The Innovation Mindset | Jennifer Kenny | 494

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. And today my guest is Jennifer Kenny. She is the author of, as of 5 minutes ago, the bestselling book, The Innovation Mindset. So she just shared that with me before we recorded. So Congratulations. She's a Master of Innovation Practices. She increases the capacity of leaders, teams, and organizations to fuel innovation, performance, and revenue in complex and emergent technology ecosystems. So without getting into the rest of her bio, which is quite impressive, she's sitting right here in front of me, so I'd rather just talk to her. So welcome, Jennifer. How are you? And congratulations.

Thank you very much. I am very well. I'm delighted. The book, because, you know, books take a long time to give birth to. So it's finally out there in the world and the people I wrote it for seem to be excited. And we've done, you know, Amazon, but still Amazon, number one in a couple of different categories and we're pretty pleased.

Fantastic. So let me ask you this, you know, so as I peruse your bio, you know, undergrad in Dublin, master's in London, you've been at Accenture, you've been at Booz, etc., etc. So that's a logical career path, right? What's your journey and path been like if you were to write a resume of, you know, Jennifer the thought leader? What might, what would the highlight reel say?

So I started off as a geologist, which is the ultimate in systems thinking, and I loved it because it was systems thinking. And then I went on, did a master's in geotech and all of that. And I think what I've been doing, if I look back on it, I've been following the systems thinking route for my entire career. The idea that you are looking to really understand complex adaptive systems and, you know, human beings ourselves, we are complex adaptive systems. And yet the way that we have chosen historically to look at the world is to look at it as linear hierarchical systems. And I think we're seeing that absolutely fall apart all around us at the moment. So the people who are systems thinkers and able to think like systems thinkers and have practices to support their systems thinking are the ones who tend to be most transformational, most innovative, most adaptive. And so that's what I love doing and that's what I bring into companies.

I love that. Tell me how you started, right? So how did you start as a thought— because today you're sitting here as a multiple published author. You have this expertise on the innovation mindset. How did that path start? Because obviously, when you're at places like Booz Allen Accenture, it's not like you have lots of idle time, right? It's monstrous.

Yes, you don't have lots of idle time.

So what was your journey or path as a thought leader? Where did it start and how did it evolve? Yeah.

I think— thank you. Yeah, I think it started doing consulting because I felt that consulting was always a "how can I help you" type of conversation. And I wasn't particularly interested in those. I'm much more interested in the "what can I co-invent with you?" "What can I bring to the table from my respective expertise and from yours?" And I would even say not expertise, but mastery. So I set out in pursuit of mastery in a particular area. And the, the wonderful thing about that is it's an incredibly humbling experience because you can only aspire to mastery in a tiny niche of human understanding. And so you go through this process, which I refer to as the tiny nub of nothingness, where you really say, really, that's who I'm gonna be. That's what I'm gonna be known for. And you strip off all of the other identities that you have and you come back and you go, Innovation practices, that's gonna be my thing. And then you start building out your body of work in that space. And I've been doing that now for probably about 15 years in various different, you know, with various different elements of it. The systems think obviously a big part of it.

Yep.

And so it's, so it's that process of really understanding where you're going to stand your ground, what you want to be identified for, what matters to you. And what mattered to me, because I saw so much difficulty and suffering around it, brilliant people, helping them be able to move beyond what they would refer to as the politics of organizations and actually be able to get to the real work that they're there to do, which is the work of innovation and co-invention. And that's where I play.

Interesting. So I like that you've got sort of the innovation, what did you call it? The innovation principles as sort of the starting. Platform?

Yeah. So the innovation practices.

Innovation practices. So stay there for a minute because if that's your platform, right? The world now knows you, knows Jennifer as the innovation practices woman, right? Then what that does is it serves as sort of a constraint in a good way, right? So the fact that your, your latest book is called Innovation Mindset, that, that logically fits under that. It's an extension of it makes sense. And then there's lots of things that you've probably toiled with or thought about as an entrepreneur and such that said, yeah, that might be cool, I might be above average in that, I might even be an expert at that, but it doesn't fit. So therefore I shouldn't go down that. That takes a tremendous amount of discipline to say no to something that you're actually really good at. Can you touch on that for a moment?

Yeah, that's a great question. So this is again my tiny number of nothingness because I think that once you look to position yourself, you really have to be able to make it easy for people to, to understand what you're standing on, what ground you're standing on, what area you're really practicing in. And innovation practices is something that most people can relate to. They don't necessarily understand it, they don't necessarily know how to implement it, they don't necessarily even know what it is, but they can relate to it. And that's all I was looking for. And so for me, staying with clarity and precision in that space and saying, when it comes to innovation mindset, when it comes to how practice innovation, comes to the type of teams we need to build in order to be innovative, when it comes to the kind of diversity we need to be able to understand how to build, you know, truly innovative teams. Those are the areas that I'm gonna play. And when it comes to the communities we need to build to be able to innovate together, I'm gonna play there. And so it is really a process of going, there are so many other things I'm interested in. There's so many other things I would love to—

sure, right.

The space I wanna work in. But I am really— and the equivalent, I guess, from a product perspective would be product-led growth, right? So I got a request last week to work with a group of people who are working in the regenerative economy or the circular economy.

Sure.

Now that's an area that I'm fascinated by and that I'm, you know, I know is terribly important and I want to work with teams in that space for sure. But to be invited to do something in space is now that I will allow in terms of it doesn't mess with my positioning and how I want to be identified. It actually enhances it because it's a wonderful invitation. So that's more how I'm looking at it. It's like you position yourself and then you look for who are the people who relate very strongly to that and how can you add value for them.

Love it. That makes sense. One, I like how you're, you're sort of staying in your lane. And also giving yourself some freedom because otherwise you get bored, right? Like if you're only doing the exact same thing. So there's gonna be places where you have to make some strategic decisions around where the boundaries are and boundaries change and borders change and all that sort of stuff. If you're enjoying this episode of Thought Leadership Leverage, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. I want to— you and I were talking before we hit record here. About the book process, right? So let's go back now. So now you're in this sort of early launch period. Let's go back to when the book was an inkling, a seed of an idea, right? And walk us through how it's evolved and/or devolved or however you want to— like, how did it go from the ideation piece to thump, it could land on my desk now?

Yeah, so it actually was started off with another book, which is going to be now my third book. It started off with that one, and I think I wrote, and that one was very much focused on how more gender-diverse teams are more innovative. And there's plenty of data out there on that now, but nobody really, you know, companies struggle with how do you do that. And I had done a lot of research and work in that space. So I wrote book number one. I'm like, there we go, this is it, this is fabulous.

And I read it myself and I thought, I don't really want to publish that so much. Yeah, right. And then, oh, my name's on it.

And then I did another iteration. Exactly.

Did another iteration from another angle.

I'm still not happy with it. And then I was— I spoke to Page Two, who've done the publishing. Yeah, they're just incredible. And they said to me, what kind of book do you want to write, Jennifer? And I said, I'd like to write a book I'm not embarrassed about. And they said, well, we think we could move the bar a little higher than that one, Jen. So, so we decided to do this innovation mindset one because that's the one that I have, you know, most of my businesses in, that I have 30 years of experience in. So this one was an easier one for me to put together. And now going through the entire process has positioned me to be able to do the next one. And the next one's gonna be, uh, picked up by Macmillan. So we're now in the process, we've submitted the manuscript, we're now in the process of doing all of that. So the process is, it's, it's a huge learning curve, Peter. It's just, I was blown away at what a big learning curve it was. And the whole publishing industry, unless you've been involved with it in some way previously, it is It is quite a unique industry. And the only thing I would say to aspiring authors is get yourself a really good editor because they can make your ugly baby look beautiful.

Yeah. Well, and there's lots of— it's a classic example of it takes a village. Everybody thinks like, what is a more loner type activity? Write a book, like, right? You just, you know, lock yourself in a cabin and, you know, la la la la la. But from the editorial to the design to the marketing to the distribution. I mean, there's multiple layers that are so outside the core competencies of a typical writer, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And even I wouldn't consider myself a typical writer at all. Someone said to me, how do you manage to write a book? And I said, well, it's a very long-term strategy. I gave birth to an author and got her to help me. 28 years later, I got her to help me. Because I happen to have a daughter who's much more into the story and the detail than I am.

I'm more into— Well, but stay there a moment though, because I think there's something interesting. I don't know if I'd recommend a 28-year gestation period, but the fact that you've got the expertise that your daughter doesn't, she may be a better quote writer when we look at it through the lens of storytelling or whatever. And I think that oftentimes what happens is an amazing expert, right? A great thought leader needs someone, whether that's, you know, ghostwriters. To me, there's a continuum of, is it really an intellectual sparring partner? Is it a wordsmith? Is it someone that's actually trying to capture your voice and you're lazy and don't actually want to write? Like, where do you want that to be? What's the right fit for you? So I'm assuming, yeah, she probably knew your voice and style and was probably somewhat familiar with the work. So the, the onboarding period Some would say would be less, some would say was 28 years.

We could debate that. Yeah, no, fantastic. I think distinctions to lay out for people is, so for me, what it was, I didn't want an intellectual sparring partner. I'd already had loads of those. They were all my clients and they're fabulous. Good. All great in that department. I didn't, I wasn't too lazy to write a book 'cause God knows I'd taken enough runs at this thing. And so what I needed was I needed someone to enhance my particular capacity with their own. And my daughter's very, very different. And it worked out as a really, really nice partnership. And we had fun doing it. So I think it's, for me, I, you know, speaking to anyone who's thinking about doing this, for me it's a process of, you know, what are you missing and how do you find that? Because ultimately the book has to be a gift for the people who you want to read it. And that's what I was hoping. That's what I was aiming for.

So now that we've talked about the energy and the effort and the work and all that to actually write a book, let's talk about the hard part. So the hard part is how do you get the book in front of anybody that cares? Right? Like, how do you— to me, it feels like maybe I'm old school. I like to read a lot. I actually read a couple of books a week. But for the most part, how do you get people out of their trance and get the most precious resource and commodity that we have today, which is undivided attention for a moment in time? For them to look at your stuff and say, oh yeah, yeah, maybe I should buy that book and maybe I should read that book. How's, how's that?

Yeah, so that was, I was amazed with that. So one is people actually look at the COVID much more than they look at the interior before they buy a book. So I have a really beautiful cover, thank you, Peter Winick. But the other thing that I think is really important, and I'm certain you do the same thing, when I pick up a book, I read the endorsements to see whether or not it's something I'm interested in. So I got an enormous gift from Gil Pratt, who's Toyota's chief scientist.

Yep.

And he wrote me an endorsement that, and he said, I strongly recommend The Innovation Mindset to anyone who wants to learn how to do the more challenging part of innovation. Now, if anyone understands the more challenging part of innovation, Gil Pratt does. The transformation by human teams of inventions into innovations. So for me, if I'm walking through the airport and I see that and I'm interested in innovation, I'm buying this book anyway. So I think your endorsements are really, really important. And then also Wolfram Burgard, who literally wrote the Bible on probabilistic robotics, also gave me one. Thank you, Wolfram. And he said, "The innovation mindset provides a unique view on how to improve human collaboration in support of greater innovation." So, but let, let me, let me, let me push on you a little bit there.

Yeah. Couple things. So this, this will be fun. One is the use case that you described, someone walking through an airport or a bookstore and picking up a book, physically picking up a hard copy of a book, looking at a beautiful cover, looking at the back and looking at the endorsements. There's some truth to that. Yeah. But that's not the way most people buy books most often today. Over 60% of books sold are digital, right? Yeah. So now it's, they're looking at a thumbnail of a book cover. So a good book cover is better than a not good book cover. Yeah. But if I'm looking at it while standing at Starbucks, you know, I, you know, thumbnail size on my phone while ordering a cappuccino, it's less influential. And am I really double-clicking and looking and all that to find the testimonials, right? Yeah. So it's a different, that's one use case of, I would call it a little bit more old school. Like that used to be my favorite thing to do is walk through the aisles of a Barnes Noble. Right. With a, with a piping hot cup of coffee and say, Hey, I, I never heard of this Kenny lady. Who the hell is she? And then, oh, look at what all these other brilliant people said. Like, okay, you got me. I'm gonna take that to the register. Today we need to basically get the people that endorse us from a testimonial perspective and get them to make some noise in their communities, right? Because each of those folks that you mentioned, they gave you something beautiful, but their names are only relevant to a po— a certain population. So we want them to go back to their followers and say, hey, my friend Jennifer wrote this awesome book. In fact, it's so great, here's what I said about it. Yeah, you know, and maybe there's a hyperlink to— maybe that's in their newsletter or on a social feed or whatever. I think we just need to be multi-channel today.

And yeah, no, totally agree. And I think it would take something even more organic than that. I think a lot of it is word of mouth. I mean, most of us now read books based on people who we know or like or follow who are for—

who are for— exactly.

Right?

Exactly.

And so I think one of the things that I did in that, in this intentionally with that in mind, is that I worked to make this as pragmatic as possible. So I, my editor said to me, Jennifer, you know, this book could be a perpetually useful book. So, you know, the books that you put all the little sticky tags into.

Yeah. I love that.

And you use them 100 times. Like I have one of them here and it is, it's a mess. But I love it, right? Because it's got multiple different sticky tags of all different ages, sizes, and colors. And I just love the idea of being able to do that. So what I put in here was there's practices and exercises for people. There's exercises for them and their teams. There's ways they can look to apply stuff immediately. You know, nothing is just theoretical. Everything is— there's practical models, there's practical applications, there's applications for you. Applications for your team. And so what I wanted to do was write something that people would put sticky notes in and, you know, write notes in the margins. I didn't want to write the perfect.

Maybe there's a good marketing idea is to sell a hardcover book that comes with a— get 3M to sponsor it with a shrink wrap pack of yellow stickies and a colored marker with it. That might be an interesting book.

Exactly.

I mean, that's what I was looking for.

It's like, to me, the most valuable books are the ones that blow my mind and I get one fabulous idea out of them and I walk away and I'm good to go. Are the ones that sit on my desk covered in stickies and notes and that I wave at my Zoom screen every so often to recommend to other people. So that's what I was, I was going for the latter. And hopefully as people applied, like I got a lovely email from a woman the other day and she said, look, I've started applying this already. I get that the innovation mindset applies in everything that I do. I've got a really important next meeting next week. I wanna apply this stuff. So that's what, that's what I was looking to do.

No, and I think that's the world that we're living in, in that it used to be we would take on information for the sake of learning, which is lots of people still do that. But also there's this pull, this, you know, in the moment, on demand, you know, do it yourself YouTube mentality of I've got this meeting tomorrow or I've got this client I'm working with today. So it drives the need really, really front and center where, you know, that there's a little bit of pressure. And a use case so it's not theoretical. It seems like people don't have the bandwidth to learn something that they may use at some point in time. It's like there needs to be the forced pressure of a deadline or something coming up that increases the odds of that happening.

Yeah, agreed. And I think it's a bit of a luxury to find the time to be able to do that. And I hope lots of people do. But I also think that, you know, for me, it's super respectful to meet people where they're at. And I wanted to recognize the most people I'm writing for. Have full-time jobs, have families, have communities, and are working really hard. And if I'm not adding value for them immediately, well then, you know, I'm not respecting them. So that's what I was aiming to do.

Yeah, no, well said. Well, this has been phenomenal. I appreciate your time, appreciate the effort, and good luck on the future success and launch of the book. Thank you so much, Jennifer.

Thank you. Take care, Peter. Thank you.

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