313. Rethinking Innovation: A Human-Centric Approach with Bruce Vojak

Want more than buzzwords and brainstorms? Mick Spiers sits down with innovation authority Bruce Vojak to explore how real breakthroughs actually happen. His message is clear: innovation is a human act first. It comes from curious people who challenge assumptions and reframe problems.

From the evolution of the carrot peeler to a billion-dollar innovation at Procter & Gamble, this conversation shows how deep user understanding drives real change. Bruce also shares a practical playbook for leaders: create internal alignment, keep processes simple, empower your innovators, and focus on learning fast.

We also tackle the harder question of unintended consequences and why leaders must ask: What can we make possible, and what have we just made possible?

🌐 Connect with Bruce:
• Website: https://www.breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/

📚 You can purchase Bruce's books on Amazon:
• No-Excuses Innovation: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1503627586/
• Serial Innovators: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0804775974/

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

What if the biggest barrier to innovation is not a lack of ideas, but a mindset that says, Don't fix what's not broken. What if the real breakthrough in your business is not going to come from more process, but from deeper curiosity. And what if innovation is less about technology and more about people who are willing to question what everyone else accepts. In today's episode, I'm joined by Bruce Vojak, a leading authority on innovation and co author of no excuses innovation and serial innovators in this conversation, Bruce challenges the way many of us think about innovation. Explains why innovation is not just about systems, structures or big, shiny new technology. At its heart, it is a human act. So if you want to stop running on autopilot, rethink how innovation really happens, and walk away with ideas you can actually apply. This is an episode you're going to want to stay with. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Bruce Vojak. Bruce is a leading authority in innovation. He's a business advisor, a board member, a senior fellow with the Conference Board, and the co author of two Stanford press books on innovation. No excuses innovation. Interesting title and serial innovators. So I think you can already tell what our main themes are going to be about. Today we're going to be talking about what is this thing? What is this thing called innovation, and how do we make it work for us? So without any further ado. Bris, I'd love it if you would say hello to the audience and give it a little flavor of your background and what inspires you about innovation, what, what captured your attention and your heart to do this work that you do, helping organizations to embrace innovation, for for their businesses?

Bruce Vojak: 2:01

Great thanks and thanks for having me here today, Mick, I really appreciate this opportunity. You know, I started out as an engineer many, many years ago, and pretty early in my career, I started observing people who were really good at, I'll say, discovery. They could have been scientists, they could have been engineers, but they kind of knew what to do already. When I was a graduate student, I had the opportunity to work with some remarkable inventors in industry. I worked with a number of really remarkable innovators, and it really kind of got my attention that that there were just some people, a small number of people, that really knew what to do, and the kind of the driving early question that has motivated me is to better understand how these people know what to do. And so my work, my research that I've conducted on innovation that led to the books, the work with companies, what I've shared with companies always kind of comes back to this idea of what I would call a people view of innovation, rather than a process view, or, let's say, a structural view, or a cultural view. Even it's really looking at the people and saying that innovation is a very human act, and it's also very personal, because there's a variety of different people that can do this and a number of people who just aren't as good at it.

Mick Spiers: 3:27

Yeah, really interesting, Bruce, and I've got to say, a lot of people would look at it purely from a process point of view. We just need a process, but without the people, it's it's not going to happen. So tell me, let's set the scene, because this can be a difference of perspective from the outset. What does innovation mean to you, Bruce?

Bruce Vojak: 3:48

Yeah, you know, again, another great question, Mick. A lot of people look at innovation and they think of it in terms of a new technology. Sometimes people think of it in terms of creativity, and they can play a role. I mean, new technology can be involved, but remarkably, it's not always the case. It's really doing something new that really in a new way, uniquely satisfies customer needs and that people really have a desire for. So it is customer focused. It does understand that there's a customer need that's addressed. It is internally focused as well. Though there's a financial need to provide a return to your investors, and there's a need to bring people along too. So there are a lot of individuals involved in this, but it's really doing something new, to do something better for all involved. And probably the best way that I like to frame it is to say, when you do something that changes the way competition occurs, it changes the basis of competition that is truly innovative. And you know, I can give you some examples, if you like, as we go through today, but, but there are some really good ways to say that's an innovation. That's not, if you will, just. Just an incremental change, just moving into some new area or tweaking things. Not that those things are bad, but I'm talking about things that really renew an industry.

Mick Spiers: 5:11

Some key words there are jumping in my head, so I'm picturing step change like so you're saying, No, we're not, we're not talking about incremental are we tweaked here? We're tweaked there. We're talking about a step change where maybe someone stood back and went, Well, why do we always do it this way? And once again, doesn't have to be technology. It could be a business model or anything, but they're looking to solve a real world problem, but by stepping back and going, scratching their head and going, Well, why have we always done it this way? And is there a completely different way of doing it? Is that what I'm hearing Bruce?

Bruce Vojak: 5:45

Yeah, exactly. And if I can just take an opportunity to share maybe a couple of stories quickly, you know, one of my favorites, because this is something that everybody can relate to, is peeling carrots. Because a little over 100 years ago, if you and I wanted to peel a carrot, we would definitely use a knife, just a straight and simple knife, in the kitchen. And if you were like me, you'd either cut too deep or too shallow. You'd probably cut your finger once in a while. Or I do you know it worked. You got the job done, but it wasn't very efficient. It wasn't very effective, and it was a bit dangerous. And I don't know who first had the idea, but about 100 years ago, if you if you look at the patent literature, you'll begin to see safety peelers appear. That's where you see these two blades pointed at each other. They're on a swivel. And it really changed competition. It really added a new offering to the marketplace. It was a knife, if you will, or a double blade knife that was custom designed for a peeling application. And then when you look at that, that design, and you look at again, the pad literature, it's fascinating, because there are a number of different ways that it was embodied. In those early years, it was a either a straight handle or a curved handle. Sometimes they put a little hook on it if, if it was used to peel potatoes, you could peel the eyes out. And so there was a lot of, if you will, incremental assessment and variation that occurred. But the big step was using that safety peeler. And those safety peelers were pretty much the dominant approach for decades. And then the company Oxo. Oxo emerged, and it emerged because there was a guy whose wife had arthritis, she couldn't peel carrots very well, very effectively. And so what he did is he cut a handle off of a broom, he attached to the carrot peeler to it, so now he had a handle that was easier for her to grab, and then she could peel carrots without, really, if you will, straining her hand. Now, you and I might ask, why didn't he peel carrots for her? But this clearly developed a business that was much more lucrative than that. But the point was, is he came up with a new way to do things, to have this ergonomic handle, and it changed the basis of competition. And then the big change occurred almost in that same timeframe, and that's when pre peeled baby carrots emerged, the idea of taking scraps, even if you will, which is again, a much more efficient use of a carrot, and peeling them, shaping them into a very standardized size. And remarkably, as a result of that, at least in the US, carrot consumption has gone up since that those have been offered. And so to me, each of those is a step that really changes competition, because you could still be making those dollar 99 metal straight safety peelers today. And you know, some competitors are making money doing that, but really, if you want to get higher margins, if you want to break through, you're doing something different. That's that's to me, it's just an example that just, pretty much everybody can relate to, and see.

Mick Spiers: 8:49

I'm going to play back some of the things I'm hearing there and make sure I'm getting it as well, that what I'm hearing is a multi faceted innovation where any of the individual attributes might have been enough, but collectively, they're all working. So first of all, there's a safety improvement tick in the box. Second, there's a speed improvement. I can now grate my or peel my carrots faster. Next, there's an efficiency improvement, because now I'm not wasting so many carrots to get the same to get the same yield. I'm using less carrots to get the same yield of the carrot at the end. I love the thought of then, oh, hang on a second. What am I going to do with all of these peelings? There's a byproduct innovation where I could go, I could reuse that. And there's some really innovation, interesting innovations out there of products that have emerged purely from a byproduct. And we could talk about a few of those. Vegemite is a byproduct of making beer. I don't know if you know that.

Bruce Vojak: 9:52

I didn't realize that, but yeah, that's great. Thanks. I learn a lot when I have these conversations.

Mick Spiers: 9:58

Yeah, right, so that's that's an example. Of the of the by product, and then those little innovations, like you, yeah, like the thing that you can take the eye out of the potato or, well, if we're going to do it this way, well, why don't we add a little thing as we go, and then the ergonomics, and then leading all of that. So we're ticking all of these boxes. And I'm also going to say that a carrot peeler is cheaper than a knife as well. So, you know, there's, I think it's ticking every box of speed, efficiency, safety, every reason, the one that I didn't expect you to say, Bruce.

Bruce Vojak: 10:30

Consumption.

Mick Spiers: 10:31

The consumption.

Bruce Vojak: 10:32

Yeah, isn't that fascinating? Yes.

Mick Spiers: 10:34

When I heard you say, change the market and change the competition before, I was thinking market share we're going to do better than our competitors. I'm hearing you change the market, and now people have more carrots, and therefore more carrot peelers are needed as well. So there's a volumetric increase, not just a market share increase. That was interesting for me. How does that summary sit with you in terms of all of the different reasons, but ticked every box.

Bruce Vojak: 11:04

I love hearing those different reasons because, Mick, when I think about it, up until hearing you reflect this back, I think about each individual step. And yeah, there are a few boxes ticked. But as you say it, and you look over this 100 Year trajectory, it really is remarkable, isn't it? It really and, you know, people don't often even know to look for these things. You know, before we got started today, you talked about getting people to stop and reflect and be intentional. And in a way, the way you frame that, back to me, illustrates why people should stop and reflect and be intentional once in a while, not maybe spend their whole day every day, but to at least say, is there something different? Is there a way we can, as an aside, reframe the problem we're working on? Because sometimes the best innovations aren't even a new solution to the problem, it's changing the definition of the problem. And I think the pre peeled carrots are a great example of that. The problem is no longer a better peeler. The problem is, how do I get peeled carrots into the hand of the consumer.

Mick Spiers: 12:08

Yeah, right. So are we solving the right problem?

Bruce Vojak: 12:11

Yeah.

Mick Spiers: 12:12

Are we solving the right problem?

Bruce Vojak: 12:14

That's the best problem, if you will. But yeah.

Mick Spiers: 12:16

Yeah, the best problem, yeah, very good. Okay, so I think that's what we don't always do. So you and I, before we hit record, we spoke about the word autopilot. I'm now going to throw one at you that we often hear something along the lines of necessity is the mother of all invention is usually the quote, but we could say innovation for the same thing. And with your vegetable peeler, example, there was a necessity. We had someone without arthritis. What I'm worried about here, Bruce is, if there's not a compelling driver, something that is forcing people into innovation, how do we encourage people to step into it anyway, like so they go to work tomorrow and go, scratch their head and go, yeah. Why do we do it that way without a compelling reason to do it?

Bruce Vojak: 13:07

This is a wonderful question. The compelling reason may not always be evident upfront. Very often, somebody has to be intrigued enough about a problem, they have to almost anticipate or think that they see that there's some fruitfulness of exploring a problem before they can even go for further on this and and I'd like to illustrate that with an example that was in actually the serial innovators book. There was a individual by the name of Tom Osborne. He's now passed away, but he was a research chemist, a physical chemist at Procter, and gamble for his entire career, he'd actually done a postdoc with a Nobel Prize winner, so just a really bright guy, and he was working on feminine hygiene products. And at the time that Tom was working, he was assigned to find ways to improve a feminine hygiene product. And if you will, the paradigm or the design that people were working with was to say that a feminine hygiene pad was kind of like a diaper. It was there to catch fluid. And so they designed these products to catch fluid. And this goes to the thing about, you know, what you led us into with this question is, how do people even know that there's a problem that's unsolved? And what Tom looked at this, he thought, you know, I think there's another way to do this. I think there's a better way. And there's this anticipation that we see sometimes when we interviewed the innovators, innovators during our research, and get a dozen plus year research project, and we saw them begin to see patterns, begin to anticipate things. They couldn't always articulate it, but they're like, I think there's something there. And Tom, Tom was to himself saying, because he shared this, he said, You know, I thought there was probably a better way to do. This. And so what he did was he deeply immersed himself in it. Now, a lot of times you'll hear people recommend, oh, brainstorm. You know, get rid of your hang ups. Now, the people that really innovate, well, very often deeply understand the problem. So what Tom did is he deeply understood the difference between, for example, urination and menstruation. You've got different kinds of fluid, it passes differently. He worked with medical models. These are humans who physicians work with, and other medical practitioners work with to learn how to become experts in their field. He worked with them to better understand things like anatomy and just in general, what this product, what the feminine hygiene product, would do and look like when it was attached to a body and over time, Tom realized that the diaper paradigm, which sold, by the way, very well, it was a very successful product for Procter and Gamble. But he realized that the better paradigm was that people were really looking for a garment, not a dye. And so he came up with the idea of something that would be more conformal, that would be thinner than the existing products. And it really led to what was called, or what is called, The always Ultra brand, feminine hygiene product, billion dollar brand for the company. And you know, Tom almost lost his job twice, because, you know, here he is advocating for something in a very successful marketplace, but he anticipated, he saw these patterns, and he's, he's like, I think there's something there. And you know, when, when I've talked to people in large companies, in mid size and small companies, very often you hear stories like this. They're like, you know, I think there's something there. One I was in the board of a company called medtronics for almost 16 years, and the guy who founded the company was working on this product at Motorola. He went to his neighbor and he said, Herb, I think I can build a company on this. And he bought the product promoter role. He took it out. He figured out what to do to make it better and actually be, you know, more attractive and desirable in the marketplace. And he's been very successful with this company. And, you know, I now I feel like maybe I'm getting way off topic here, but there's kind of a, what I would call a secular faith or belief that occurs and people again, they I think there's something there, and I'm going to pursue that, and it's different than the kinds of stories we often hear.

Mick Spiers: 17:31

I want to double down and get curious about this, the female hygiene product, because there are two things screaming in my head when you're talking about it. The first one is getting past a limiting belief. And the limiting belief for me is people, and you hear people say these exact words, don't fix what's not broken. Oh yes, right. So that's nothing's ever going to change if we have that mindset. So the person that you're talking about went, Well, no, it's it's good, but it's not great, and and we can do better, right? So let's get past the limiting belief of of don't fix what's not what's not broken. The next word is curiosity. So then he started asking the right questions. He went, Okay, so what we're trying to do, we're trying to catch fluid. What type of fluid? Where is it coming from? What's its viscosity? You know, all of these kind of questions, but, but I think there's more than that. He then started to ask, Well, what? What are we really trying to achieve here? So then we start getting into comfort, and I'm going to hazard a guess here and say some deep research of the users of the product to go, Well, what challenges do you have with the current product? And tell us about your lifestyle. And I bet you he would have heard stories of, well, at that time a month, I don't even like going out of the house or whatever, but if I make a new product that catches the fluid, and like, if you take an engineering point of view, you can create a better product to catch the fluid. But if you then take the user centric approach. You're going to give people a product that changes their lifestyle and they can go about their daily life walking around the city, comfortable, discrete, independent, they get their life back. How does that sit with you?

Bruce Vojak: 19:18

Well, you know, it sits very well for many reasons, but a big one is going back to what we talked about earlier, about what is innovation? A lot of times people think innovation is this new technology, but in this case, think about it. The technology only was developed for a thinner product or a certain kind of absorbent product after the question was redefined. And so sometimes the biggest innovation is redefining the problem and really understanding what's the problem that we want to solve. And so in Tom's case, as you said, it's not what we thought it was. It's something else. And the only way to get to that point sometimes is really, again, not to belabor this going. Back, getting people to stop and reflect and be intentional about what's really going on here. And it's not just me sitting back in an ivory tower thinking about it. It's getting into the mix with users, but it's also getting into the mix with your colleagues with executive management, who have to articulate the case for you to provide support. It's making sure that what you do is going to be valued by shareholders. Tom and others who have innovated in companies that are, you know, mature companies, mature industries. They've very often had to kind of bootleg projects just to get some samples made to do preliminary testing. And you know, they have to kind of prove the case to fortunately, when Tom was at PNG, it was a company whose culture was really based on submitting to the data, submitting to the results, and as a result, if he could get good data not conjured up. But take, you know, do the tests? Do the experiments? Make some samples? I think he made about 100 samples, and showed that this was preferred. That spoke to executive management, finally, but not without risk to his career. I mean, he could have, he could have lost a job easily in two separate occasions.

Mick Spiers: 21:17

Yeah, really interesting. I think we have to unpack that a little bit as well. So particularly around these risk takers like so if someone's got this mindset, they're going to be a risk taker. How do we give them the ability to do this in a way that doesn't put the company at risk? Because if you say, if you spend billions of dollars of solving the wrong problem, you're going to put the company at risk, but you need to give them some leeway or then, or they're never going to get there. So tell me about where you think it goes wrong in this respect?

Bruce Vojak: 21:51

You know, internally in a company. Oh, think about it. What we really ultimately want to do is we want something that's going to be successful in the marketplace, and so you want the internal to the company, decision making, process or decision making activity, to very closely replicate what the outside world wants. What does that mean? It means don't be too lenient on things that aren't going to be necessarily successful, and don't be too harsh on things that could be successful. Let me give you some examples. Very often in order to encourage people to be innovative, companies will provide, you know, kind of this four hours a week. Go do your thing. I've not I mean, I'm sure things have come from that, so don't get me wrong. But the best innovators, they carve out that time on their own. They're doing their job full time. They deliver full time. And they are so excited and intrigued by and curious, as you said, they go in and do that. And so they come up with things, and as long as manage, executive management isn't too harsh or too loose, and if it really reflects the marketplace, you have a winner. So it can go wrong, really either way. And so sometimes junior people are encouraged, oh, you know, go spend this time, do these things. You know, it's not necessarily bad all the time, but unless it's aimed towards developing the person. I'm not sure it's a good thing always. And then I've also heard countless stories, especially in companies that are very mature and very staid in their approach, where executives just won't take those risks. And that's those are cases where they're a bit more strict than the marketplace would be. And so you even need executive management to replicate, if you will, the voice of the customer in these processes of investment and allowing projects to go forward.

Mick Spiers: 23:51

Yeah, really interesting. I'm hearing a sweet spot there in relation to giving someone license, but without recklessness, but creating that environment where they do feel comfortable that they're not going to put their job at risk by going off and doing something. When you're talking about I was thinking about a really innovative guy I used to work with who and it comes back a little bit what you're saying before about someone that gets almost obsessed with an idea where we'd had a deep workshop with a challenge. And this guy, whenever I went home that night, whenever I went home, he couldn't sleep, so he he sat up all night, he come back the next morning with a prototype of a product, and everyone else went out to dinner and all this kind of stuff. And he came back next day with his first scratchings of a product because he couldn't sleep. So there was something different about him, and we didn't have to give him the the, you know, the Google 20% innovation, you know, time code or anything like that. He just couldn't sleep. So he had to solve the problem, and he come. Back with the first scratchings of a product the next day. So there is something special there, if you can find those people and then give them enough license without being reckless to just go and play.

Bruce Vojak: 25:13

And Mick, I love hearing what you just said about there's this guy I know, because when people understand who these serial innovators are, and they're in really a mature companies. It's successful, sustaining mature companies have people like this, not a lot, but they have people like this. And when they get the idea and they start saying, I know a guy or a woman like that, I just light up, because to me, it means they get it. The first time I met Steve McShane, the founder and owner of midtronics, I had given a talk. He was in the audience. We were just getting to know each other afterwards, and the first words out of his mouth were, we've got a guy like that, and his name is Kevin, and it very personalized. It just like your story. And you hear things like this from people, and usually I beg the guy that you're talking about, this isn't the only time he's been like that. I think it's I'm going to assume that that he just gets really enamored with the problem, wants to try to solve it and and usually these people are self motivated to solve customer problems. It's beautiful to see when you do see it.

Mick Spiers: 26:26

Yeah, now that's great. How do we then embody that? Because the other thing I'm going to put a challenge to you here is that sometimes those people are really good at solving the problem, but maybe not productizing the problem or productizing the solution. So how do you then give that person that freedom to do what they're good at, but then put the other people around them that might be able to help them with the business model, with the manufacturability of the product, and like, how do you then surround them with people that will bring the product to life, or the solution to life. I should say.

Bruce Vojak: 27:02

Yeah, you know, it's so important. I'm going to come at this a couple of ways. The best people, the people who are truly, truly innovation exemplars in their own way, will lead this process. So they will bring other people along, so they will know enough about all these other fields. They may not be expert in manufacturing, they may not be expert in marketing, but they will know enough to either engage and involve other people, bring other people along, or learn from other people. And so the most successful case studies and stories I've heard have been the teams have been formed that way. The ones where you often, but not always, have problems are when the teams are formed upfront. So executive management says, We need five people. One's going to be a product person, one's going to be an engineer, one's going to be in manufacturing, maybe somebody from finance. And, you know, I could go on, but you know, those are the usual suspects. They may not bring the right people in. They may bring, you know, expertise that makes sense. So like, it's like forming a team for a sport. You might have all the positions covered, but isn't necessarily the best team in quite honestly, is it even for the sport that you're playing? And so the biggest success stories, these other people have been brought in. They've been engaged by the person who's the innovator. And I don't want to lose sight of that. Now I will say I've often seen two, sometimes pairs of people work successfully. When I was at Motorola, for example, there were two guys that would, you know, you'd listen to them, and they sounded they would like be bickering almost all the time, but they'd be they'd be working off of each other and very different personalities, but together, they were amazing. In fact, they used to name projects after these guys last names they would combine. I will mention their names, but they call things the zimruba because it was half of one name and half of the other name. And that's the maruba one, and that's in Aruba two, and one would be a process, equipment, and one would be a product, because these guys are just so fruitful. You get a bigger team. Communication gets more difficult. Getting on the same page gets more difficult. Some people will advocate that diversity is achieved by that, but it's not always the depth that you need, and so you do have to be careful about that. It's so those teams, you know, in the best case, if that innovator knows what to do, and you have truly an exemplar, they'll bring people along. If you have someone who's what I would call an innovator, they maybe have ideas, but don't you know they need people to surround them, then you have to find ways to help them, and often, I should add quickly that very often their manager, their direct manager, or executive that they report to, can provide some of that role with them. And very relational. It's not transactional at that point. They really kind of help them along. Very often. Too, to get funding for projects and approval.

Mick Spiers: 30:03

All right, really good. Bruce, I want to convert this into a bit of an action, particularly for executive leaders that are or senior managers that are listening to this show. And we do have a lot of C suite listen to the show. The challenges I'm hearing here is that if I went to I'm going to say many CEOs, and I asked them, you know, how would you rate your innovation in your company? I think a lot of them would be frustrated and say, I just wish our people were more innovative. And then I hear them trying things like the Okay, we give everyone 20% free time to to innovate and play, etc, and that's not going to suit everyone, because not everyone has this has this mindset. What action could you give to these executives? And I don't think it's going to be a cookie cutter. You know, it's just one answer. What answer could you give them to go, how can they embrace the innovation exemplars? To go, Okay, this is the way we're going to seed innovation in our company.

Bruce Vojak: 31:05

I like to tell people in the C suite that there are really three things that they need. They need internal alignment. They need strategic alignment. Everybody has to say, Yeah, we really are going to be willing to invest in innovation if it makes sense. And they need tactical alignment. And when a specific idea comes up, that idea is going to at least be seriously considered, not dismissed out of hand, because if you don't have internal alignment, you will, by definition, fail. I've seen companies all too often fail at the last minute, even because they haven't really lined up this intro alignment of people to buy in. I've seen people from a quality function push back. I've seen marketing people push back on ideas because they said, Well, we weren't aware of this. And so you need that alignment. The second thing, and you know, I'm not opposed to process, but you need simple process, because processes instruct the neophytes, and they remind the executive. And they also force, excuse me, they remind the expert in innovation. But a process always also forces an executive to make decisions, because very often in a process, there's a stage where somebody's got to make an investment decision. And if you don't have a process in place, very often, those decisions just get kicked down the road. And then the third thing you need are these people, these exemplars. And you don't need a lot. Colleague of mine, Ray price, said, you know, in a company at 10 you have one company of 100 maybe two company of 1000, you know, let's say engineers. You maybe have three and a company 10,000 you've driven them all out because they're just so frustrated with the bureaucracy. But the point is, you need to find, you need to be an executive that can identify and work with these people. Some may be hired, some may be contracted out. My colleague on the no excuses innovation book, Walter herbs, he told a marvelous story that we shared in the book about he and his colleagues, actually, a couple of stories. He and his colleagues in a design firm had been brought in to do product design work for these companies. And so, you know, if you have it in house, it's great if you don't, you have to find people that you can work with and that you trust and respect you can count on to do that, but you have to find executives that are able and willing to place these bets. And I'll end with the idea that these don't have to be big bets. A lot of executives are concerned about, if you will, wasting just throwing away a lot of money on innovation, and my view is that innovation should be viewed as not as something where you're looking at an ROI, although that's going to sound theoretical. So let me give you the second half of that. It's that an innovation investment is either an insurance policy, because you don't want to be caught flat footed when the competition does something, or it's an option, a financial option for future growth, you position yourself so that at the right time, you've got something where you can invest further and you've reduced risk by the time you've invested in that option. And so I'm not a big fan of big innovation groups. I'm not a big fan of, if you will, separate innovation groups, because I think that that can be challenging. It basically tells the rest of your company, we don't believe in you, but I'm just saying you've got to learn how to work with these people. And I'm going to say it when it works. It's beautiful to watch. It's like a dance. It's the metaphor. And I, you know, I don't want to sound corny with you. Mick, but it's very relational, and it's marvelous, because you can see it when it when it works and and I've seen it time and time and time again.

Mick Spiers: 34:52

Yeah. Really good. Okay, so three key things here, the internal alignment, having a few simple processes to you. Govern and force to some degree, some decision making and then some innovation. Example is that are going to get out there and and do what they do, the ones with the right mindset that are going to do there. The other thing I'm hearing there, Bruce, that I want to unpack a little bit more, is, what about the relationship with risk and failure, right? So I'm going to say two things. One is, we don't want to put the company at risk and bring it to its knees, clearly. And the second one is, we may need to live with an element of failure, because I think most innovations, the first iteration doesn't work. It's going to take a few attempts. What mindset do we need to have towards the right mindset for risk, but then also this relationship with failure.

Bruce Vojak: 35:47

Words like risk and failure have in them, framed in them downside. And I understand and respect that. I don't want to ignore that, but what I want to do is reframe that as, what are we learning? What are we discovering in the process? And so if, again, a small investment in innovation, an exploratory and discovery investment, leads us to say, you know, I think there's something worth pursuing further. That's the mindset I want. I you know, I hear people say, we have to, we have to fail fast. And I know they don't mean it literally that way, but my feeling is, you want to learn fast. And so, yeah, I mean, you fail fast, because what you want to do is you want to get those bad things out of the way. But I, you know, I don't know how much you've worked in manufacturing facilities, but how many manufacturing facilities today produce a ton of Project, a ton of product, and then throw out the things that fail. No, they've designed into that process a highly designed, highly effective, manufacturable product. So the idea of throwing things out is almost anathema in those situations. Now, again, there's a lot of uncertainty in innovation, but I think it's this idea of discovery and learning and pivoting. I'll give you a quick example on the cover of the no excuses innovation book, there's this box cutter that my colleague Walter Herbst and his son Scott developed with a an entrepreneur T Chase. This is a box cutter, and it's got just features that you wouldn't have normally seen. It's got a ceramic blade. It's got 10 times life compared to stale steel blade. It's got a hook, which means you can put it in your pocket and you won't get stabbed in the leg, you know? And so, TJ, again, this idea of seeing something that wasn't quite there. TJ said, I think I can make a better box cutter. Now this is like trying to make a better carrot peeler. You know, come on. And yet, you know, he said, I think we can do something better. So TJ and Walter and Scott, they worked on this and and they developed this, and they thought it was going to go into the consumer market, and they brought it to a trade show, and it is in the consumer market. Because, you know, we've my wife and I probably have three or four of these, because we've got them, like, got one in the office, one in the in the breakfast nook, you know, one in our home in Colorado as well. But the big thing they learned at this trade show was that industrial customers wanted these because it reduced their insurance costs. There was less you know, people were put at less risk. Well, you only learn this by putting yourself out there. And so, you know, again, it would we say they failed? Well, you could say that they failed, failed in the consumer market, but it didn't succeed as the main thing. But what succeeded even better was something that they hadn't anticipated. And so, you know, to me, I view innovation as discovery. You're discovering, you know, you're discovering needs, you're discussing discovering ways to do it. You're just discovering what the future looks like. And to me, I notice how corny. I love these stories. I just be entertained when I hear these things. And I know that I'm not here to be entertained by people, but I just love hearing when these things work.

Mick Spiers: 39:03

Thanks for sharing that story. It was really beautiful. And to show the example the what I was taking away from that is the reframe, reframing, fail fast, to learn fast. And that learn fast also was the ability to pivot if something new or interesting emerges, right? So in this case, I was setting out to develop this product. But hang on a second, I just accidentally invented this product. In this case, it wasn't even a different product. It was a different market for the same product. Absolutely, yeah, really interesting. That's a nice segue towards a very challenging question. Bruce, to frame this I'm going to I'm heading in the direction of ethics, but to talk about it, I want to talk about emergent properties, which is what we were just touching on in some degree. And I'm going to put out a bit of a personal opinion here, which not everyone is going to agree with. But the idea is to ask a question about ethical. Guardrails. I'm going to put it to you, Bruce, that the forefathers of social media did not intend to create the product that they've created today. And I'm going to say that they had virtuous intent when they started. So if you hear Zuckerberg as an example, the whole goal that they were trying to set out was to connect the world, create a more connected world, and yet, through the emergent properties, they've created a product that, if you look at a lot of the literature today, is addictive, is potentially creating mental health issues, and is creating a disconnected world where people are not talking to each other anymore, but their original goal was to create a connected world. So my two fold question to you is emergent properties are a good thing, and we need to get curious about emergent properties, because that's where that journey of discovery comes from that we're that you and I have been talking about, that emergent properties can also be bad, and they can be either unintended consequences, or it can open itself up for malicious actions from bad actors. How do we put ethical guardrails around innovation to make sure we don't create something that we didn't intend to that then changes the world in a sub optimal way.

Bruce Vojak: 41:27

Wow. Mick, that's a marvelous question. I'd say that what what you're describing, and I think you'd agree with this, not to put words in your mouth, so you know, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Pretty much every innovation that comes up, every new idea has the potential to be used for good, or some something less than good, the example that comes to mind, and, you know, my wife and I were talking about this maybe a month or so ago, so it's not fresh this week, but the idea of processed foods, you know, in canned foods, think about, you know, what is it 100 or more years ago, and probably even earlier, canned foods, but, you know, things that would be foods that would be canned, that would be preserved in some way, maybe additives that would have allow foods to have a longer shelf life. Those were all really all intended to be good things, to reduce waste, to allow people to not have to live in a subsistence diet, that they could have things, if you will, an inventory of food shared, stored, and yet, think about the result of that, the obesity problem, at least in this country, and even processed foods, fast foods, and again, I'm not a I'm not on a crusade on this. I think anybody can just dispassionately say, yeah, these are problems. And so everything that we do is going to have with it, associated with it, the potential for something negative, industrialization, pollution, countries that are more emerging today. Do we allow them? And I say Allow but what do we think about when those countries pollute more because they're trying to get caught up? What do we do with these things? And you know, Mick, I'm going to tell you, I wish I had the answer. I don't know, because even things like genetically modified foods, I will say, and I'll try to get back to actually answering what you asked. But I a number of years ago, I did some work with a company. They had US and European activities. And in the US, they were working on genetically modified products, but in Europe, they weren't, because they had guardrails in Europe, and they didn't have as much in the US. And they shared a story about how genetic, genetically modified corn, the stalks were much more tough, and so the corn stalks that were left after harvest, they were damaging the tires on the tractors. You know. I mean, maybe that's been fixed today, but for every new thing that comes up, there's very often something negative. And I'm going to tell you, the timing of this question to me is fascinating, because I have been reflecting about this at times, and I'm going to confess I don't know, because at some level, I feel that the majority of individuals should have the freedom to choose, but there's going to be some point where that freedom is going to impinge on the Rights and the safety and security both of others in society and in the future of society. And then the question is, how do you navigate that? How do you manage that? How do you reign it in? And Mick, I don't have an answer. I mean, I I wish I did. In fact, if and as you hear answers down the road, I'd love to continue this conversation, you know, via emails, because this is critical. I mean, you know, think about even you know, genetically modified humans. What do we do with this transhumanism? You know, what do we do with these things?

Mick Spiers: 45:00

Yeah, there's some huge challenges. I also don't think that there is a perfect answer, either, but the things that I would say, when we're innovating, we're always asking ourselves the question, What can I make possible? And what I'd like to encourage people to do is ask that question, and then immediately ask the question, What have I just made possible? And with that, what have I just made possible? Is that a virtuous thing, or is or is that a unintended consequence that I need to put a guardrail around? That would be number one. So as I'm innovating, I'm asking positive questions, what can I make possible? And I'm asking a cautious question, What have I just made possible? And then the second part is, then, as executives in these companies, we then need to be very have our finger on the pulse that the moment an unintended consequence, consequence comes to bear that we might have missed in our ethical guardrails that I just spoke about. If we miss something, we need to be responsive. That if that unattended, in unintended consequence comes about, what are we going to do about it? So I'll use the social media one example again. The whole thing with social media algorithms, the whole idea, if you listen to YouTube as an example. I'm a fan of YouTube. To be clear, the algorithm for YouTube is designed to put the right video in front of the right person at the right time. That's it. That's it. The unintended consequence is algorithmic bias, where all of a sudden my whole perception of the world and my news feed is now skewed towards videos that I've watched longer, and I start believing that the earth is flat, and I could give lots of examples, the algorithmic bias was not the intended product. The intended product was put the right video in front of the right person at the right time to give the consumer something that they wanted.

Bruce Vojak: 47:03

Yeah, I don't know if you've seen this carnival game, whack a mole. Yeah, it's kind of like Whack a Mole. You hit one down, one or two others pop up.

Mick Spiers: 47:15

That's it. Yeah, that's a great metaphor, Bruce. I think that's what we need to do. We need to be asking the right questions up front, but then as we put the product to market, we need to be ready with Whack a Mole. I love it. Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. All right, this has been an amazing conversation. I want to summarize a few key things here, and that is about innovation, that we are trying to solve a problem, but we're trying to articulate and reframe the problem and to make sure that we're solving the right problem, which is really key in all of this, that we need people with the mindset that they're not going to have a limiting belief of, if it's not broken, don't fix it. You need people that are curious, that are going to lean into it and go, Well, is there a better way, or is there a better problem that we can, that we can fix here, and to ensure that they're looking at all of the emerging problems of that if we want to in get this going in our companies, we need internal alignment. We need some processes, but they need to be simple processes that govern the decision making and the process and have this relationship with our innovation exemplars. The third part, the people that have got this mindset so that we can give them the environment where they can do their thing, give them the environment where they can do their thing, then this reframing of fail fast to learn fast. I absolutely love that, Bruce, and I think that's a great takeaway for everyone to think about. And the final one is the ethical guardrails of making sure that we're not creating more problems than than we're then we're solving. Thank you so much, Bruce. I'm going to take us now to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's the one thing you know now? Bruce vocek, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Bruce Vojak: 49:09

You know I, as I kind of alluded to, but wasn't specific about, I was an engineering undergraduate and graduate student before I hit the world. So I finished a PhD in electrical engineering, and then I worked in a federally funded defense lab for a few years, and I knew nothing about business, and so I picked up an MBA afterwards, and it was like a breath of fresh air for me to realize the context of technology. And so what I wish I had understood a little bit earlier was something about business. And, you know, Mick, just to give you an example, when I worked the university, I taught a one credit hour class on essentially business topics for graduate students in engineering. And it was a very short class. It was a couple hours a week, and I just wanted these students to be. Exposed to the things that I wish I had heard ahead of time. So that's the, that's the general area. I wish I knew something about strategy and finance and marketing, you know, just the basics. Because, you know, engineers can pick this up pretty quickly, but you got to see it. You got to know it's even there to be seen.

Mick Spiers: 50:16

Yeah, very good. I love it. Bruce, there's a lot of young engineers listening to the show. I think that's a that's a good one for them to hear. Okay, what's your favorite book?

Bruce Vojak: 50:26

You know, there's a book called personal knowledge. It's written by Michael Polanyi. Michael Polanyi was a physical chemist in the last century, very successful physical chemist in early quantum mechanics. And then he he he basically became interested in social problems, and in particular, about science and how science is practiced. And so Polanyi essentially became an epistemologist. He studied how people know things, and personal knowledge is about, basically what he observed about how people come to know, how they come to understand things. If you've heard the phrase tacit knowledge, it's from Pilates work, and people often misunderstand and misrepresent it. But pilani's insights are fascinating. In a nutshell, he basically says that knowing things is kind of seeing patterns, kind of anticipating patterns. So when I spoke, you know, half an hour ago, about how these innovators saw patterns and they saw things that other people didn't see, that's got this palanian flavor stirred into it, because I've seen this happen time and time and time again, polani understood it, And while it's a challenging book to read. The concepts what he wrote about are powerful.

Mick Spiers: 51:45

I'm going to look at to this one personally. Bruce, for sure, this happens to me a lot. I'm going to share this with you personally, where I have and I'm sure there's many people listening that have this as well, where you get asked a question and somehow you know the answer, and then when? And if you took us to it back, you'd scratch your head and go, How did I know that answer? It's really a bizarre field, so I'm going to look into this for sure. What's your favorite quote?

Bruce Vojak: 52:13

You know, I'm gonna have to read it because I wrote it down here before, from when you mentioned it. It's from it's written by Tolstoy. It's the first sentence of Anna Karenina. And Tolstoy wrote that All happy families resemble one another. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Now, why is that my favorite quote? Not necessarily about families, but it's about innovation. And what I'm going to say is that all companies that succeed at Innovation pretty much resemble each other, and the ones that fail, yeah, there's a lot of ways you can get Yeah. So, you know, to me, it's, you know, when I first saw this quote, I thought, Oh, it's just resonated with me, you know, I just like, yeah, I get it. And so, so Tolstoy met it for something else, but I think it applies broadly in so many situations.

Mick Spiers: 53:10

Yeah, really good. Bruce, all right. And finally, there's going to be people listening to this show that do want to do things in their companies. And they, they, like I said before, maybe frustrated with, I wish, I wish we could be more innovative, etc, etc. How do people find you and take advantage of your your work and your services?

Bruce Vojak: 53:30

Yeah, you know the probably the quickest, easiest way, if you're on LinkedIn, just look for me on LinkedIn. It's Bruce Vojack V, as in V, O, J, A, K. You can find my consulting business website. It's breakthroughinnovationadvisors.com it's hyphenated, breakthrough hyphen, innovation hyphen, advisors.com if you even Google that phrase, you'll find it pretty quickly. There's contact information there. Can get an email address for me pretty easily there. So I'd be delighted to have confidential non committal conversations, if somebody just wants to get on, you know, a zoom with me for half hour, 45 minutes, and just talk about their needs, you know, again, confidential, just to understand and explore what might make sense. And if there's a fit, great. And if not, at least, I think we'll all learn something.

Mick Spiers: 54:19

Yeah, brilliant person. Well, thank you so much for your time today and for the gift of the gift of your time and the gift of your wisdom and experience. That's been a really enthralling conversation that given. It's given everyone a lot to think about, but also take action on what they need to do if they want to be more innovative in their organizations. Thank you so much.

Bruce Vojak: 54:38

Thank you.

Mick Spiers: 54:41

What a powerful conversation that was with Bruce Vojak, for me, there were three big takeaways. First, innovation is human before it's procedural. So many organizations try to engineer innovation through process alone, but Bruce reminded us that it starts with people with the. Mindset, courage and curiosity, to see problems differently and ask better questions. Second, Innovation often begins when we challenge the quiet assumptions that everyone else has accepted, that limiting belief about not fixing what's not broken can sound sensible on the surface, but it can also become a trap. Real Innovation often starts when someone notices that something may be working, but could work far better. And third, Bruce gave us a healthier way to think about risk and failure, instead of seeing them only through a lens of downside, he encouraged us to ask, what are we learning? What are we discovering? That shift matters because it gives leaders and teams permission to explore, test and grow without needing certainty at every step. So here's my challenge for you from this episode where, in your work, your team or your leadership, Have you accepted something simply because that's how we do it around here? And what is one question you could ask this week that might open the door to a better way? Don't just listen to this conversation and move on. Take Action, challenge, one assumption. Start one deeper conversation, follow one thread of curiosity, because innovation doesn't begin when everything is clear. It begins when someone is willing to look again. Thanks for joining us today on the leadership project. If this conversation made you stop reflect and rethink something, share it with someone else who needs to hear it, and always keep leading with intention. In the next episode, we're going to be joined by the amazing rich Braden and Tessa foreshaw of Stanford and Harvard, who are going to talk to us about innovation hesitation. To keep this topic going, we're going to ask ourself the questions why smart people often hold back. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife, Sei, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible? None of this happens without them around here. We believe leadership is a practice, not a position, that people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter, that the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app, and if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing until next time. Lead with curiosity, courage and care.