? And they said, well, who should we invite to the session?
And I said, you know, get all these cross functional people. Get people that are responsible for implementation. And then I said, also, oh, by the way, invite your most creative people. And they go, what do you mean, what are you talking about? I said, well, you know, who some of the creative people are, right? The admin over there, who writes poetry, right? Or the finance guy, right? Who’s a painter, you know, whatever. Lawyers, I mean, I’ve been shocked how, frankly, creative lawyers can be in sessions we’ve done because they’re about, in some cases, or a lot of cases, coming up with ways to either create rules or get around them creatively. And so I don’t know if I answered your question. But it’s, it’s, you know, this is where we get into someone of the gut, right?
Who should we have in that session. And by the way, when we do sessions, we will often if it’s appropriate, encourage our clients to, you know, invite suppliers in, you know, the ad agency, certainly the promotion agency, the digital PR, agency, etc. You know, get get those outside perspective, who we’ve also done sessions, where we’ve co created with consumers, you know, when we created the Brownie Chips Ahoy wine for, for Mondelez, they, we had creative consumers be part of that process as well. Because they give, you know, they give an outside perspective that you can’t get, right. So the bigger thought here is diversity in every sense of the word in the best sense of the word is critical when you’re doing this work.
Nicole: I love it. Okay, fantastic. All right. So it all begins and ends with the consumer, the customer, you just circled back around to that. So I didn’t want anybody to miss that. He just said, you know, you bring the actual consumer in to help you with a disruptive change. So he circled back around to that. And of course, here on the Vibrant Culture podcast, we love to talk about leadership, and you say, it takes courageous leadership to do innovation. Talk, talk to me about exactly what a courageous leadership might look like, and maybe you have a story for me.
Bryan: I do. And I’ll add some other seeds to this, you know, on the podcast, we do. You know, the podcast is called Curious and Quirky. Right. So and you mentioned it earlier, you’re curious, you want curious people, right? And, you know, frankly, if they’re, they’re a little quirky, that’s okay, too, right. The courageous part of it is that, you know, just could you had mentioned it, by definition, almost, when you’re trying to create something new, you’re going to run into, you know, challenges and, and the challenges are not a bad thing. Because the organization, you know, that you’ve got, you want to get the doughnuts out, you’ve got to get efficient in your processes.
And that’s a creative act too. By the way, we’ve worked with a lot of companies to quote, make them more efficient. But when you’re trying to create something really, really new, you’re you’re challenging authority, you’re doing things that are never been done. And so it’s really easy to to give up. You know, when when Gary was doing Mentadent, and oh my god, they solved hundreds and hundreds of problems along the way. And so you have to be courageous about that. I’ll give you an example of from from from the world of female razor blades. How’s that?
Nicole: Okay, I’m all about a female razor blade. I use one daily. Go ahead.
Bryan: So we were working with Schick and, and we’ve done some innovation audits help them to launch and invent some new products anyway. In the audit we talked to, to the two women who are responsible for the intuition razor, and that’s the razor that combines soap, or you know, on the razor head, and it’s sort of an all in one motion right. Well, when they can come up with that idea, internally, you know, Schick and you know, a lot of these companies that have bend metal are sort of male, more male oriented or male dominated, right. And so these were two a woman engineer and a woman or female marketer. And they, you know, just the status quo would, there was resistance. And so what did they do, they were very, very clever about it, they sort of begged, borrowed and steal. And they would do a little research here and tested here, and get some consumer reaction there and talk to the manufacturer. And so they were very, you know, sort of, under the radar, right.
And what they did, which was so clever, even though they were under the radar, they would report when they would have successes. You know, oh, my god, the consumer liked this, and the consumer liked that. And in the process, you’re gonna have failures too. So they didn’t report the failures, they just, you know, in the organization, let people know about the successes, even though with all this great resistance, and then when, you know, there became a hole in the launch calendar for new products, because as you know, you, you have new products slated for you know, two or three years out, and if one of them doesn’t, you know, pan out, then you might have a hole.
And so there was a hole. And and the senior leadership there said, you know, I’ve been hearing good things about this intuition razor, maybe we should look at that. And that launched, and that became their most successful new product in the last 10 years when, when that launched. And and so, you know, you want to be very creative about how you do things, use these ideation processes. I’m talking about not only to get the Eureka idea, but to innovate it, to solve the hundreds and hundreds of problems that. In the case of Mentadent, in my partner, Gary had to go to the board and get $10 million of funding to build the plant. And if the board says, no, you’re done. And so he was very clever, too. He went he months before that decision was going to be made.
He went to every board member and said, had a private meeting with them said by the way, do you have any you know about this project we’re working on? Or is there anything that bothers you any questions you have? And so yet one would say, yeah, I’m not sure that people will pay twice the cost per ounce over Colgate or Crest for your new toothpaste. And he said, okay, we’ll get back to you with on that, then you get it back to him show them results. And so by the time it came for the vote. And this was true of my father, too, when he got the funding from Time Incorporated, they were all on board. And so it almost became a stamped approval, because he had been creative about how he got them to, to, you know, schedule and the $10 million he needed.
Nicole: That’s a fantastic story. I love it. Okay, so you say that innovation approaches can be taught? So tell me a little bit more about how a company might begin to teach their people to be more innovative, they can call you in for training, correct. But if they wanted to get started, how might they get started? And what would that look like? How do you get your team innovative?
Bryan: Yeah, and this may sound antithetical or, or counterintuitive. Or, I would say, the last thing you want to do is hire an innovation process consultant. Okay.
Nicole: Do not call Bryan. Don’t call Bryan. Write that down.
Bryan: Don’t call us. And what I mean by that is that, you know, if it’s a large company, and they have a lot of money, and and not that some of the big guys, you know, the, I’m reluctant to mention the names, because we’ve worked with a lot of these organizations. But the famous consulting firms, let’s just call it that. You know, they’ll come in, and you’ll spend a million and a million half hours and build the innovation process. And we think that is exactly the wrong thing to do. And the reason we think that’s wrong, is because each industry is different. Each culture is different. You know, each market is different. Each manufacturing and every company is that you need it’s like, you know, people, they’re all different.
So the what we do, is we, when we’re hired to do now we’ll come in, and we’ll do creativity training, and we do what’s called Action Learning. And that’s great because people get a BOGO meaning, you know, they’ll get ideas for their challenge and they’ll learn the techniques. So we’ve, you know, for Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, we’ve been doing that for 20 years, and it’s unbelievably successful, because the senior managers learn these techniques and, and get ideas for their business. That’s, that’s over here. But if we’re talking at a higher level of innovation process, right. Frankly, we don’t know their business as well as they do. Well, how do we presume to tell them what how they structure for this?
So the way we do it is we go in and we say listen, give us your worst performing division. Give us you know, the the area, an area where you’re having a real problem, we will come in, we will do an innovation consulting project, hopefully we’ll succeed in that in in the process, we will learn what innovation processes could really help your organization. Right. And so it’s an inductive bottom up. You know, the cool thing, in our opinion, the reason we love doing that is A we get smart about their business, but B, our costs, are consulting fees are justified, because we’re, you know, creating value every step of the way by helping them launch new divisions, new business models, new products, new services, or whatever. So so don’t hire innovation process consultants yet.
Nicole: Alright, so we need to get the five books, right, you need to get the five books. Right. Okay. And so let me ask you this, um, you know, leaders, maybe they they do have you come in, they do have all this innovation and training and they put all these things into place. What is, when the rubber meets the road, what makes an organization more likely to stay with the innovation and continue to be in because you have to be, you know, moving into the, to the world that we live in. And if you’re not staying innovative, I think you’re going to be out of business. We all know that. We’ve talked about the Blockbusters and whatever. So, so if, what is the thing that a leader can do to keep that going, like, once you leave the process, what has to happen? What’s the magic formula there?
Bryan: Well, that’s such a great question. Thank you for that, um, you know, I hate to say it, because this is a really bad analogy in this time, but before COVID happened, it was a good analogy, but I’ll use it anyway. We think of this as benevolent viruses, right. And so you create these pockets of passion, you create these areas of success. And these are supported by the senior leadership, if senior leadership and that could be the CMO, the CEO, the board, whatever, if they are not supportive of innovation, it’s going to be really, really tough.
So because they’re going to be, there’s going to be a lot of failure, you know, an agile, you know, fail fast, and all that kind of stuff, there’s a lot of value to that. And by the way, if you’re doing truly breakthrough innovation, you can fail really fast, but it may be 2, 3, 5, 10 years before this thing’s going to be manifest. If it’s a true breakthrough, like the Moderna drug took 10 years, you know. Believe it or not, it started as a, it’s this month’s HVR article talks about that process where they started about, can we use messenger RNA to create drugs that ultimately lead to the vaccine. So that was 10 years in the making, even though it seemed like it happened overnight.
But of course, you’ve got to have support along the way, right? For this. So, you know, with these, from an innovation leader standpoint, they’ve got to have a vision of where they want to go, their strategy has to be. By the way, I would just say that most strategies, and we’ve done now a lot of strategic consulting work on the innovation side. Most strategies are, are a function of the past, you know, trying to look forward rather than being creative, bringing creativity into the strategic planning process. So the, to keep it going, which was really your question, right? I’m getting there.
Nicole: I’m a patient woman. It’s okay.
Bryan: Thank you, um, you need talent, and you need commitment, you know, you need both of those things. And yes, some people are much more talented in innovation than others. Right. And so, you know, you need those talented people, especially when you’re doing the breakthrough stuff. If it’s line extension work, they don’t need to be they can be great business people and less talented from an innovation standpoint. That’s one thing. So you need the talent. But the biggest thing is you need the continuing commitment by senior senior leaders to support the the ugly, innovation, ugly, chaotic, you know, problem fraught process of innovation, you know.
And, and part of that, by the way, just so you, as we all know, it’s being open to partnerships, right? Partnerships are critical, even more critical than they ever were. You know world is changing so quickly. We can’t do it in house. As a leader, we’ve got to find those strategic partnerships. And we’ve worked with a fair number of of our clients in terms of when they made an acquisition, for instance, it’s like, they bought them for a specific purpose, but then we’ve gone and said, okay, give me In their competencies in your competencies, what can we do together that we hadn’t anticipated.
And that’s really fun work, right. And that’s by being creative together, it gets back to where we started in this, this interview here, which was by working together, it can help bring those cultures together. So if you’re, if you’ve just if you’re a CEO, and you’ve just bought brought bought a company, my advice is to, you know, besides mission, vision, values work together, is to be creative about a new venture, and in the process, you will start to bring those cultures together in unique and wonderful ways. Did I sort of answer your question?
Nicole: You did, what I heard out of all that, if I bottom lined it, would be that you you have to have a continuing commitment and really the the the buck falls, with the CEO or the leader. I think, at the end of the day, we’re not going to have innovation, it’s not going to continue and unless that word is coming out of his or her mouth, and we are you know, that we have a flag, and we’re walking down the hallways with the flag that says continuous commitment and innovation. And I love what you said about ugly, chaotic, all that. While you might appreciate this, Bryan, you know, people be like, you know, tell us what it’s gonna be like to work with you, Nicole?
And I say, well, it’s gonna be messy. And they’re, like, messy. And I’m like, yeah, really messy, because you know, change is messy, and ugly, and chaotic. And all those things. So that’s what I tell them. And surprisingly, people still sign up. Alright, so I’m sure that’s the case with you too. So here’s, here’s my question for you. You know, we’re talking about innovation. You know, we’ve got Corona out there, I think it is slowly lifting, going away, or at least that’s where my heart wants it to be, lifting away. What are the biggest challenges leaders have today in your mind that they’ve got to really pay attention to?
Bryan: Well, as you know, there are a lot of them initially, it was a supply chain and logistics challenges. But as we’re hopefully going to work through that, and the experts I’ve spoken with at Caltech about supply chain said, you know, the Grinch is going to be stealing Christmas, because we’re, we’re still have those issues of supply chain. But beyond that, you know, how do you keep the the ideas flowing, and a lot of our clients and I wrote an article about this, it was in a magazine, Ambition magazine for 50,000 MBA students, but it was how to think about virtual ideation was the title of the article, and they can search it, it’ll come up. But, you know, frankly, I didn’t, I was skeptical that, you know, virtual ideation could be successful. And that, I said, well, okay, it’ll probably work at 20%.
But it’s, oh, my gosh, it’s been, it’s it surprised the heck out of me that we’ve been able to figure out how to structure sessions virtually, and you structure very differently. It turns out there actually some advantages to it too, besides, you know, not getting together and getting sick, or having to travel or the time savings, but there, there are other advantages in that you can invite different people at different times. You know, we were going to do a two day strategy and new product session for a famous cheese company. We didn’t because of COVID. But, you know, it allowed us to invite different people to different parts of the session, whereas if a guy’s flying in from France, you know, and you’re gonna say, oh, we only need you for two hours. He’s not gonna be happy, right? So anyway, the I guess the point is that the technology came just in time, right, the Zoom and Microsoft Teams, etc. And the online creativity programs exists.
So you can succeed virtually, with this stuff, until we can get back together. And as I said, at the end of the article, I think it’s gonna be a hybrid, right? It’s like, the analogy I say, is like, when movies came out, or when TV came out, you know, in the 50s, and got big. Everybody in the movie industry was thinking they’d be out of business. But of course, they weren’t because movies provide an experience that you can’t get at home. And so, you know, they’ve coexisted nicely. And so that’s obviously what’s happening now with with the virtualness of COVID. I think the biggest challenge to again, to answer your question is probably in some ways, maintaining the culture, because you know, people need people, right? You, you want to, oh, my gosh, it’s so much fun to get together. Right?
And so, you know, Zoom and Teams can only go so far. The in person thing is critical. You know, we were during, you know, the height of COVID. One of our clients, they out on the West Coast, they manufacture huge drilling equipment, machines. They decided we’d follow all the protocols, but this they invited the 20 of their customers in because they wanted them to have that experience together. And so we did that. And it worked. And it was, oh my god, so much fun. But the I think the big challenge is how do you continue to build the culture, when when, you know, getting together as isn’t it as is easy.
And by the way, just as a side note, one of the articles I wrote in, in one of the books is, the book is called Winning the War for Talent in the 2020s. You know, talent, talent wars are raging. And so my, my chapter was, how to invent jobs that don’t yet exist as a vehicle for attracting and retaining talent. Okay, and, and so the point is, you want to create environments that get people thinking about the future, inventing the future, both for the organization, but also for themselves. And that’s the way you keep people involved. And that’s the way you help build culture at least one way, in my opinion.
Nicole: I love it. Okay, so I need two pieces of information for you. The first article that you were talking about, that was in Ambition magazine, we say it for me again, so everybody can get it because I didn’t capture it.
Bryan: Yeah, it’s it’s called, How to Think About Virtual Ideation.
Nicole: How to Think About Virtual Ideation. Right? Everybody got it? All right. That’s one. Okay. And then you said you were part of a book about winning the war for talent in 2020? 2021?
Bryan: Or no, is in the 2020s.
Nicole: 2020. Okay.
Bryan: Yes and the subhead is is 11 Insights from the Global Institute for Thought Leadership. And the chapter I have in there is that chapter about, you know, inventing jobs that don’t yet exist as a vehicle for attracting and retaining talent. We use, it’s a really fun piece we use. It’s called the semantic intuition technique. It’s word combination. And so you, you wind up inventing jobs that don’t yet exist. Because you know, in 10 years, 85% of the jobs that people will be doing don’t exist right now. And so to build culture to be innovative, you, you want your people thinking about the future in that way. And, and so that’s something we created.
And we’ve given, I’ve done this with Chris Bishop, who was formerly a futurist at IBM, we’ve done this for colleges and universities around the country, and for StEAM teachers. And there was one eureka moment I loved it, where this one MBA students said to us, you know, I was intrigued. I’m an engineer, I’m interested in internet of things, but I’m also interested in fashion. And I thought that I would have to choose between the two. And after going through your workshop, I realized that I could combine the two, internet of things, you know, fashion that that includes, you know, electronics and internet of things could be an extraordinary thing. So anyway, the point here is that, you know, we all need to be future oriented. Oh, it’s just if they want it, this book is available on Amazon, if anybody’s interested in it.
Nicole: Okay. And is that the one that is the tell me which book you just held up? I didn’t see it.
Bryan: The Winning the War for Talent in the 2020s.
Nicole: Okay, very good.
Bryan: Yep. The other book where I had a chapter is, it’s called the, The Other Side of Growth.
Nicole: The Other Side of Growth.
Bryan: Yeah. And this one is, this is a picture here. This was published by the Global Innovation Institute. And this one is also available online. The chapter I wrote in this one, which, which actually got a, an award, which I was very proud about. It was values as a vehicle. Well, I’m losing. Do something like.
Nicole: Values as a vehicle that sounds like we’re gonna come full circle right now listeners, because earlier, he corrected me because I left out vehicles don’t values don’t miss that. So what we’re doing here is we need to start out with a creative session, we talk about mission, vision and values.
Bryan: Here we go. It’s called Organizational Values, An Essential Tool for Creating a Culture of Innovation is what is what that chapter is called. So.
Nicole: Okay, fantastic. I got it.
Bryan: You got it.
Nicole: Thank you, I got it. I got it. Well, we’re at the top of the hour. And I just wanted to ask you one final question, although we probably need to have you come back and share more and more and more. If you were mentoring a single special listener, we’ve got a we’ve got a leader out there and he’s like, I know the writing’s on the wall. I’ve got to get my innovation ramped up around here, and he’s listening to all this. Maybe he or she is a little overwhelmed with the whole thing. What little piece of it advice, leadership advice would you give them so that they could just take like a next right step?
Bryan: Well, at the higher levels, I think, frankly, leaders need to be I’ve called them facilitating leaders, right? So they need to be able to facilitate the greatness within the organization. And that’s speeches. But you know, that’s part of it. The other part of it is I do think that every medium and large sized company should have, I’ll call them an ideation strategist. If we go through the thinking and say why ideas are critical to our organization, not only in terms of innovation, but cost cutting and solving daily problems.
Well, we should have somebody who is an expert in ideation techniques and processes who can lead session and train team team leaders to do that. And then finally, at the individual level, you know, I, you know, we talk about diversity and inclusion, and I’ve given speeches now to National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship. And we find out there are high dropout rates among black students, because the culture is not good, sometimes at the community college, they don’t feel a sense of culture. And I think the great equalizer, if you will, or way to help all groups, you know, underserved groups attain great, you know, rise to the top is by having the skills to come up with new ideas.
And you know, my book 21 Days to a Big Idea is was all about helping aspiring entrepreneurs come up with new ideas for new ventures. But it’s not even that it’s the entrepreneur mindset, it’s a creative problem mindset, I think, my gosh, it is such an equalizer. If you have ideas, and they are unique, you have power, because you’re the only one that has them. And you can control when you say it, to whom you say it how you say it. And, and if you want to rise to the top of an organization, man, you you have to, in these times, particularly have the ability to come up with new ideas. And I spent my entire life trying to invent and share processes that enable people to do that.
Nicole: Alright, so what I heard you say, your ideas have power. And you need to get a hold of Bryan’s book that he just held up 21 Days to a Big Idea. And he will take you through that, and that it is the great equalizer. And you can, I love what you said too about you know, you, once you have them, you’ll know when to use them, when to share them who to give them to, so that you have some leverage really to get your career where it needs to go. So that is fantastic advice. And so I just want everybody to know that you can reach out to Bryan Mattimore you can reach him at www.growth-engine.com. And he would be glad to talk with you. Also you can get up with him on LinkedIn. And he’s on Twitter at Bryan Mattimore with a number one. Alright, so that’s where all the places we can find you. What else? What else would you like to share a final thought with us, Bryan.
Bryan: The final thought is I want to give you a compliment Nicole because one of the great components of of innovation, creativity, culture change, is what? It’s listening. Right. And you have done frankly, and I hope this doesn’t sound obsequious in any way, shape, or form. Because I really do mean it. You have done a fantastic job of researching and listening and sharing back what I said and that’s a unique talent and I can see why you’re, you’re very good at your work. Because, you know, as consultants, oh my gosh, if we’re not listeners, curious listeners, we’re nothing. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it.
Nicole: Yeah, it’s been my distinct pleasure. I’m gonna hang up on on our Zoom call here, but I’m going to go out and get get copies of your books, and I’m going to start giving them to people, because I think the work you’re doing is so necessary. Thank you, Bryan Mattimore for being on The Build of Vibrant Culture podcast. Everybody, have a great day.
Bryan: Thanks, Nicole.
Voiceover: Ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with her strategies, systems and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy and results. Your organization will get lit from within. Email Nicole@nicolegreer.com. And be sure to check out Nicole’s TEDx talk at nicolegreer.com.
