Teamwork - A Better Way

Christian Napier
00:12 - 00:21
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Teamwork, A Better Way. I'm Christian Napier and I am joined by my very bubbly co-host, Spencer Horne. Spencer, how are you

Spencer Horn
00:21 - 00:32
doing? I am fantastic. I am bubbly because I get to be with you like last Friday and today. Plus, you know, we have our guest today is someone that's going to talk about innovation.

Spencer Horn
00:32 - 00:35
So it makes me feel very effervescent.

Christian Napier
00:35 - 00:56
Yeah, well, you got a beautiful effervescent shirt on, so just had to point that out. Before we get to our guests, though, I have to tell you, Spencer, over the weekend, my wife and I went for a drive. We went down to Fairview and then over the mountains to Huntington, and the fall leaves. Incredible.

Christian Napier
00:56 - 00:57
I don't know if you've gotten out and seen.

Spencer Horn
00:57 - 01:07
I did. We actually went towards the Alpine loop. We took that. We should have gone down to Fairview, but we got halfway up the mountain and the road was closed and I don't know what it was.

Spencer Horn
01:07 - 01:15
We still got to see a lot of beautiful sights, but this is such a beautiful time of year. We may do that this weekend while we listen to conference.

Christian Napier
01:16 - 01:35
Yeah. Well, we have a tradition where, uh, We drive up to Pocatello for tacos. I listen in the morning on the way up and in the afternoon on the way back. So it's $60 in gas for $20 worth of tacos, but it's all about the journey.

Spencer Horn
01:35 - 01:42
That's awesome. We were talking about food with our guest anyway. Should we get into that?

Christian Napier
01:42 - 01:46
Let's get to our guest because I'm super excited for you to introduce him, Spencer.

Spencer Horn
01:46 - 02:21
Absolutely. So today we are so excited to have Alan Gregerman, who is an internationally renowned authority on business strategy, innovation, and hidden potential of grownups, who knew that grownups had hidden potential, who has been called one of the most original thinkers in business today, and the Robin Williams of business consultant. As the president and chief innovation officer of Washington DC-based consultancy VentureWorks, He is a best-selling author, sought-after keynote speaker, yay, way to go keynoting, and community volunteer.

Spencer Horn
02:22 - 03:04
He focuses on helping companies and organizations unlock the genius in all of their people in order to deliver the most compelling value to their customers. Perfect fit for the teamwork podcast, which is all we're all about is empowering and helping teams perform better Individuals on those teams perform better. He's also the founder Christian of passion for learning an award-winning nonprofit that teaches girls Technology skills as the key to life and career success I have a very good friend in Washington DC who works for NASA and she is one of the few NASA engineers and it's a You know, obviously we need more more women in those those STEM fields, which is wonderful.

Spencer Horn
03:04 - 03:49
His work has been featured in over 250 leading publications and media outlets in the U.S. and in other countries, including The Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNN, The Economic Times, Business Week, Doggins Industry. and Fast Company, and his writing, speaking, and teaching has informed the hopefully and hopefully inspired almost 700,000 people worldwide. He's written several books. His three previous books, The Necessity of Strangers, Surrounded by Geniuses, and Lessons from the Sandbox, really challenged, Christian, this is what I'm so excited to learn about, challenged the thinking about people, the world around us, and what it means to be remarkable and where brilliant ideas come from.

Spencer Horn
03:49 - 04:10
Where do they come from? I want to know. In his new book, which I'm sure we'll talk about, The Wisdom of Ignorance, Why Not Knowing Can Be the Key to Innovation in an Uncertain World, he's going to share that today. A powerful formula is what that book provides to making a difference in a world that is moving so super fast.

Spencer Horn
04:10 - 04:13
Welcome, Alan. We're so glad to have you.

Alan Gregerman
04:13 - 04:18
Greetings, I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for the kind introduction. My mom would be happy.

Spencer Horn
04:19 - 04:44
See, look at his glasses. That's why I wear the shirt and I'm glad your mom, maybe she, hopefully she's listening. So I know you're a young man, that's certainly still possible. But Alan, we have lots of questions and I really want to start with a two-parter because that will really get us going.

Spencer Horn
04:44 - 04:59
But you call the ignorance wisdom. That's a bold claim in the business world. So why is not knowing so powerful? And in addition to that, how did you discover this idea of the power of ignorance?

Alan Gregerman
05:00 - 05:17
Okay, great. No, so those are two great questions to start. And so let me just simply say that the world is really moving fast. And so it's modestly presumptuous for any of us to assume that what we know today is all we need to know tomorrow.

Alan Gregerman
05:18 - 05:48
And so I think the fact that we don't know stuff probably allows us to approach tomorrow with kind of open eyes and a sense of possibilities. And so I'd love people to think about that to start. The second thing that you asked, and we'll get into hopefully this a lot more, is I've been an innovation consultant, hold your ears for 37 years. I started as an innovation consultant long before innovation was popular or trendy.

Alan Gregerman
05:49 - 06:06
Now it seems every company is talking about innovation. And I've had the privilege of working with about 400 companies and organizations around the world. And what I notice is technical people often the leaders of companies, tend to rely on the expertise or knowledge they have. That's great.

Alan Gregerman
06:07 - 06:23
I like to say knowledge and what we know is valuable, but not knowing stuff is genius, because not knowing stuff allows us to approach every problem with kind of open eyes and fresh possibilities, and that's what we really need today.

Christian Napier
06:26 - 06:54
So I've got a question for you, Alan, on this, because I think this topic is really super interesting. Prior to my current role, I work for the state of Utah in AI. I spent 25 years working in major international sport events. And one of the traits that I looked for whenever I was potentially hiring a person was intellectual curiosity.

Christian Napier
06:54 - 07:23
because I found those people, they would embrace challenge a little bit more. And I appreciated the fresh perspective, but not everybody is intellectually curious. And so I'm curious to know where intellectual curiosity comes from and if it can be learned or if it's something that's just, you are intellectually curious or you're not.

Alan Gregerman
07:24 - 07:44
Okay, well, so this is an interesting question. So a lot of people suggest, well, you know, I'm not particularly innovative. And so I'd like to take everybody back to the time when they were a small child, because as children, we were absolutely engines of innovation. And we were engines of innovation because we didn't know a lot about anything.

Alan Gregerman
07:44 - 08:12
And so anything was possible. We asked a lot of questions, we imagined, we wondered, we put things together that didn't appear to belong. So i want everybody to think about the fact that within all of us is the ability to be innovative now the challenges somewhere between the school bus and the world of adulthood and work and all the things we learn and all the investment we make to know stuff. We lose the knack for casting a wide net.

Alan Gregerman
08:12 - 08:38
We tend to be very focused when faced with a problem on the stuff we already know. But I think to get to your question, I want everybody to realize we all can be intellectually curious again. And the starting point is actually just getting up from wherever you work and wandering around paying attention and thinking about what you see that's remarkable and then wondering why it's remarkable and whether that could help you think differently.

Spencer Horn
08:40 - 09:05
So Alan, don't you think that also takes a cultural shift because it seems, I remember I had a, a mentor leader in one of the companies I used to work with. It was a leadership development company. She used to always create this sense of if you get to a place where you're unsure or you don't know, say it and celebrate that. In other words, you should clap your hands and say, I don't know.

Spencer Horn
09:05 - 09:28
And then everybody should clap because it's like, that means you're about to learn something. So I agree, keep going. But the whole idea is so often as leaders, especially new leaders, we feel like we have to have all the answers. And we feel like we're leading the people behind us when the truth is most leaders don't have all the answers.

Spencer Horn
09:28 - 09:35
But if we acknowledge that, then I think it becomes easier to celebrate and say, hey, I can learn something and that's OK.

Alan Gregerman
09:36 - 09:53
Well, yeah, so think about it. Leadership is all about looking like you've got your whatever together, okay? And so it's a bad look for a lot of leaders to say, I don't have all the answers, but maybe it should actually be a good look. Maybe in fact, we should do exactly what your podcast is all about.

Alan Gregerman
09:54 - 10:10
Leaders should come clean. They should say, I don't exactly know the answer. I don't know the best answer to this, but let's, as a team, figure out how we can be remarkable. And then leaders should also say, you know, we need to be better consistently.

Alan Gregerman
10:11 - 10:25
We can't just rest on what we do. I am always amused when leaders say to me, well, you know, Alan, I don't even know if we need innovation guidance. because we're really good right now. You know, our customers love us.

Alan Gregerman
10:26 - 10:43
Well, that's all well and good. And I respond and I say, look, your customers love you right now because they haven't seen anything better. But if they see something better, they'll leave you in a heartbeat. So the reality is you've got to be the better that they see, or they're just waiting to find something else.

Alan Gregerman
10:43 - 10:54
But the whole idea that leaders say to their teams, let's be awesome together, maybe not knowing All the answers is the challenge we need to be amazing.

Spencer Horn
11:06 - 11:43
You know, I work with lots of CEO groups all around North America, and these are basically peer advisory groups. And there's something that I noticed, that it is oftentimes very difficult to do what you talked about and to be vulnerable and to say, I don't know. It's like they almost come to these meetings talking about everything's good, everything's good. I got a business lead for a multinational organization, big telecom company, and a specific team within this organization, and they wanted to do a retreat.

Spencer Horn
11:43 - 11:56
And so I said, how is the team? Oh, the team is high-performing. And when I know only 10% of teams are truly high-performing worldwide, 70% are barely above average. And, or just at average.

Spencer Horn
11:56 - 12:23
And so what happens is, is that they say they're doing well. And then as I started having more of a discussion in depth, they're like, you know what, we are not even close to hitting the numbers that we expect to be hitting in terms of customer satisfaction and all the things that they claim that are their KPIs, but they're telling the world, you know, we're high performing because we always seem to overestimate our impact. Our positive impact and underestimate our negative impact.

Spencer Horn
12:23 - 12:29
So we're always telling ourselves things are good. How does that do you see that? I mean, is it just me?

Alan Gregerman
12:30 - 12:57
Oh no, so you're spot on. So remember in like high school or college statistics classes, and they talked about the normal distribution, which was the distribution of the number of us that would get A's and the number of us that would get F's and the unwashed masses in the middle who were on the hump who could either get a B or get a D. So the reality is business kind of works like that.

Alan Gregerman
12:58 - 13:08
I'd like to think 10% of companies are awesome. And they're awesome in part because they always want to be better. And so they're honest with each other. Do customers love us?

Alan Gregerman
13:09 - 13:17
Yeah, they do. But we could do better. 10% of folks are in a lot of trouble. And so they really need a lot of help.

Alan Gregerman
13:17 - 13:43
And the folks in the middle could go down the hill the right way or down the hill the wrong way. And so I want people to think about that notion that, of course, we want to be in the 10% that's better. But if we're at the top of the hill, we can get to that place by being open and honest and candid. And then from my particular perspective as an innovation consultant, let's be honest, look at every single company website out there.

Alan Gregerman
13:43 - 14:01
And every company says innovation is like a core value of theirs. And yet very few are focused on, you know, as Christian said, being curious, engaging the world, being open to new ideas. But it's a bad look to say we're not innovative, OK? So I think you're spot on.

Alan Gregerman
14:02 - 14:14
And I think folks want outwardly to look like they have everything together. And inwardly, they struggle to keep people engaged and collaborative and learning and doing remarkable things.

Christian Napier
14:16 - 14:37
Well, I don't want to get necessarily too personal here, but I'm curious about your own journey. How did you settle on this as your life's work? And before we got on air, you were telling us, you were looking at the map that I have here and you said you had a PhD in geography. And I'm curious, how do you get from that to...

Christian Napier
14:37 - 14:46
being this innovation guy, you know, like that's a very curious, that's a very curious journey. And I'm interested in learning more about that. What's your

Alan Gregerman
14:46 - 14:50
story? Okay, good. Well, it even starts Christian a step before that. Okay.

Alan Gregerman
14:51 - 14:58
So before I, I was an okay high school student. I mean, I think my teachers thought I was a fair,

Spencer Horn
14:58 - 15:00
I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you.

Alan Gregerman
15:01 - 15:21
Yeah, so so you can relate. So my teacher thought I was a fairly clever guy who didn't apply himself, you know, and at the time I was growing up, there was something called a D, D or ADHD, but it wasn't diagnosed. People simply said, just sit at the front of the room and pay attention. Just suck it.

Alan Gregerman
15:22 - 15:40
So my parents, who were really smart, said, you know, I think to make college worthwhile, you should work for a while. And so I got a job actually, with what was once a great company. It's kind of an interesting story called Westinghouse. And I worked as a propulsion technician, assembling subway cars.

Alan Gregerman
15:41 - 16:01
I was there for two years. During those two years, I made 10 suggestions for ways they could improve operations. Every time I got a note from the plant manager saying, this is a great suggestion, we'll consider it and get back to you. They got back to me on one of my suggestions three years after I'd left.

Alan Gregerman
16:01 - 16:24
and they told me they were implementing it, but because I wasn't an employee, I didn't get any benefit. That was my perception of kind of how a lot of big companies worked. Now fast forward, so I go to college, and I actually do really well in college, so working nights as a subway mechanic was really brilliant on my parents' part. Now I go to college and then I do really well.

Alan Gregerman
16:24 - 16:38
Then I decide I'll go to grad school and I think maybe I'll be a professor. And so I get a PhD in geography. I hated graduate school. I mean, I finished my dissertation because I don't want to start something and not finish it.

Alan Gregerman
16:38 - 16:53
But I finished that. But the last thing I wanted to do was stay at the university while I was a doctoral student. I volunteered and worked with a group of entrepreneurs in Detroit, Michigan, helping them to grow their businesses. I absolutely adored these people.

Alan Gregerman
16:53 - 17:09
And so my idea was I would go into consulting and what these folks needed was to think about how to be different, how to be more innovative, how to create greater value. And so I thought about how I would go and work with lots of entrepreneurs and then lots of big companies on how to do that.

Spencer Horn
17:19 - 17:28
Christian, haven't you ever ridden on a subway and wondered who fixes these things? I have. I was like, who are the people? And where do they do that?

Spencer Horn
17:29 - 17:36
Because you got to have a special place where there's room to get around and not in the tunnels. Of course, they don't stay in the tunnels, right? They come out of the tunnels.

Alan Gregerman
17:37 - 18:00
An 800,000 square foot factory in which I would literally stand in a pit and trains would come overhead, and then the stuff I worked on was above me. So I got really good shoulder muscles, and what I realized was, which my parents were all to blame for, I did not want to spend my entire life doing this.

Christian Napier
18:00 - 18:01
So that was

Alan Gregerman
18:02 - 18:12
kicking the pants I needed. But I feel like most subway cars are really safe, and so I believe in all the people who do the job that I used to do.

Spencer Horn
18:12 - 18:42
I love that story. It's interesting that as you go out in the world, you're working with—you talk about a lot of business owners are technical. Going to school, so many of the degrees anyway used to be when I was in school were of high value were the technical degrees. And so people are wanting to develop this expertise so they could go out and be successful in the business world.

Spencer Horn
18:42 - 18:56
And so the question I have is, how does expertise, which is so highly sought after, gaining an expertise actually limit innovation? And can you share some real-world examples of that?

Alan Gregerman
18:57 - 19:07
Yeah, so great question. So look. Certainly, a lot of experts are valued, right? Engineers, for sure.

Alan Gregerman
19:07 - 19:30
My dad was an electrical engineer, really smart guy. I adored him. Folks who are in finance and accounting, those are all technical expertises. We tend to think when we learn those that every problem that we confront can be faced by having that type of expertise, but that's absolutely not the case.

Alan Gregerman
19:31 - 20:04
The reality is most of the big problems in business are problems that require us to think differently, not think the exact same way. I challenge all the folks listening to think about the reality that there's so many problems and so many opportunities that exist today that none of what we know about already can help us to solve because we have a really narrow view when we rely on our expertise to try and solve problems. There's so many examples today of things that your listeners use.

Alan Gregerman
20:04 - 20:30
Think about Uber. So Uber wasn't invented by guys who were in the taxicab business. Uber was invented by two friends who couldn't find a taxicab when they were visiting Paris in the winter. And so they stood on a corner waiting and wondering and imagined that a technology that exists, GPS technology, could bring together a person with a car and a person who needed a ride.

Alan Gregerman
20:30 - 20:45
Kind of a cool thing. Nobody who was expert enough in the taxicab business could have ever imagined that. The folks at Airbnb, they weren't in the hospitality business. They started by allowing couch surfing in their apartment as a way to subsidize their rent.

Alan Gregerman
20:45 - 20:56
They now have the largest, by some measures, hospitality company in the world. They didn't have the right expertise, but not having the right expertise got them to think differently about what could be possible.

Spencer Horn
20:59 - 21:05
I mean, I love that because it seems like so many business leaders want consultants with industry expertise.

Alan Gregerman
21:07 - 21:12
Well, yeah, so when I started our firm 37 years ago,

Christian Napier
21:13 - 21:13
I was

Alan Gregerman
21:13 - 21:46
competing against lots of consulting, and I know I look like I'm in my 30s, but no, seriously. And I was competing against lots of big consulting firms who were technically kind of sort of expert in what they did, but I would argue didn't help their customers to think differently. Imagine this example, I get called in, just because I guess somebody told them I was clever, to one of the 20 largest banks in the US. It was a bank that was ranked 20th out of 20 in terms of customer service.

Alan Gregerman
21:46 - 21:55
And they said, well, you know, we're delighted to have you here. You seem to be a fairly clever guy. We need to get better at customer service. Can you help us?

Alan Gregerman
21:55 - 22:18
I said, I'll try. And they said, here's what we've done in preparation for you being here. And they put on the table a study they had commissioned by a big consulting firm who were experts in banking of the best practices of the 20 leading banks in terms of customer service. And they put it on and they said, isn't this awesome?

Alan Gregerman
22:18 - 22:28
And I actually started to laugh. And then I said, you know, this meeting might not go very long. And they said, why are you laughing? And I said, are banks renowned for providing a high level of customer service?

Alan Gregerman
22:28 - 22:38
And they said, well, not really. And I said, so you commit to being the best of the worst. What if we in fact went to Nordstrom or the

Spencer Horn
22:38 - 22:39
cream of the

Alan Gregerman
22:39 - 22:57
crop? Yeah, what if we exactly and so, but that's what they were trying to do. And so I said, why don't we go to places where they're actually good at customer service and try and learn from them. So I had a different expertise, because my belief is, if there's a brilliant idea out there in the world, I want to find it.

Alan Gregerman
22:57 - 23:15
Maybe that's why I have a PhD in geography, instead of an MBA. But so And then we came up with a totally different view of banking that, of course, as experts, they decided not to follow. But one of the team members went and launched a new bank that became the most popular bank in America.

Christian Napier
23:16 - 23:16
Wow. Love

Spencer Horn
23:16 - 23:17
that

Christian Napier
23:17 - 23:45
story. I want to I want to go down that track a little bit further here, Alan. So when it comes to this innovation, you mentioned the role of consultants. And it sounds to me from this very small experience, isolated experience that you shared, that consultants can steer you in a number of different directions.

Christian Napier
23:46 - 24:08
But you also mentioned your experience with Westinghouse where you are an employee who is providing suggestions. And so I'm curious from your perspective, Does innovation typically work best when you bring in someone from outside or if it is cultivated from within? Kaizen, you know?

Alan Gregerman
24:09 - 24:22
Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, you know, as a consultant, I have a best, no, here, let me be serious. The reality is innovation happens best when we unlock the genius of people and organizations.

Alan Gregerman
24:23 - 24:42
That's absolutely clear to me. If there's in fact an advisor, and this is what I spend my time doing, that can help people leaders and teams to unlock their genius, then a consultant is pretty valuable. What's my role? My role is to get people to think differently, not to solve their problems for them.

Alan Gregerman
24:42 - 25:11
And so what do I do? I actually take teams out of their office to explore the world around them. And so I challenged them exactly what you were talking about before, to be curious again about a world filled with ideas, and then to find ideas that are remarkably valuable, that provide a framework for them to think differently about their business. So again, I don't answer their questions, but I'm absolutely convinced I can help them to think better and unlock their own genius.

Spencer Horn
25:12 - 25:23
So it sounds like the answer is both then, right? I mean, you want a consultant that comes in and helps to free up the knowledge that's existing within the team.

Alan Gregerman
25:24 - 25:34
Well, so you're exactly right. So here's the deal. If you're stuck, you need somebody to help you get unstuck. That doesn't mean that you need somebody to solve the

Spencer Horn
25:34 - 25:35
problem for you.

Alan Gregerman
25:38 - 25:41
Okay, that's a digestive, that's a digestive

Spencer Horn
25:41 - 25:43
joke. Well, you know, you need help when you're stuck, right?

Alan Gregerman
25:43 - 26:00
Yes, okay. No, no, no, no, I appreciate that. As my wife would say, boy, humor here, you know, because I periodically have been known to say something like that and my wife, who's a nurse, will go, okay, fine, are you done? No, no, no, no, I appreciate it.

Alan Gregerman
26:01 - 26:03
I appreciate it. Okay, but I think

Spencer Horn
26:03 - 26:04
it is

Alan Gregerman
26:04 - 26:13
both. In the sense, often when we get stuck, we need a different perspective. Could we find that perspective on our own? Maybe.

Alan Gregerman
26:14 - 26:37
But could we, with a little bit of a boost from somebody who has helped lots of organizations, find a different way of looking at the world, think about things differently? I think absolutely. So it's a partnership, I think, at its best. It's a partnership between somebody who's a guide to unlocking your genius And you being open to having your genius unlocked, being open to doing something different.

Spencer Horn
26:37 - 26:59
Yeah. You know, it reminds me of the quote by Alvin Toffler, which I absolutely love. He says, the illiterate of the future are not those who can't read and write, but those who can't unlearn relearn and learn. So sometimes we have to unlearn things and be open to new perspectives.

Spencer Horn
26:59 - 27:19
And that's hard, especially when so many of the people that are running these companies, they're really smart. And so it's hard to sometimes let go of that confidence of what we think we know and step into that gray zone of innovation where there's no guarantees.

Alan Gregerman
27:20 - 27:38
Well, I think that's fair, but think about it. We're not suggesting to people that they bet the ranch tomorrow. Okay? What I'm suggesting to people is that they understand that the future will be different and they need to be experimenting while they're running the ranch.

Alan Gregerman
27:38 - 27:54
Okay? So they need to run the ranch, but realize that next Monday might be pretty similar and the following Monday, but eventually a Monday is going to come when they need to do some different things. And if they experiment along the way, they'll know what those different things to do are.

Christian Napier
27:56 - 28:33
So one question I've got when it comes to innovation is sometimes you can do a range of activities or whatever and you can solicit a bunch of ideas and you have these brainstorming sessions and some pretty innovative things can come out of that. And then what happens occasionally is people start voicing all the reasons why this cannot be done. Like, so we look at all of our experience and say, oh, that's a great idea, but, you know, we can't do that because of this, that, and the other. And so the innovation gets squashed because...

Christian Napier
28:35 - 29:01
Debbie Downer, because all the Debbie Downers. All the doubts, right? So in your experience as you're taking people and giving them a taste of the world and you're walking them around and they're seeing their experiences, how do you get them to overcome the Debbie Downer syndrome or the Doubting Thomas, where... All the ideas are great, but how do you overcome the buts?

Alan Gregerman
29:02 - 29:30
Well, so we're in a way better position today than we were in the past. And I say that because in the past, we tended to think that innovation was a long drawn out process in which we had to perfect an idea before we ever put it out there in the world. Now innovation happens quickly. So I mentioned a moment ago, we need to make sure we're doing as well as we can with the core of what we do in that experiment.

Alan Gregerman
29:30 - 29:54
And these experiments should be fast and furious. We should get a team together over the weekend, wander around, come up with some ideas, come up with an idea we think is pretty good, and then actually share it with some customers and see what they think. And if they think it's good enough, then ask them how we can make it better. and then we start to launch some of these things out there.

Alan Gregerman
29:54 - 30:17
The challenge, you know, and I'll get back to it, I don't want to sound like I'm beating a semi-live horse or not, is that we have to do new things. The world demands us to do new things. 260 of the Fortune 500 20 years ago don't exist today. Did these people pay attention?

Alan Gregerman
30:17 - 30:27
Did they rely on their expertise? Did they not cast a wide net and look for other ideas? So we have to do it. It's the imperative of business today.

Alan Gregerman
30:27 - 30:50
Be awesome at what we do, keep getting better at what we do, and try to figure out the things we're going to need to do to be relevant in the future. It's just kind of vital to do it. So if there are companies out there that listen and they ask for ideas and then they actually don't ever make any of those ideas happen, I got two things to say. One is they're not going to be around a long time.

Alan Gregerman
30:50 - 30:54
And the second is if you're an innovative person working there, I'd find another job.

Spencer Horn
31:08 - 31:14
Didn't the Hudson's Bay company just go out of business this year after 400 plus years in business?

Alan Gregerman
31:15 - 31:19
Oy, I guess trading is being done a different way now.

Spencer Horn
31:19 - 31:28
It used to be beaver trapping and really settled. Oh, exactly. They settled all of North America. That company was the reason why we had so many people here.

Spencer Horn
31:28 - 31:48
But after over 400 years out of business. Well, you talk about six principles that are really important for breakthrough thinking. Purpose, curiosity, humility, respect, future focus, which you've talked about, and paranoia. So how do these work together to create that innovative thinking?

Alan Gregerman
31:49 - 32:06
And I think they'll tie into some things you guys have already talked about. So I think of these six things as really what in my new book, The Wisdom of Ignorance, is what I call enlightened ignorance. It's kind of the right type of ignorance. It's the type of ignorance that has really fueled all of human progress.

Alan Gregerman
32:06 - 32:18
So think about this. The first is really purpose. And that is, Every company and organization needs to have a clear purpose. In the absence of a clear purpose, we actually never accomplish anything.

Alan Gregerman
32:18 - 32:47
Purpose is the focus we need as individuals and as teams to be remarkable and innovative. So think about purpose and make sure your purpose is absolutely clear and engaging to the people who are part of your team. Make sure they also know that the innovation you need to have is tied to you living your purpose in a compelling way. Once we're clear about purpose, that opens the door to cast a wider net, and that's where curiosity comes in.

Alan Gregerman
32:47 - 33:09
So the idea is if this is our purpose, how do we maximize the value of that purpose? And how do we do that by being open to new ideas? Are there other companies and other industries that have thought about how to maximize a similar purpose? Are there places in nature or in the world in general where these kind of ideas are remarkably forming?

Alan Gregerman
33:09 - 33:20
And I ought to pay attention to that. So that's curiosity. The third, and we've talked about it a lot already, is in order to be curious, I need to be humble. I need to admit that I don't know everything.

Alan Gregerman
33:20 - 33:38
And so that's a challenge to get out there and learn some new things. I like to think, and I have a PhD and I've worked in a lot of places and I've worked with 400 companies, every week I'm trying to learn new stuff. I'm trying to learn new stuff to be as valuable to our customers as possible. And I delight in that.

Alan Gregerman
33:38 - 33:57
It actually, I hope keeps me young enough to wear these glasses. But so the idea of humility is I don't know everything. In fact, one of our customers was kind enough to say when it comes to not knowing stuff, Alan Gregerman is a genius. And so the reality is I need to be humble.

Alan Gregerman
33:57 - 34:15
I need to then, if I'm humble, be respectful. That's the fourth thing. And respectful of anyone I meet who could share an idea. And so the reality is if I'm not open to believing that everybody out there knows something that I should know that could make me better, I can't win.

Alan Gregerman
34:15 - 34:35
The fifth is future focus, and that is, and we've talked about it already, I have to run my business today with an eye toward the future. And while I can't exactly predict the future, I can pay attention to the tea leaves out there and be clear about the signals the future is sending me and adapt accordingly. And the last is paranoia. And I mentioned this as well.

Alan Gregerman
34:37 - 34:49
Paranoia for me is the whole notion that we all should be looking behind our backs to see who's following us because somebody is always following us and that should motivate us to be awesome and innovative.

Christian Napier
34:53 - 35:19
That's a great recap of those six elements. One of the things that we have in our teaser for this episode that we put on LinkedIn and other channels is that leaders should ask better questions. And I am curious about that. Sometimes we don't get the right answers because we're asking the wrong questions.

Christian Napier
35:20 - 35:26
So what advice would you give people to make sure that they're actually asking the right questions?

Alan Gregerman
35:27 - 35:42
OK, good. I have a bias and that is I believe in the absence of customers, none of us should be in business. So what does that mean? It means we need to provide compelling value to the customers we have the privilege to serve.

Alan Gregerman
35:43 - 35:57
And I always talk about the fact that having customers is a privilege. I believe most questions ought to center on that. They ought to center around, are we meeting the needs of customers? Are we helping the customers to get to where they need to go?

Alan Gregerman
35:57 - 36:10
That means do we have the right product services and solutions? That means, do we support our product services and solutions well? That means, do we update them regularly when the customer has another need? Do we provide the right tech support?

Alan Gregerman
36:10 - 36:40
Do we provide an experience that doesn't make the customer sit online for an hour or curse at us because they can't get their answers met? So I believe that's the starting point for questions. The second is, leaders should say to all of their people and everyone on their team, I want you to be brilliant here. So I really need you to tell me what we need to do as an organization to help you to be as brilliant as possible tied to our purpose.

Alan Gregerman
36:40 - 36:55
And so those would be the fundamental questions I would ask. And then I would ask as a leader, what do you need from me? What do I need to do better to help you guys be awesome? Because the reality is you're the ones that are providing value to customers.

Spencer Horn
36:56 - 37:06
Those are great questions. And I think also you talk about asking what's possible instead of saying, you know, what can't we do? What can we do? Where can we start?

Spencer Horn
37:07 - 37:12
Let's just get the ball rolling. And I love that, you know, just what is possible as a question.

Alan Gregerman
37:13 - 37:40
Well, so imagine that actually anything is possible if we have enough imagination and conviction to make it happen. We can do remarkable things. I mean, who would have thought that we could actually get almost anything we want delivered to our house roughly the same day or for sure by the next day? That's kind of a big thing because remember, some of us grew up in the era of the Sears catalog, you know, and we saw

Spencer Horn
37:40 - 37:42
that- Two weeks from everywhere.

Alan Gregerman
37:42 - 37:50
Well, exactly. You know, and that was okay. We waited for the stagecoach or the truck or the train to bring it to town. We

Spencer Horn
37:50 - 37:50
were

Alan Gregerman
37:51 - 38:01
excited about it. You know, so clearly somebody else thought something else was possible using technology, you know, and now they might even have drones delivered.

Spencer Horn
38:01 - 38:06
They're doing it in Japan. They're delivering packages with drones. I understand already in some places.

Alan Gregerman
38:06 - 38:10
Oh, they're doing a lot of weird stuff. No, they're doing a lot of amazing stuff in

Spencer Horn
38:11 - 38:11
Japan,

Alan Gregerman
38:11 - 38:12
but imagine

Spencer Horn
38:12 - 38:13
this. It seems weird.

Alan Gregerman
38:13 - 38:26
Well, they don't have enough young people there. And so imagine being in a nursing home and the person who engages with you is a robot. I mean, that's kind of a different world, right? Yeah.

Spencer Horn
38:26 - 38:28
Just as a companion, so you're not lonely.

Alan Gregerman
38:28 - 38:33
Oh, yeah. So, okay, don't end serving you your meal. Don't get me started.

Spencer Horn
38:33 - 38:55
All right. So here's what I want to know. You talked about when you consult with companies, you get them outside. But what if somebody is listening to this, they're a team leader, project manager, I want to, I want to ask you, how do we, how do we create innovation on, on projects for project managers, but how does a team leader get this process rolling of getting the creative

Spencer Horn
38:55 - 39:04
juices flowing by getting outside or getting out of the office? Do you have a formula or do you just get out of the office? I mean, what can they do?

Alan Gregerman
39:04 - 39:28
Well, so I have a formula. We've actually taken teams from like 50 companies exploring 22 cities around the world looking for ideas and brilliance. Let me go back to one thing because it's interesting. Most companies, when faced with the need to be innovative, take a blank sheet of paper and get their smartest people in a room and say, OK, our backs are to the wall.

Alan Gregerman
39:28 - 39:51
Does anyone have an out of the box idea? It's as though people who were Coming to work to be brilliant could turn on that part of their brain to make them even more brilliant and think creatively. So I want people to get out. I want people to realize the world and the marketplace are passing by us and changing every single day.

Alan Gregerman
39:51 - 40:09
And so I like to get people up. If I'm a project manager, periodically I should say to my team, are we running this project or program as well as we could? Are we creating the most value? Are we positioning ourselves to consistently be valuable to the customers we serve?

Alan Gregerman
40:09 - 40:32
You know, if it's a federal government program, it could be five years. If it's a private sector program, it could be a year or two. But I've got to convince folks in the year or two that I'm continuing to innovate so what they get is going to be better than what they had before. Now let me do something that's going to dramatically change your audience's view of how innovation occurs.

Alan Gregerman
40:33 - 40:55
It turns out throughout the course of human history, 99% of all new ideas were based on someone else's thinking or something someone found in nature. And so if that's the case, why would I sit in a room with a blank sheet of paper? I ought to get out there and find those 99% of ideas. And if I'm a program manager, I should get my team out.

Alan Gregerman
40:55 - 41:03
If I'm the leader of a company, I should get groups of people out looking at the world, coming back and saying, here's what we learned about how we could be better.

Spencer Horn
41:14 - 41:43
You know, Christian and Alan, I'm just thinking that there are authors that are so creative and sometimes just reading books all of a sudden sparks your imagination. My wife and I read this Project Hail Mary and we just were dying because it was so, the same guy who wrote The Martian, it was so innovative, so creative, it just, it really blew our minds. I can't wait for the movie to come out. And it seems like I get ideas also reading.

Spencer Horn
41:44 - 41:50
So maybe open the books and is that place where you find ideas as well?

Alan Gregerman
41:52 - 41:56
Well, I think as long as you get out of your normal routine. Which

Spencer Horn
41:56 - 41:57
is exactly what this is, yeah.

Alan Gregerman
41:58 - 42:04
Yeah, so read a book that is not exactly about what you do. Don't read another IT manual, okay?

Spencer Horn
42:04 - 42:17
There you go. Sorry, guys, not the next version of the PMP. You should read that, of course, for the basics, but then I love that. And that's what my wife always tells me.

Spencer Horn
42:17 - 42:32
She says, listen, you got to stop reading those business books and start reading. This is, you know, this is a sci-fi fantasy. And so that's what what gets the creative juices flowing for me. Sorry Krishna, I was just, that thought just came as he was talking.

Christian Napier
42:34 - 42:45
No, don't apologize at all. I think that's really interesting. I want to kind of riff on that. We saw in November 2022 the release of ChatGPT.

Christian Napier
42:46 - 43:18
I can say from surveys done in organizations that I worked with that when it comes to using this technology, the top four reasons that have been mentioned in the results of these surveys are one, content generation, of course, content summarization, analysis, and ideation. So I am curious, you know, you've been doing this for 37 years. Now people are starting to look to AI for innovation to give them more ideas. Is it useful?

Alan Gregerman
43:19 - 43:24
Well, yes. So is it useful? Yes and no. Well, that's one guy's opinion.

Alan Gregerman
43:24 - 43:38
Okay. Um, it is useful for all the reasons you mentioned. It's useful in lots of disciplines because they're incredible use cases. It's useful for going through an awful lot of information and trying to get to the good stuff.

Alan Gregerman
43:38 - 44:11
Again, if I give it the right query and the right prompt. But once I get some of this stuff, I need humans who are creative to connect the dots, okay? So I believe AI is awesome for putting a lot of dots out there, just like when I get folks to wander around town looking for ideas, but then humans need to put those ideas together and create value and create the details of it. So would I like people to use these tools to get a bit smarter?

Alan Gregerman
44:11 - 44:20
Yes. Would I like them to think that they're not the way we're going to come up with remarkable breakthroughs? Yes, as well. So I think there are pluses and minuses.

Alan Gregerman
44:20 - 44:38
I use AI all the time to get started. I have to admit all the content I generate is generally written by me. but I may have read something on AI or something AI generated to get the spark of an idea, but then I got to figure out what it means.

Spencer Horn
44:41 - 44:47
So, I think we are at a point we need to acknowledge our sponsor, Christian.

Christian Napier
44:48 - 44:48
Oh yeah, let's do it.

Spencer Horn
44:49 - 45:21
So, we're so grateful on the Teamwork A Better Way podcast to have Team Coaching International be our sponsor. And one of the things that we have talked about on this show over and over again, and even today, is that most teams are not high performing. only about 10% of those are. And so one of the great ways to really assess where your team is doing in terms of productivity and the conditions on the team to sustain that productivity is to do what's called the team diagnostic.

Spencer Horn
45:21 - 45:59
And this is an assessment tool that was developed over 20 years ago. Really the leader When Team Coaching International came out with this over almost 20 years ago, team coaching was brand new in the coaching world. And they have this incredible tool based on a lot of science that helps you as a team measure seven elements of productivity, seven elements of positivity, which are the sustainability factors for your team to continue to produce at a high level. So we will provide, through Team Coaching International, if you're interested, a free version of the Team Diagnostic, and it's what's called the Team Leader View.

Spencer Horn
45:59 - 46:36
So it's not a true team diagnostic where everybody's taking the assessment, but you as the team leader get to take the assessment and from your perspective, see how your team is doing and really learn about how this model can help you. And Christian is, you know, I've used this for almost 14 years, and it has been a powerful tool to help shift and move cultures very, very quickly to high performance. Well, so let's get back. If you're listening, we put the QR code up and if you didn't see that because you were listening, we'll put a link in the show notes to that assessment.

Spencer Horn
46:37 - 46:58
You know, you talked about sometimes we get stuck. We've talked about a few ideas to get leaders unstuck to get some innovation. really rolling, if there's any other advice that you could give to a CEO to kind of spark innovation, what would it be? What could they do to get it started?

Spencer Horn
46:58 - 47:09
I mean, we've talked about getting outside. We've talked about celebrating ignorance, right? We've talked about encouraging people to say, I don't know. What are some other things that, one other thing that we could do?

Alan Gregerman
47:09 - 47:43
Well, one thing I think for sure that I encourage every leader I work with to think about is the simple notion of actually wandering around, hanging out with your people, encouraging them. making sure that they understand not just the purpose of the organization, but the role they potentially can play in making that purpose really come to life. And I know a lot of folks today are in organizations that have a lot of virtual people. I mean, they're real people, but they're working virtually.

Alan Gregerman
47:44 - 47:55
And so, We have no excuse. So folks say, well, my folks are scattered everywhere. I can't walk down the hall to see them. I can set up a time to talk with them and encourage them.

Alan Gregerman
47:55 - 48:15
I can do more to bring people together periodically to work as teams and engage with each other. So I think showing genuine commitment and caring and belief. Remember we started at the outset talking about how do we unlock the potential in grownups? Not different than how we unlock the potential in kids.

Alan Gregerman
48:15 - 48:24
We show them we care, we show them we believe in them, that we really think they have the ability to combine what we know with what we don't know to be awesome.

Christian Napier
48:26 - 49:00
Love that. So my last question before we wrap it up with Spencer's last question and lightning round and all that fun stuff. I'm wondering if you can share an example without betraying any confidences of innovation that an organization made that you were instrumental in helping them chart this course or find a new path. just to kind of give people a sense of the potential impact of this.

Christian Napier
49:00 - 49:02
Oh, good, sure.

Alan Gregerman
49:02 - 49:35
I mean, there are a lot I'd love to come back on and share some, but here, let me give you an example, because it'll show folks how simple it is to just change the equation. We were asked by a large pharmaceutical company if we can help them rethink the way they packaged and distributed their products worldwide. This is a big company. And so I asked them to think about all the places on earth to stretch their thinking where things came in perfect packages that didn't cost a lot and that protected things really well.

Alan Gregerman
49:36 - 49:53
And so they started to think about that, but I said, we're going to do something better. We're actually going to spend the morning at a produce market. And I took them to a big produce market, an urban produce market. I'm at seven in the morning when all the trucks were coming in with produce and I gave them each $20.

Alan Gregerman
49:53 - 50:08
So we're like 22 members of their team. And I said, I want you to buy everything you can find here within your $20 that protects its products. Cause a lot of these products come from really far away. We don't grow oranges here.

Alan Gregerman
50:09 - 50:27
We don't grow pomegranates here. I'd like you to think about that. And so they all bought some stuff and they all got actually reasonably energized because they thought about packaging in a place they'd never thought about it before. We actually took these products back, took them apart, and then had a discussion about all the different ways you could package things.

Alan Gregerman
50:27 - 50:51
The result, fast forward, was they saved $155 million a year in packaging and distributing their products with less breakage than they'd ever had before. I kind of wish I'd gotten a percentage of that but I think I just charged them my consulting fee. So that's one example and it's a simple example we can do that easily.

Spencer Horn
51:01 - 51:17
My last question is, I'd love for you to tell our listeners a little bit about your book. I'm gonna put it up so you're gonna end up, you have to scoot one way or the other so people can see you. There you go, called The Wisdom of Ignorance. I mean, we've been talking about it.

Spencer Horn
51:18 - 51:22
Anything that you would share about this? It sounds fascinating.

Alan Gregerman
51:23 - 52:01
Well, so I would of course love everyone who's listening to read the book and then connect with me and share what they got out of the book and also share the challenges you're facing. But the book is quite simply based on, and we've talked about it, my 37 years of being a consultant. and my recognition that the world keeps moving faster and faster and that we all need to kind of up our game and be open to the fact that we don't know exactly all the things we need to know to be remarkably relevant and awesome in the future. So the book talks about this idea that if we know a lot, we can make things better.

Alan Gregerman
52:01 - 52:26
If we don't know anything, we can create remarkable breakthroughs. And it talks about the notion that we need to create breakthroughs. in our companies, in the world we share. And then it gives this formula, these kind of six keys, six skills that all of us as individuals, leaders and companies need to master to be awesomely positioned to be remarkable in a world that'll be different, that includes a world with AI.

Alan Gregerman
52:26 - 52:32
Part of what the book's about is how we remain as humans relevant in a fast changing world.

Christian Napier
52:36 - 52:40
That's fantastic. Should we get to the lightning round here, Spencer?

Spencer Horn
52:40 - 52:47
Yes. Yes. So I've got just super short, fast questions, you know, one word answers if you can. So are you ready?

Alan Gregerman
52:49 - 52:52
Yeah. Do I have to get a certain percentage right to win a prize?

Spencer Horn
52:52 - 53:00
No, there's not about right or wrong. It's just whatever comes to your mind. You know, that young spry 37 years in business mind. Okay.

Spencer Horn
53:01 - 53:06
Curiosity or uncertainty. Curiosity or certainty. Which builds better teams?

Alan Gregerman
53:06 - 53:14
Oh, curiosity, but collective curiosity. As a team, we need to be curious about solving problems and creating greater value.

Spencer Horn
53:15 - 53:18
The first thing that comes to your mind when you hear disruption.

Alan Gregerman
53:19 - 53:34
Well, disruption is just part of life, right? It's part of life and part of business. And if everyone, you know, I talked about paranoia. If everyone doesn't plan to be disrupted and look around to see who could disrupt them, they're going to be disrupted.

Spencer Horn
53:34 - 53:36
The most overrated leadership skill.

Alan Gregerman
53:37 - 53:42
the most overrated leadership skill is acting like, you know, it all.

Spencer Horn
53:44 - 53:47
Okay. I was, I was thinking in my mind, certainty is going to say certainty.

Alan Gregerman
53:48 - 53:54
Yeah. Yeah. So you're spot on. It's like acting like, you know, it all and that you've got it under control and just follow me.

Spencer Horn
53:55 - 53:57
A company that does innovation, right.

Alan Gregerman
53:58 - 54:17
Well, so of course there are lots, but I like a bunch. I like Apple, but Apple is brilliant not because they come up with all these brilliant ideas. They're brilliant because they understand the 99% rule and all their products are based on somebody else's thinking. They just do it better.

Spencer Horn
54:17 - 54:20
And their packaging is impeccable, isn't it?

Alan Gregerman
54:20 - 54:34
their packaging, their instructions, the feel of it, it's all intuitive. Now, granted, a lot of your listeners probably use Androids because they're probably better for people who know a lot about technology, but for the rest of us,

Spencer Horn
54:36 - 54:40
I love that. Your go-to source of inspiration outside of business.

Alan Gregerman
54:41 - 54:53
So I actually have a PhD in urban geography. I wander around cities looking to see what's new. I walk into hip new restaurants. I go to shows.

Alan Gregerman
54:53 - 55:04
I also go to conferences that I know nothing about. Each year I go to two conferences that have nothing to do with anything I know anything about. I like that. That is a great one.

Alan Gregerman
55:04 - 55:06
I'll share with you exactly how to pick them out.

Spencer Horn
55:06 - 55:10
Oh, that'd be so awesome. What questions do you wish more leaders would ask?

Alan Gregerman
55:11 - 55:16
How can we be way more remarkable in the future?

Spencer Horn
55:16 - 55:21
Finish the sentence. Breakthroughs happen when leaders

Alan Gregerman
55:22 - 55:26
are open-minded about anything being possible.

Spencer Horn
55:26 - 55:30
What's the one thing most organizations get wrong about creativity?

Alan Gregerman
55:31 - 55:44
that creativity is the work of experts who've been around a long time. Creativity is the work of a diverse team of people, some of whom know nothing about the challenge you're trying to solve.

Spencer Horn
55:45 - 55:48
One book besides yours, every innovator should read.

Alan Gregerman
55:49 - 55:55
Well, of course, Christian Clayton- Innovator's Dilemma. Innovator's Dilemma, excuse

Spencer Horn
55:55 - 56:02
me. Yes, I was hoping you were gonna say that. Best way to spark genius in a team that's stuck.

Alan Gregerman
56:03 - 56:16
Get out of the office, look for ideas that are brilliant, that have nothing to do with what you're trying to solve for, be excited about what makes ideas remarkable, and then come back with that as the energy to get going.

Spencer Horn
56:17 - 56:19
I thought that was a good summary of some of the things we talked about, wasn't it, Christian?

Christian Napier
56:20 - 56:44
Absolutely. This has been a fantastic conversation for us, Alan. We appreciate you taking an hour out of your day to show us a little bit more about what it takes to be innovative. If people want to connect with you to learn more about how your organization can help their organizations become more innovative, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Alan Gregerman
56:45 - 57:02
Well, a few ways, certainly connect on LinkedIn, but don't just follow me, actually connect with me and send me a note and then we'll find a time to talk. Delighted to do that. You can go to my website, alangregerman.com. I'm guessing it'll be in the show notes.

Alan Gregerman
57:02 - 57:11
So yeah, no, I think just reach out to me. That would be great. I mean, I have other social media, but kind of LinkedIn and my website are the main way that people connect.

Christian Napier
57:13 - 57:24
All right, fantastic. And Spencer, you've been helping teams or organizations develop high-performing teams for decades. If people want to learn more about that, how can they connect with you? That is

Spencer Horn
57:25 - 57:40
so on point with Alan. Go to LinkedIn. And on my LinkedIn profile, there's actually a, says connect with me, and you can schedule appointment to have a consultation right there from LinkedIn. So that's an easy way to do it.

Spencer Horn
57:40 - 57:49
Christian, Alan, isn't he great? Isn't it fun to have a brilliant man like my friend Christian, and how do people get ahold of you? I've enjoyed the

Alan Gregerman
57:49 - 57:55
conversation. You guys are fantastic. You're a great team. Isn't this like the teamwork podcast?

Alan Gregerman
57:55 - 57:58
You're a great team, so I've really enjoyed the conversation.

Christian Napier
57:58 - 58:08
Thank you so much. Well, we appreciate the kind words, Alan. I'll just do the LinkedIn trifecta, I guess. Yeah, you can just look me up on LinkedIn, connect with me there.

Christian Napier
58:08 - 58:20
Happy to have a conversation. So again, it's been an awesome hour of conversation on this topic of innovation. So Alan, thank you so much for joining us. Listeners and viewers, thank you as well.

Christian Napier
58:20 - 58:25
We appreciate you so much. Please like and subscribe to our podcast and we'll catch you again soon.