Breakthrough Innovation

JL Heather
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Business
  • Weekly

Breakthrough Innovations dives into the stories and strategies of leaders and innovators driving change. Each episode uncovers insights on leadership, overcoming challenges, and creating transformative impact across industries.

  1. 1d ago

    Why Most Leaders Confuse an Audience for a Community (And Why It's Costing Them)

    Most leaders think they're engaging a community — but what they're really doing is speaking to an audience. That distinction is quietly killing trust, retention, and growth. In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Bryan Woodyard, a C-suite strategist with 30 years of experience across nonprofits, healthcare technology, and global organizations. We cover why community engagement requires authenticity over performance, how transparency transformed nonprofit fundraising at Minnesota Public Radio, and what leaders can learn from the American Sign Language community about truly belonging. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 1:14 The recurring disconnect Bryan finds in every industry 2:49 Version control for understanding your market 3:47 The NPR fundraising story — aggregation and transparency 7:09 Avoiding big bang events — iterative community building 8:22 How community engagement shows up in healthcare software 9:33 What ASL teaches about meeting communities where they are 10:39 Feedback loops and the ouroboros of community value 12:43 Why CEOs speak to audiences instead of engaging communities 13:17 Getting started — authenticity and jumping in feet first 14:45 Preston's Ford executive story — learning by experiencing 15:55 Being a translator, not a tourist 17:09 Engaging communities where you won't be immediately accepted 18:40 The sign name — a belonging signal 19:24 Bryan's takeaway and how to connect 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ There's a critical difference between speaking to an audience and engaging with a community — most leaders default to broadcasting when they should be belonging. ✅ Transparency builds trust faster than polish — Bryan's NPR aggregation story cut a four-day fundraising cycle in half by simply showing donors the full picture. ✅ You can't manufacture community connection — authenticity means bringing yourself into a community without expectation, not extracting value from it. ✅ Meeting a community where they are (literally learning their language) creates feedback loops that drive sustained innovation. ✅ Your company's core values and founding story are your most authentic entry point into the communities you want to serve. 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ Bryan Woodyard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmwprofile/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughlab #communityengagement #communitybuilding

  2. Oct 21

    How Rating People Destroys the Growth You're Trying to Create

    Performance ratings are supposed to drive improvement — but the research says they're doing the opposite. What happens when the system designed to ensure quality is actually the thing preventing it? In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Craig Randall, creator of Trust-Based Observations and a leadership coach who has trained school leaders across six continents. We cover why evaluation-driven observation causes harm, how separating observation from evaluation unlocks genuine growth, and the brain science behind why trust — not ratings — is the real driver of performance. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:23 Why observation systems cause harm 1:17 What is evaluation-driven observation? 7:09 Parallels to the non-teaching world 8:04 Process over outcomes — the Mike McDonald example 10:05 Creating accountability without rating pedagogy 12:53 What to evaluate instead — professionalism, relationships, mindset 15:26 Software engineering parallel — what happens when core skills lag 16:47 The Brené Brown trust-vulnerability-risk connection 19:45 What leaders can change tomorrow — semantics and brain science 22:40 Why the details of language matter in leadership 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ Rating people on their core craft — whether teaching or any other skill — destroys the trust needed for genuine improvement ✅ Separating observation from evaluation creates the psychological safety people need to take risks and grow ✅ The brain checks for safety four to five times per second — if people don't feel safe, they literally cannot absorb feedback ✅ Accountability doesn't disappear without ratings — professionalism, collaboration, planning, and growth mindset still hold people to a standard ✅ Semantics matter immensely — one word like "necessarily" can undo the trust you've built 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ Craig Randall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trustbasedcraig/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughlab #trustbasedobservations #trustbasedcraig

  3. Oct 14

    The Three Hidden Defaults Killing Your Remote Team's Performance

    Remote leaders don't burn out from doing too much work — they burn out from being the bottleneck for every decision. If your team waits for you before they move, you've got a delegation problem hiding as an engagement problem. In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Madi Waggoner, a remote work strategist who has spent 15 years building and scaling remote teams across 60+ organizations. We cover the three hidden defaults that silently erode remote team performance, how to use check-in checkpoints and the WAIT framework to delegate decisions (not just tasks), and how to create spaces of belonging that move teams from dependency to true empowerment. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:23 The "router" problem in remote leadership 1:32 The three defaults of remote work: invisible, friction, disorder 4:27 Remote leadership archetypes: Switchboard, Compass, and Fog Walker 6:06 Why delegating decisions matters more than delegating tasks 6:25 Check-in checkpoints: a staggered trust-building cycle 8:38 Learning to fail small instead of fail big 9:48 How leaders know when to let go 11:45 The WAIT framework for delegation (Why, Audience, Info, Time) 15:19 Creating "spaces" of belonging for remote teams 17:36 Moving teams from belonging to contributing and challenging 19:09 The Liberated Leader Assessment and next steps 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ 90% of remote team problems come down to three defaults: things are invisible, friction is everywhere, and everything moves from order to disorder ✅ Most leaders delegate tasks but hold onto decisions — check-in checkpoints let you hand off decisions gradually while building trust ✅ The WAIT framework (Why, Audience, Info, Time) forces intentional friction before firing off delegation messages ✅ Remote teams need dedicated "spaces" — channels where questions, wins, and help requests have a place of belonging ✅ Ask your team one specific question: "How am I a bottleneck?" — specific questions get specific answers 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ Madi Waggoner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madiwaggoner/ Liberated Leader Assessment: liberated.buildingremote.co 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #remotework #remoteleadership #delegation #breakthroughlab #buildingremote

  4. Oct 7

    Why Your Smartest People Are Trapped — and How Leaders Set Them Free

    Most organizations don't have an innovation problem — they have a permission problem. You can run every sprint in the book and still watch good ideas die between the third approval and the fourth steering committee. So how do you build innovation capability that actually sticks? In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Matthias Orgler, a leadership development specialist and SAFe Practice Consultant who has spent two decades helping large organizations close the gap between agile theater and real transformation. We cover why SAFe's big picture gets the ratio backwards, how immersive "work shock" workshops rewire leadership habits in days, and where to spend (and refuse to spend) a 90-day innovation budget. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:21 Most organizations have a permission problem, not an innovation problem 1:15 Is SAFe really agile? When the trade-off is worth making 4:42 The 90/10 problem: why SAFe's big picture inverts what actually matters 7:08 How to close the gap between what executives promote and what they believe 9:17 Reframing change: "The context changed, not your competence" 11:16 What leadership development actually looks like — work shocks and habit change 13:21 Why celebrating failure is a leadership discipline, not a slogan 16:16 The 90-day innovation budget: where to spend and what to refuse 18:41 Bridging the workshop back to Monday morning 20:14 Setting people free: untapped potential trapped by assumed rules 21:14 The square root principle — how many change agents you actually need 22:24 Building momentum that can't be stopped 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ SAFe can be a useful entry point for waterfall organizations, but 90% of its "big picture" is process and roles — while 90% of what makes agility work is the mindset and culture underneath ✅ The fastest path to lasting change is immersive leadership workshops that shift habits and emotions, not slide decks that get forgotten by Monday ✅ Don't spend your innovation budget embedding coaches who run retrospectives — invest in leadership transformation and identifying internal change agents ✅ You don't need to convert everyone. Setting free roughly the square root of your headcount as empowered change agents can create self-sustaining momentum ✅ The most innovative people in your organization are often already there — trapped by misaligned incentives and unwritten cultural rules 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ Matthias Orgler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orgler/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughlab #agile #SAFe #agiletransformation

  5. Sep 30

    How to Innovate with Certainty: Daniel Burrus on Hard Trends, Soft Trends, and the Anticipatory Mindset

    Every executive says AI is moving too fast to plan around. Daniel Burrus has spent 40 years proving that the biggest shifts in technology aren't surprises — they're future facts you can see coming, if you know how to look. In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler sit down with Daniel Burrus — futurist, New York Times bestselling author, creator of the Anticipatory Organization model, and AI Expert in Residence at High Point University. We cover how to separate hard trends from soft trends to innovate with certainty, why chasing AI tools without the right mindset guarantees failure, and how "problem skipping" unlocks answers you've been missing. 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ All trends are either hard (future facts that will happen) or soft (assumptions that may or may not happen) — separating them is the foundation of innovating with confidence ✅ A trend is academic until you attach an opportunity to it — that's when it becomes actionable ✅ Keeping up with AI is a fool's game — jump ahead by asking where it's going, not where it is ✅ AI requires a mindset shift first, a skillset second, and only then the tools — most leaders have the sequence backward ✅ Whatever problem you're stuck on, that's not the real problem — skip it, ask why, and find the one underneath 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ Daniel Burrus: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielburrus/ Daniel Burrus website: https://www.burrus.com AI Strategy Report: https://www.aistrategyreport.com 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughlab #anticipatoryorganization #danielburrus #AI

  6. Sep 23

    Your Org Chart Is Holding You Back: Rethinking Structure for Innovation

    Most organizations are pouring resources into making individuals faster — but that's not what drives breakthrough innovation. The real structural shift is building smarter teams that can make better decisions, iterate faster, and operationalize learning before the competition. In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler wrap up their three-part series on the intersection of culture and structure by going deep on the structural half — why cross-functional teams outperform departments, how a product mindset replaces the project trap, and what happens to middle management when you push decision-making to the people with the most context. 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ Organizations should shift from making faster individuals to building smarter, cross-functional teams that share accountability and decision-making. ✅ A product/outcome mindset — not a project mindset — is essential for innovation, because no single project will get it right the first time. ✅ Middle management layers are shrinking as empowered teams take on more ownership — and that's both uncomfortable and necessary. ✅ Training alone doesn't drive change. Training plus embedded coaching plus leaders modeling the right behaviors is what makes transformation stick. ✅ The ultimate competitive advantage isn't just learning faster — it's building the structure and culture to operationalize that learning. 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughlab #organizationalstructure #agileteams

  7. Sep 16

    The Culture of Innovation - Why What Made You Successful Is Holding You Back

    Breakthrough innovation isn't about catching lightning in a bottle — it's about building the cultural and structural conditions where breakthroughs happen again and again. In this episode, JL Heather and Preston Chandler go deep on the culture side of that equation. This is Part 2 of a three-part series on the intersection of culture and structure in innovation. Part 1 laid out the overarching framework — why culture and structure are codependent and how they work together. In this episode, JL and Preston focus on the cultural conditions that make breakthrough innovation repeatable: psychological safety, trust and accountability, the language of learning vs. failure, and why value obsession beats process obsession every time. Part 3 will shift to the structural side — the tangible systems and changes that bring it all together. 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ Culture and structure are codependent — changing one without the other creates drag that pulls you back ✅ Psychological safety isn't just a nice-to-have — it's the precondition for repeatable innovation ✅ Organizations should talk about "learning" instead of "failure" to remove the stigma that shuts down experimentation ✅ When teams understand the why, they become value obsessed instead of process obsessed — and they stop counting steps and start measuring distance ✅ One of the most underrated leadership skills is the ability to unlearn what made you successful 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #designsprint #leadership #breakthroughinnovation #culture #psychologicalsafety #organizationalchange 3. LINKEDIN EPISODE ANNOUNCEMENT POST Your organization has 87 approval steps and still has quality issues. That's not a process problem. That's a trust problem. In the latest Breakthrough Innovation episode, Preston and I dig into why most companies keep reaching for structural fixes — more reviews, more gates, more rules — when the real issue is cultural. Here's the thing: culture and structure aren't sequential. They're codependent. Pull one without moving the other, and the system snaps right back. We unpack what actually makes breakthrough innovation repeatable: → Psychological safety that goes beyond lip service — and what Pixar's Brain Trust got right → Why "celebrate failure" is the wrong message — and what to say instead → The difference between value obsession and process obsession (and how one question reveals which one your team has) → Why the most underrated leadership skill right now is the ability to unlearn This is Part 2 of our three-part series on building the conditions where breakthrough becomes a habit — not a happy accident. #BreakthroughInnovation #Leadership #Innovation #Culture #OrganizationalChange

  8. Sep 9

    Culture and Structure: Why Fixing One Without the Other Always Fails

    Companies are investing more in innovation than ever, AI on top of that, and the results have not moved. The problem was never a shortage of ideas — it is that most organizations are wired to squash the ones they already have. In this episode of Breakthrough Innovation, JL Heather and Preston Chandler go back to the foundation the whole show rests on: culture and structure are two halves of one coin, and almost every stalled innovation effort is a company that fixed one and left the other alone. We cover why organizations built for predictability end up structured against their own ambitions, what Netflix's no-vacation-policy really taught them about making a behavior permissible before it can become acceptable, why routing and approval chains read to a team as "we don't trust you", and what changes when a leader delegates authority instead of tasks. This is part one of three. Part two goes deep on the culture half, part three on the structure half. ⏱ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:21 More investment in innovation, no more results 1:16 Structured for predictability, which is the antithesis of innovation 1:49 It was never a shortage of ideas 3:15 Every leader leans culture or structure, and the pendulum swings back 5:06 Netflix, the vacation policy, and the rule nobody used 7:19 Values are words on a wall until someone feels safe enough to challenge them 8:04 Why good work backslides the moment a crisis hits 10:09 Cargo cults: copying the structure, missing the culture 12:19 The A3 that was only ever a size of paper 14:16 The culture industry has the same blind spot in reverse 15:22 "We are one team", with independent P&Ls 19:27 Why the marketing industry is stuck 30 years back 22:23 AI slapped on top of a process nobody fixed 23:01 Stop treating AI as a tool. Treat it as a participant 25:10 Routing, approvals, and what they say about trust 27:52 Delegate authority, not tasks 29:30 The two-day vacation test for leaders 32:35 "Own it": what happened when someone was handed AI adoption 34:49 People rise to the expectations you set 37:48 Ownership at home: the lawn, and Extreme Ownership 40:38 Wrapping up, and what is coming next 💡 KEY TAKEAWAYS ✅ Culture and structure are not two projects, they are two halves of one. Fix either on its own and the pendulum swings back — the leader who diagnoses the culture problem correctly and leaves the approval chains, the separate P&Ls and the incentives untouched gets short-term movement and a long-term relapse ✅ Copying a visible practice without the invisible conditions underneath it is a cargo cult. Google's 20% time was worth nothing in companies where a single no could kill an idea that needed twenty yeses, and the A3 crossed the Pacific as a problem-solving methodology when it was only ever the size of a piece of paper ✅ Delegating a task keeps the leader as the answer; delegating authority makes the team the answer. Give someone a space to own rather than a list to complete and the work comes back bigger than the brief — the person handed AI adoption returned with a governance process for agents that nobody had asked for 🎁 FREE RESOURCE Download our Design Sprint Starter Guide → https://centered.work/design-sprint-starter-guide-signup 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for weekly innovation strategy → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/breakthrough-innovation-7249796048536133632/ 👥 CONNECT Centered.work: https://centered.work JL Heather: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlheather/ Preston Chandler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonchandler/ 📕 Get the book Breakthrough Innovation → https://centered.work/books #innovation #organizationalculture #leadership #aiadoption #breakthroughinnovation

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About

Breakthrough Innovations dives into the stories and strategies of leaders and innovators driving change. Each episode uncovers insights on leadership, overcoming challenges, and creating transformative impact across industries.

Information

  • Creator
    JL Heather
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    191
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 JL Heather
  • Show Website
    Breakthrough Innovation