Unleash the Power of Innovation with Carla Johnson

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Hi, I'm Susan Drum, and welcome to the Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we empower teams and strengthen leaders to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Today we're talking about innovation. And I'm delighted to introduce the world's leading innovation architect, Carla Johnson. Carla says you can't solve new world problems with old school thinking. And she helps leaders shatter strongly held, limiting beliefs, providing with a vision of new ways of tackling challenges while making the most of their opportunities. After 20 years of working with leaders, along with extensive research, Carla has developed frameworks and processes that teach people how to see opportunities for growth and innovation in places that are typically dismissed or ignored. Carla is the author of 10 books and her approach has helped hundreds of organizations and leaders become deeply engaged in finding unconventional answers to real world problems. So welcome, Carla.

Thank you, Susan. It's so great to be here. You know, when you say 10 books, it makes me feel tired.

I'm like, wow, I've only published one book and that was exhausting enough. I mean, great, but exhausting.

I think I'm just a little glutton for punishment.

Well, that's super impressive. So obviously you've been doing creative thinking and innovation for some time now. What's the biggest misconception leaders have about innovation?

You know, it's such a good question, Susan, because I think when we look at innovation, it's a really overused word. A lot of companies have it as one of their core values. We say, oh yes, everybody needs to innovate. But really, I think the biggest misconception that leaders have about innovation is where it lies in an organization. And when I was researching things for my last book called Rethink Innovation, a really interesting statistic that I came upon is that 90% of innovation happens outside of the traditional innovation groups that we think of. You know, the, the innovation teams, the R and D groups and places like that. So I think that biggest misconception is that that's where the great ideas that really grow our businesses and power us forward come from. When the truth is we have this 90% of the organization that's really low hanging fruit that we never even think about. And that was one of the reasons when I did research for my book, I developed this framework called the Wheel of Innovation. And essentially it teaches the other 90% that you really do have great ideas and there is a place to apply them. Now let's just help you structure them so you understand what a great idea looks like, how it relates to what you do every day in your work, how you serve customers, how you work with other people in your organization, and then understand how to pitch them, how to share them with your boss, with your customers, with your coworkers. So we really can accelerate that growth and pace that the rest of the 90% of the, of the company is all about.

Right. I mean, why not leverage the people that are closest to the fire, to the sale, to the front line to get those innovation insights into your company? Because they've got the data that you need.

Exactly. And a lot of times if we don't have a process or make people believe that they can be the idea people, the ones who can recognize a lot of times really powerful big opportunities or solve these problems, one of two things happens. Either that feedback from a situation stays right there and the problem just festers and gets worse and worse over time, or everything ladders up to the leaders for problems to solve. And I don't know any executive who says, you know, I really wish I had more email in my inbox. I wish I had more. I wish I had more people coming to me and wanting me to help them solve problems. And this, this is the problems to solve. Yes, exactly. So this is really one of the big anecdotes to all of that.

So how does it work?

What?

Tell me a little bit more about your framework and the wheel. Did you call it the wheel of innovation?

Yeah, the wheel of innovation. So it, it's kind of, I found it fascinating. So I spent five years researching some of the most prolific and successful innovators around the world. And I didn't look at people like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or people like that who are written about a lot and all the time, who are prolific innovators. But I looked at everyday people in everyday organizations. Now they range from startups and one people size companies in, into 25, 30 billion dollars, you know, Fortune 100 type of companies. They were nonprofits, they were government organizations and all from all areas of the world. And what I found is when I started to ask people, okay, this was an amazing idea and we can see how it executed and made a big difference to your company either in, in some situations, a product launch. But oftentimes it had to do with the way they did business or how they approach their customers, or how teams work together and I would ask them, like, how did you come up with that idea? Right? And because we all think of that aha moment where it just comes to us, and they all said, you know, I don't know. It just came to me. And then we, you know, we worked on it, we massaged it, got it, you know, really evolved it, and then we rolled it out. And then. So what I learned to do is instead of jumping from the great idea back to what's that original inspiration, I reverse engineered it. And I said, well, tell me about the situation you were in when it came to you, and what were you doing before that and doing before that. And what I found after interviewing hundreds of people is that they all followed the same process to come up with this fabulous idea. They just generally didn't realize that's the process that they used. So, you know, a lot of creative people and a lot of innovative thinkers, if you ask them, how did you come up with that? You know, a lot of times they say, you know, it just kind of came to me. I was out for a run. I was, you know, in the shower, whatever it might be. But it's because what they do is naturally go through the wheel of innovation, and it's such a habitual way that they think about life that they don't even realize that they're doing it. So what I discovered is one, highly innovative thinkers are highly, highly observant people. So they'll go through life and they'll see these little quirky things that you and I a lot of times miss, and they look at all of these little details, and then it shifts into the next step, which is they distill all of those observations into patterns. And the interesting thing, Susan, is that as I looked at all of this, I realized that observing and putting those observations into patterns is really a genetic thing that's helped us survive over time. We observe our surroundings and we look at, you know, is it a pattern of being safe? Is it a pattern of being a threat? And that helped them make decisions. And a lot of times we can call those distilling the observations into patterns, maybe trends, sometimes that's a more common word. And then what they would do is they would take these patterns that they'd come up with and they would relate those into the work that they were doing. Whether this helps me solve a problem or look at it differently or here's an opportunity to be different and unique and stand out, but still in a way that has its roots grounded in something that's already been successful and Then the fourth step is they use those relationships to generate ideas. The fun thing is when we look at this, there's already three steps that have been done before these people ever get to the generating ideas step. But when we're all looking to solve problems, a lot of times the first thing we do is, you know, let's have a strategy session, let's have a brainstorm session, and, and you bring everybody together and you try and solve it or, or get the best ideas right there. But what I also found is that you don't really get to great ideas until you've gone through the first 200 ideas. And I know until I realized this, I had never been in a brainstorm session where we came close to 200.

Ideas, but I've never been in a session like that.

Yeah, research shows that you need to get all of that habitual way of thinking and solving problems and how you've been trained to think within your own organizational culture kind out of the way before you really get to those fresh, unique and different ideas. And then the fifth step is to pitch the idea. Now, the fun thing about the process is that by the time you get to the fifth step pitching, you've already put your, your pitch together. Because a pitch is really just the story of the journey of your idea. And I know you've heard a lot of people come to you with ideas that you're thinking, oh my gosh, they just aren't fully formed and you know to work with them that way. And you think as an executive, you hear this all the time, all day long. So it's a great framework for not only executives to learn how to think about their idea and bring in some inspiration that minimizes the risk behind it, but it also teaches the people on their team how to put together a really well thought out idea that relates to a specific business situation that can make a difference.

Yeah. Well, I love this framework particularly. I want to dive in on a couple places, one around the pattern recognition. So I am a huge believer in that. And I feel like the way I've done my work is through pattern recognition. In fact, I think I have. Some people have said to me, you're world class at pattern recognition. And why, why is that? Well, even if I go back to when I was studying for my LSAT to get into law school, I didn't go through one. I mean, this is a while ago, so I didn't go through one of those Kaplan courses or whatever. All I did was take eight practice tests and I could see the Patterns of the types of questions that they were asking. So that when it came time to do it, I only missed one question. And that's fantastic that there's something in there. And, and I would say the way I'm using it now for leaders is to not the patterns that they're getting stuck in or sort of old behaviors or this eight lane highway to hell of thinking that limit them. But even as you know, I do a lot of work with the Enneagram. It. The Enneagram is also about pattern recognition. It's putting leaders into nine different types of patterns of what motivates them or what draws their attention. And there is patterns in that. So and, and frankly there are patterns in nature like you look at geometrically, there's pattern, cyclically, there's patterns. So I love this concept that part of the process is starting to notice the patterns as well, because I think it's now that I'm reflecting on that it's where it all begins.

And it makes so much sense in the work that you do because of all of your work in music. And music is all about patterns and repetition and with helping people with performance, helping them understand what are the patterns that they have that either make them successful or maybe self sabotage or something like that. I know when I recognize those kind of patterns in myself, I'm like, how could I not see it? It was right in front of us. And a lot of times when you see an organization kind of have a rug pulled out from under them, they're like, how could I not? How did we miss that? It was right in front of us. And it's because they weren't really being observant to the details. So if you think about creativity and innovative thinking is about connecting the dots. Taking time to really observe is like collecting the dots.

Yes. So I, I also heard recently that what makes a great comedian so funny is their ability to be so observant of things that the rest of us tend to gloss over. And they'll take one little kernel of an exchange at Starbucks and make it into a whole riff on something that's hilarious. Just because they're observant and paying attention. And wow, what is the work involved in that? Well, a lot of it has, has to be being present. Not really lost in thoughts or lost in your head practicing being present to what's going on around you. Not stuck with your, you know, nose in your phone.

Right.

All of those things, that's what it requires.

Had, you know, headphones in, earbuds in all the Time. Yeah, it's that.

And I feel like a lot of people would say, well, we live in a very distracted world, so we're doing that to try to narrow in the focus. But I get that. But there's also a balance between shutting out the distractions of the world and getting too myopic and also staying broad to observe what is possible and where the patterns might exist. But I think even your prompt around noticing what, what patterns do we see in behavior or in, in the problems that we're generating? Is there some common theme would be a great place to start?

It is. And, and even as you talk about being able to think more broadly, it's interesting. Your visual line of sight directly affects how broad or narrow that you think. So people who spend time, all day, you know, like on their phone, right in front of them, or on their laptop or focused on something that has a very close range of vision, it also makes their thinking very focused and narrow, which in some cases is a good thing. But when you spend all day, every day in that kind of thinking, that's how you miss the broader observation. So like literally just pushing yourself away from your desk and looking far away, even for five minutes, you know, look, looking out the window, ideally get up and go for a walk. Fits around your office or you know, outside parks are great. You talk about nature and patterns. They're incredibly powerful. And just these little five minute steps away to take this broader perspective literally can also make a huge difference in how we think.

That's amazing and probably something that not a lot of people realize. Like, go look at the horizon versus at your computer.

Yeah, yeah. We're always in the goal. Gotta get the work done, gotta get the work done, gotta get the work done. Right. But sometimes when you, when you take just five minutes and look at the broader perspective, you realize that the work that you're trying to get done maybe isn't the work that needs to get done. And that makes a huge, you know, a huge impact on efficiency and productivity.

Yeah, it's zooming out essentially. And that's often what I do as well in coaching. When I think about that, how am I helping a client solve their problem is usually to elevate whatever little thing that's going on right now and zooming out to say, where else is this occurring or what's the bigger picture of this in terms of the overall objectives that you have, it's that zooming out. So I think it there is this blend of zooming in to really understand what's going on. But zooming out to seeing where it fits in the larger context.

Yeah, I think. I think that perspective is really powerful. And we don't realize it. We don't realize how much that affects our creative thinking, which is all about the problem solving.

Well, you must have some great stories about how people have used your techniques to unlock something new and innovative. Can you share one of those with us?

Yeah, actually, I. I have two that I like to share because you're kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum. So the first one is. Is Jeff Hoffman. And a lot of people know Jeff because he's just an incredible entrepreneur and now does a lot of philanthropy work. So you think about somebody who's very observant, that is Jeff to a T. So it was a few years ago, and Jeff was going through the grocery store, and, you know, there's that banana display where it's the really nice yellow ones, and then next to it are the brown ones that people say they'll buy to make banana bread with. And who. Who knows whether they do or not? But as. As he really observed the details of this, he said the pattern that he distilled is that it was about a pricing model. Here was a business person who had a product that they had, you know, bought, and we're trying to recoup at least some of the cost of it, rather than just getting rid of it altogether because it had a specific expiration date. So as he thought about that pricing model, he was trying to relate that to his own work. So that's step three relating. And he knew a lot about the travel industry, and this was pre Covid. And one of the stats that he knew is that 10 to 15% of all flights on airlines took off without the seats being full. So as he thought about this pricing model and being able to sell something that had a definite expiration date and recoup at least some of the money from it, he called a friend of his who worked in the travel industry, and he said, hey, I've got an idea I'd like to pitch to you. If I could create a website where I could sell those seats at the last minute that you don't have sold before the flight takes off, would you sell those to me? And of course, the airline contact said, well, heck, yeah. And that was the inspiration for Priceline, which now is a company valued over a hundred billion dollars. So if we think we don't have time to do the observation and pay attention to what's around here, I always say that's a pretty Powerful piece of evidence of how it can really pay off for you.

Absolutely. And that same concept also from the company hotel tonight, where, you know, if you need a last minute hotel room, they'll sell it to you at a deep discount because again, it has that expiration date.

Something's better than nothing. Yeah, exactly. And you know, and I tell that story and a lot of times people say, well, I'm not a Jeff Hoffman, you know, I'm not that savvy of an entrepreneur, a business person or owner or whatever it may be. But on the other end is a company who I had interviewed, and they're a software company in Atlanta. And they actually had such a dedication and devotion to innovation, they which they were able to shut down their company for a week every six months, and they would have innovation weeks. And everybody in the company was invited to participate and strongly encouraged. So it didn't matter what your role is. You would sign up to be part of a team that worked on a challenge or a project during that week. And during this time, people contributed in whatever way they either were comfortable with or wanted to challenge themselves with. So there was one woman who had worked in accounting, and she came and she was part of a team that had quite a few software developers on it, and they went through the week and shared their project. But after the week, she went back to her desk and she said, you know, how can I apply what I just learned and make a difference to what I do and not have to wait six months? And so what she did is she looked at her work and there was a report that she ran every single month that took her 40 manual hours. So you think one week every single month. So she taught herself a programming language, wrote a program, and now that report takes 12 minutes. And you think, well, you know, that's, that's a sign of, if you equip people at all levels with the right tools, they'll be more than happy to look at their work and innovate in ways that make sense. And you think, well, you know, it's just a report, you know, how big of a deal is that? Well, she's now doing 15 months worth of work in 12 months because of the time that she's recouped. So you think, as a leader, what if I could teach my people how to be more innovative thinkers with a proven framework that anybody can learn and it scales across the organization and I could get 15 months worth of work out of them in 12 months, and they're happier about the work that they do. They Feel more empowered. They're taking decisions off of, you know, your desk. As an executive, to me that's really redefining, rethinking our stereotype of innovation.

And so what, Tell us some examples of how leaders can unlock the innovation within their teams and further down into the organization.

I, I think the biggest and most simple action that leaders can take right away is to ask people on a team, does my boss support my ideas? Because I can't tell you how many times I hear people say I go to my boss all the time and all I ever hear is no, no, no. And it's because these bosses at different levels in an organization are afraid of doing anything that might shake the status quo and put their job, their promotion, their, you know, their status, their perceived status at jeopardy. But really, as we look at what's going on in the world today, it's not about survival of the fittest, it's about survival of the most agile thinkers. And the only way that you're going to have a culture of that within an organization is to really encourage it from everybody. So that one simple question can be incredibly eye opening.

And what if the answer is no?

What should they do? Yeah, I, I think then it's a real hard look internally about what kind of culture are we building and will it actually get us to where we want to go as an organization? You know, everybody has objectives and goals. And whether you're public and have a board of directors to answer to or not, you can't stay in one place now and expect to not just stay, stay up with your competitors, but even stay in business. And so I think it's some pretty hard soul searching about where do you think that you will go if your ideas within your organization only come from a handful of people? Back to that idea. That statistic of 90% of innovation comes from the rest of the organization. If you just turn off that faucet, you're really putting yourself in jeopardy.

Now what about the idea that you have something good? You hear it from, you know, you know, your employee maybe has a good idea, but it's just sounds completely impractical. They need to rework that like the cost involved, the, the, the man hours, all of these things. How do you as a leader best coach those that have ideas without shutting them down, but know that might be onto something, but you got a lot of hurdles to overcome.

Yeah. And I think that's an incredible growth opportunity for both the leader to coach that employee on it and the employee to learn the thought process that goes into how do I really make this okay or tepid idea, a good idea or even a great idea. And I teach people how to create an objective statement around ideas. And there's three parts to it. And the first part is we need new ideas too. And, and this one is usually easy for people to answer because it's about a situation that's right in front of them. But the next part gets harder, and it is so we can. And the important part about this is to help people clarify, identify, and agree on ultimately what are we trying to accomplish here. Because I think sometimes as leaders, we know in our head the things we need to do and what we're trying to accomplish. But that doesn't always get cascaded down to teams. And so as you can work with that employee and help them understand, you know, what is it we're trying to accomplish here? Or maybe it helps them uncover something that you as a leader didn't even realize was a huge sore spot, you know, and really understand, okay, ultimately, what do we want to get out of this idea? And I think that's why a lot of ideas get a bad rap, is because they aren't focused on a specific end goal. So people say ideas are the easy part, execution is the hard part. I say execution's a lot easier when you have better, higher quality ideas to start with. And that's how these two questions to start out with really help. Now, the third part is within what constraints? Because a lot of ideas would be amazing if they didn't have to actually function in the real world. So what are two to four constraints that are really important? And a lot of times it's cost and timeline, but, you know, is it something else about a market dynamic? Is it, you know, something else has to blend with an initiative, has to dovetail on something else that's being done in an organization. And then looking at, as you go through the wheel of innovation, then putting the ideas that come out against this objective statement really turns them into a powerful, powerful idea. And that's, that's a great way for leaders to continue to learn themselves and then coach people on their team.

So what's the full then statement bringing it all together? What does it look like if we.

Need new ideas too? What's the problem that's right in front of you that you want to solve so we can. What's that bigger picture impact that you're wanting to have and then with what constraints in two to four constraints, and.

I think probably energetically as well, is just encouragement for even thinking of the idea and having the courage to bring it up. Like, I think we go right to, well, that won't work because of X, Y, Z. Like, first of all is like, thank you so much for thinking about how to solve this problem. That's exactly what we need around here. Now let's look at this specifically and say, how do we turn this into something that could really make a difference?

Absolutely.

That's the attitude. But I so often see leaders a little bit more quickly going, ah, like.

Thanks, go back to do your job. Yeah, I always share that. There's two statements that work really well when somebody comes to you with an idea. One is what I like, because just like you said, if somebody has the courage to come forward with an idea or they've. They've done the work to put the idea together as best as they could, that needs to be recognized because what you recognize that behavior, that's what gets repeated. And then the second part is what I wish. So that is a way to start to take out some of that criticism instead of saying, oh, no, that'll never work. Well, let's get specific. What do you wish was in there? Or what do you wish was a part of this idea? Or thinking that isn't there? And a lot of times leaders start to see, you know, I understand now that there's a blind spot for people that they don't see. See the bigger picture. And that's what starts to bring teams together and have a. A better relationship.

These are great sentence prompts and really something leaders can do tomorrow to make a difference on this. Right.

What I like and what I wish.

I love it.

I love it.

Well, where can people learn more about you and your work?

My website is Carla with the C. Carla Johnson co There's no m. I say that's because I live in the great state of Colorado. So it's just co you can go there and learn and sign up for my newsletter. I write it every other Tuesday. And in it, I always give people a tip, a case study, something they can do right away to help them or anybody on their team become innovative, more innovative thinkers in just seven minutes. I call it my seven minute challenge.

Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being here with me today to talk about a very important topic given the pace of change right now.

Thank you, Susan. It was wonderful to be here.

It was great to be with you. And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Frankie Russo, who's known for transforming organizational cultures and inspiring individual and corporate innovation. Let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button and the bell to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.