The Innovation Crowd with Helen Dawson Helen Dawson

Group Marketing Director of Specsavers, Carolyn McKeever, join us to talk about:


How to transform a successful business at the pace of its customers.
Adapting to a younger generation while still serving the main customer base
Investing in legacy systems rather than living with "sticky-back plastic" tools
Working in a founder-owned business versus a large corporate
Why 'growing your own' talent is vital
And why being right is less important than building relationships.

In this episode, Helen talks to Warren Minde of Innovation Leap about innovation as a human-centred activity.

We talk about:


The Ikea Effect - why gatekeepers have more buy-in if they can co--create.
Innovation's not a process, it's a human activity. And it's not linear, it's like a pinball machine.
How to avoid the trap of listening to the Highest Paid Person's Opinion.
How Warren's experience on Lynx deodorant taught him that 'customers don't give a f**k about you'
Why benefits come before features when talking to stakeholders
Thinking backwards from the future to get more radical new business models.
Serious play and why work should be fun.
And why you should call it out when things get weird.

You can find Warren at https://innovationleap.co.uk/

In this episode, Nils Jeners joins Helen to dive into methodology and how to build the skills needed to be an innovator. We cover:


Why innovators are great networkers
How to use workshops to harvest ideas using the Double Diamond Approach
Why curiosity is the key attribute for team members
The importance of visualising information to help teams make decisions and using those two by two matrices.
Why your MVP should stay small
Why networking with 1-2-1 virtual coffees is one of our favourite ways to meet people

Resources:

Double Diamond approach: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/skills-learning/the-double-diamond/

Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder https://www.strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas

Lean Start-Up by Eric Ries

Sprint by Jake Knapp

Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alex Osterwalder

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

Neel Arya, founder of Mettle Consulting, and Helen discuss the attributes needed by today's leaders, operating at the limits of their organisational structure and traditional problem-solving. Rather than definitive answers, we debate:


Approaching the zone of confusion through child-like eyes.
How do you create a space where people feel safe and can bring their true selves? The mindset needed for serious play.
Vertical development for leaders.
The importance of emotions in leadership and the workplace.
The role of serendipity in success.
Why we should be wary of case studies holding up organisations as exemplars in innovation.
Doughnut economics and how systemic change might be needed.
The importance of divergent thinking to hold potential futures lightly.
The strengths needed by leaders and how that might differ for corporations versus start-ups

Resources for further reading:


The four Cs that we talk about are: Courage, Curiosity, Collaboration, Compassion
Cynefin framework: A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making (hbr.org)
Bob Moesta’s Jobs to Be Done: What Is the Jobs to Be Done Framework (JTBD)? | Built In and 8 Elements of Jobs to Be Done: How to Uncover Customers' JTBD (therewiredgroup.com)
Kate Raworth Doughnut Economics Doughnut | Kate Raworth
Hogan profiles Hogan Assessments | Personality Tests That Predict Performance

Richard Holdsworth of V-Box joins us to talk about ways in which collaboration across the maritime industry is helping to use innovation to create better conditions for seafarers. 

We talk about:


The power of crowd-sourcing ideas from employees. 
Why corporations should resist the urge to buy bean bags and hoodies and instead, focus on forging partnerships with start-ups. Richard gives us practical tips on how to make those collaborations work.
How rewarding it is to test ideas with customers.
And how everything boils down to Sales 101 in some way.

And Richard shares some real examples to bring this to life.

Find out more at www.v-box.io

Andrew Webber from tech & innovation company Whitespace pulls on his years of experience building successful ecosystems both as part of Microsoft, during the pandemic with the Emergent Alliance and on behalf of companies like Rolls Royce and BP. The key is collaboration and making sure all boats rise with value for both start-ups and the corporate or public sector organisation. We talk about the mindset needed to work in an open way, objectives beyond revenue, making friends with procurement and the power of diverse thinking.