The Innovation Struggle

Hello and welcome to Leading Digital Transformation with Rob Llewellyn and the Digital Transformation People. In this podcast series, Rob interviews experienced practitioners, authors and thought leaders whose stories and experiences provide valuable insights for digital transformation success.

Hi and welcome back. I'm joined today by Brayden Kelly. Brayden is a Director of Innovation and Human Centered Problem Solving at Oracle. In his spare time, he is the author of two popular books, Stoking your Innovation Bonfire and Charting Change. He's a keynote speaker and the driving force behind InnovationExcellence.com and he's the creator of the Change Planning Toolkit, which is a suite of tools designed to help people beat the 70% change and transformation failure rate. To learn more about all of this, let's jump into the interview with Brayden Braden. Welcome.

Thank you, Rob.

Hey Braden, I just mentioned in the intro that you've written two books. I'm going to delve into your most recent book a little later on, but your first book, Stoking your Innovation Bonfire, you wrote that almost 10 years ago, I think in 2010. Now that was a long time before this trend of digital transformation and innovation picked up pace. What inspired you to write a book on innovation so long ago?

Well, I actually started writing on the Internet about innovation back in 2006, and as I looked around the landscape as we approached 2010, what I really noticed was that there were a lot of books starting to be out there already on innovation, but there wasn't a book that really kind of captured how to build an infrastructure for continuous innovation. And that's the area that I really wanted to tackle is a lot of people really focused on how to get good ideas or a lot of books kind of took the approach that innovation was a project and I didn't really see it that way. And I didn't think that a lot of the other people that I talked to in industries also saw it that way. And so I thought there was a real opportunity to help people understand what building blocks to put in place consciously to help reinforce the possibility for continuous innovation.

Now, you're the co founder of a website which I've been familiar with for a long, long time and I' often used as a reference, as I'm sure so many other people listening have called innovationexcellence.com now I want to refer to an article which you wrote there, but tell us how InnovationExcellence.com came around.

Well, it started out as my personal blog back then in 2006, and then over the years I saw a lot of other great voices out there that had things to say about innovation that I thought people would find valuable. So I started to invite guest authors onto my blog and it continued to grow and grow to the point where I came across some individuals that wanted to help grow it further. And I had the opportunity to invite in Rowan Gibson and Dean Dabias and Julie Annixter to help form Innovation Excellence and give the site a nice clean look and a good opportunity in place for people to contribute. Great thought leadership and interesting and different viewpoints on the all around the topic of innovation. And so that's kind of how Innovation Excellence was born. And, and obviously we grew social media assets all around it and we have a LinkedIn group by the same name that has nearly 50,000 members now. It's just always been about the idea of helping to make innovation insights accessible for Allison.

Congratulations on creating a tremendous resource there to you and the rest of the team. Amazing. I was recently looking at one of your articles which was about the Business Model Canvas. And in your opinion, why did the Business Model Canvas resonate with people so well?

Well, I think that the reason why the business model of Canvas resonated so well with people was the fact that people are scared by having to create a business plan. You know, it's a kind of a daunting task. You know, if you look at a lot of posts on LinkedIn, Profinder and other places like that, you know, there's a lot of people looking for help building a business plan. You know, everybody back then, before the Business Model Canvas came out, always thought that that was the first step if you were going to create a startup or try to build something new within an organization, was to create this 100 page business plan. And the other aspect I think helped make it so successful is the fact that a lot of people are visual learners. And if you look at how the brain is structured, there's more space allocated in terms of sensory capabilities to vision than to anything else. But there's another way of looking at it that I recently came up with that I think helps to explain the reason for things like the Business Model Canvas and the change planning toolkit succeeding. And that's the fact that if you look at words and people using words to communicate, the brain has only the opportunity to do serial processing. You have to wait for the next word, but with a picture you can do parallel processing. The brain can do a whole lot of things and pull a whole lot of insight and opportunity out of a single image. And so I think that that's where tools like the Business Model Canvas are incredibly powerful because they not only start to access that visual part of the brain, but then they also create an opportunity for collaboration. A business plan moves from being a solo activity to being a group activity, and, you know, you increase your chances for success as a result. And it also gives you the opportunity to, to prototype and test and evolve and tweak and create lots of different versions before you kind of have that what you feel is the best version. And then you can start to put pen to paper.

Now you just touched on collaboration. Can this kind of visual collaborative approach be applied to other areas of the business?

I really think so. And that was the whole reason for creating the Change Planning toolkit, was seeing an approach like the Business Model Canvas or the Lean Canvas and the Empathy Map. Some of these tools that are designed to be printed out at poster size and put up on the wall and get people huddled around with sticky notes and Sharpies. That's an incredibly powerful process. And as I was looking at the organizational change area and working on change programs again after taking a break, what I found is that the tools that people had for trying to plan and execute organizational change or even a project are incredibly solo or incredibly daunting. If you think about the PMI approach to managing a project, the first step is to sit down and create a project Charter. If you're lucky, you might have a word template to work from. But a project isn't a solo endeavor. A project is a collaborative effort with a group of people that you not only have to organize, but also to motivate and to move forward in a particular direction and to achieve alignment with. And so I didn't really find a standard word document. Project Charter was going to be a good tool for the kinds of work that I was trying to do. So I started to create tools. I started to create tools that would be more visual, more collaborative. Started to create them one by one. The most important one was the Change Planning Canvas. And that's an incredibly powerful tool because what it does is that process of getting people huddled around the poster, the sticky notes, is not only do you get more perspectives than just one, but then you have people challenging and poking and pushing and inevitably creating alignment and buy in as you go through that process. And so that change leadership team up front, you know, the people that are going to help spread the possibilities of that change across the organization, it literally helps them get all on the same page, the same physical, nice paper, glossy color page. And then from there, your change effort becomes a lot simpler. And there's a whole host of other tools that help you populate the main components of the Change Planning Canvas. And I created a whole host of new frameworks to help people think differently about change and to help beat that 70% failure rate that organizations face when they start to kick off a change project or even a regular project. As we all know, the pace of technology is accelerating, the pace of change is accelerating, and The S&P 500 is turning over all the time because of all that change. Companies are constantly being disrupted, and you don't want to be that company that ends up on the losing end of that disruption.

So did the Business Model Canvas influence the Change Planning Canvas? Braden?

It did, because the existence of the Business Model Canvas showed that these kinds of approaches are possible. And, you know, working with the Business Model Canvas and teaching people how to use it, you really see the power in it and the way that it empowers people to feel that going beyond the idea stage is a possibility for them. And they have a way to start thinking about more of the specifics and making their idea actually happen. And they have a way of engaging other people and helping them figure it out, rather than sending a Word document around that they have to actually create first. That takes a huge amount of work to create first. And that's creating a business plan is probably the thing that kills more great ideas than anything else. So helping people get beyond the idea Stage to something that's a little bit more fleshed out and allows them to start to attract support and passionate participants is an incredibly impactful thing, I think, for people, and I think that's why it's spread all around the world.

Now, I know the Change Planning Toolkit. It's based on being very visual. And we're not visual here, we're just using audio. So here's a challenge for you. In a couple of minutes, just describe what the Change Planning Toolkit is to those listening that are not familiar with it.

Sure. So it's a collection of over 50 tools that starts with the Change Planning Canvas at the center, but then also has a lot of different components that help people explore the current state and what's driving the change, to visualize the future and evaluate their change readiness and to plan their desired state and look at extracting from their group what the potential benefits are and how to work with the people. Then it also introduces several new ways of thinking about change, including the 11 change roles and also the eight change mindsets. And because, you know, it is kind of a new way of Thinking may seem a little bit interesting or challenging to understand for people that haven't had any exposure to it. I created 10 free downloads for people to download and get an exposure to the kinds of things, the kinds of thinking that goes behind it. And that includes things like a visual project charter. Also, outside the change planning toolkit, I created an experiment canvas to help people in their prototyping and testing phase of innovation. And so, yeah, so there's just a whole host of tools to help people plan and execute change and some really useful frameworks to help people think about architecting the organization for change and how change flows over time, the different stages that you're going to go through. And so you can plan for all of those and look at the potential duration for those so that you can start to actually have a metric for change and your ability to change by measuring over time as you go through your projects, how long different types of projects are taking, and see whether you're increasing your organizational agility and your change capacity.

Braden, you mentioned you've got some free downloads. Where can listeners go to get hold of those?

Yeah, if you just go to BradenKelly.com CPT for Change Planning Toolkit. That's probably the easiest way to get there.

Okay, great. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Now, we mentioned your first book earlier on, which is stoking your innovation bonfire, and that you wrote quite some time ago. Then. I know it's a lot of work to write a book. Then you went ahead and wrote a second book. Did you ever think you'd write a second book? And why did you do that?

I actually didn't think I'd write another book again. And it's partially because it's a lot of work. And then, you know, and because it's a lot of work, you have to have, in my mind, a really good idea. I know some people are kind of in the business of writing books and you see a lot of bad, bad business books out there where you could read 200 pages and only identify one insight. And that's not the way I like to write books. I like to write books that are packed with insights, that are packed with takeaways, that are packed with things that hopefully make people think and potentially shift their mindset and shift the way that they behave. And so a lot of thinking went into the first book. And I didn't have a great idea for a long time. And it was actually as I looked around the landscape and saw the lack of tools to help people that were available for people to plan and execute successful change. And as I saw how many change projects failed, it was the creation of the Change Planning Toolkit that created the impetus for the second book. One of the cool things that I did in the second book was not only will it sort of introduce the Change Planning Toolkit and help you understand how to use it and introduce all the frameworks that are behind the worksheets and other tools in the toolkit, but anybody that buys the book gets access to additional supplementary materials, including the Change Planning Canvas. And throughout the book, I invited in several guest voices that I thought that had interesting things to say on the topic of change that would take a slightly different perspective than I would so that people could get a more holistic view and a more modern view on change. Because a lot of the great change books are a bit dated by now. They're really great ideas, are still relevant, but they came out a while ago. And so by the voices like Seth Kahan and Matthew E. May and Beth Muntag Schmaltz and Brett Clay and Babak Poram Puntur and Dion Hinchcliffe and all kinds of really cool people that have really interesting things to say on change and attack it from different angles. And so that was another thing that I wanted to do in the new book. And I'm always looking to try to figure out what's the, what's the best way to help provide the best experience for people in the book and the most value as they turn the page. And so there's a lot of great things in there in the new book that aren't anywhere else. And so it's definitely something that I'm really proud of. But because writing a book is a big effort for me personally, it's not about writing words, it's about bringing insights. And so I had to wait until I had something powerful to say again.

So your second book we've just been talking about is called Charting Change is the third book in the pipeline yet? Braden?

It's not in the pipeline yet. I mean, I kind of have some partial thoughts around something that might be interesting, but I'm not to the point yet where I have something powerful. So until I have something powerful and that's differentiated, then I won't write another one that's clear.

You've created a tremendous amount of resources through Your Books and InnovationExcellence.com and other places to help people innovation and change. What drives you?

Well, it's really about empowering people. So I really love being a Tool builder. I really love helping people figure out ways to succeed in their own careers and their own work life. And so what really drives me is trying to make information accessible for the greater good, to make insights accessible for the greater good. And so I really love trying to figure out where people are struggling to to understand how to approach something or to succeed in a particular area where things are really hard and try to find a way to simplify complexity and to find a way to allow people to achieve resonance with the people that they're working with so that they can achieve powerful outcomes.

I want to go back to InnovationExcellence.com, braden. You started that back when, what was the year?

Well, the seeds for it started back in 2006 and then became innovation Excellence. I believe it was back in 2012, if I remember correctly.

How have you seen it mature over the last 10 years, particularly with innovation getting to the forefront of so many organizations now? Because what's happening in our economy with digital, et cetera, how have you seen it evolve over the last decade?

Sure. So I think some of the ways that it's evolved over time is that in the earlier days there was more of a focus on helping people understand what innovation is and really helping to sort of frame the conversation around the topic area. But I think as people, while people still don't agree on what innovation is, unfortunately a lot of people confuse innovation with invention, and they're not the same thing. Invention is about creating things that are useful. Innovation is about creating things that are valuable. And a lot of inventions never become innovations. So in those early days, we're trying to help craft the discussion, help shape the discussion. And now there's different elements. As people have created innovation practices within organizations which weren't there in the earlier days, people are more interested in other topic areas. Areas like design thinking, areas like digital transformation, areas like organizational change, and also areas like entrepreneurship, which is different than entrepreneurship. Intrapreneurship is like entrepreneurship, but the company is taking more of the financial risk. And so it's a really great opportunity for people that do want to be entrepreneurial but are afraid of the risk to come up with ideas and help make them real within an organization using the resources of the organization they work for. And so that's become a greater area of interest for people and also the interplay between big companies and startups and how to leverage people outside the organization to make innovation happen. And so it's become a bigger and broader topic area as people start to at least somewhat agree on sort of the core elements of what innovation is.

Yeah. You mentioned that a lot of organizations are now setting up their own innovation practices. Call them what they will. What challenges do you see organizations that typically think facing in terms of approaching innovation in an effective way? You've mentioned, you know, there are different perceptions of innovation, of transformation, etc. But in terms of innovation, what are the big challenges that organizations that want to do this, they want to innovate, but they. Not quite hitting the nail on the head.

Sure. So the organizations that struggle to hit the nail on the head are the organizations that start at the beginning. I know that may sound weird, but when it comes to innovation, you want to start at the end. When it comes to corporate innovation, when it comes to being successful, when it comes to creating something that's sustainable, what I mean by you need to start at the end is it's not about asking people for ideas. It's about standing ready to actually fund and execute those ideas. And where a lot of companies go wrong is they think it's about the ideas and they think that, oh, we'll just ask people for their ideas and that'll make them feel good, and then we're doing innovation. And that's not the case. The best way to kill innovation in the longer term is to ask people for their ideas and then not do anything with them, because that's going to destroy the trust, it's going to destroy the engagement. And so the best organizations try to figure out what they're going to do with all the ideas and the kinds of ideas that they want before they ask for anybody to contribute anything. And, you know, as I wrote in the first book, Stoking Innovation Bonfire, you know, then as part of that conversation, you're building your innovation vision. You're building your innovation strategy, you're figuring out what your goals for innovation are, and you're figuring out all these kinds of really important answers to questions around, you know, what innovation means to you as an organization and who you want to be involved, how you want them to be involved. And you're figuring out the process and the practice before you start looking for the content.

Okay, Bryn, we're getting close to our time, but tell us, what are you focused on now? And bearing in mind that you don't have another third book in the pipeline at the moment, what are you focused on right now?

Well, I started a new job with Oracle, and what I'm doing there is really diving deeply into how do we go beyond design thinking to help customers. And so we're looking at how do we meld the best of design thinking and organizational change and digital transformation and innovation to help companies innovate, grow, transform and leverage their technology investments to do amazing things for their customers. And so that's what I'm focused on now. And as I do that, I'm looking for new opportunities to dive deep into the human elements of innovation. And so stay tuned. I may create some new tools and things, but it's just I think that there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity out there to help organizations find those resonance points with their customers and their employees, to drive engagement and to increase their chances of surviving over the long term and thriving. And so that's what I'm focused on.

Braden, it's been a pleasure speaking with you today. We could talk for hours on this. I certainly know you could. We've got the two books and we'll put links to those in the show Notes. Where else? Of course there's innovationexcellence.com where else can people go to learn more about what you've got to share?

Sure. So people can find me on Twitter @nnovate. They can also find me on Instagram as Mr. Innovation, where I've started to publish a whole host of quote posters to help people spread the love for innovation. And then my site is BradenKelly.com and on there you'll find all the information about the books and speaking engagements and articles and white papers and, you know, videos and all kinds of other fun stuff.

Braden, thank you so much.

Great. Thanks, Rob. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Leading Digital Transformation with Rob Llewellyn and the Digital transformation people. Visit thedigitaltransformationpeople.com to secure the knowledge, talent and services you need for Digital Transformation success. To continue your journey as a certified Transformation professional, visit rob llewellyn.com be sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow us on Twitter at the Digital TP and Obert Llewellyn.