Innovation Unscripted: From Idea to Execution with Carla Johnson

EPISODE 120 

Carla Johnson: So, you think of leaders. How do we want people to feel in the midst of this change, in the midst of this project, in the midst of whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish? I think of it from an innovation perspective is how do we want people to feel about the ideas that we share and the vision that we set? 

[OVERVIEW] 

Alex Cullimore: Hello, Cristina. 

Cristina Amigoni: Hello. It’s Monday. 

Alex Cullimore: You just finished up a great conversation. Yes, we have a Monday recording. This is live. 

Cristina Amigoni: Monday recording, I know. Really be slowing down in other work. 

Alex Cullimore: This better not become a trend. It's going to be really weird. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, exactly. It's a good break. But let’s not make it a constant thing. But yes, we did just have a really good conversation. Great conversation with Carla. So, totally worth it for Monday. 

Alex Cullimore: Carla Johnson. She's a speaker, as well as, has a lot of consulting, because it sounds like, kind of coaching people into innovation. And so, understanding what innovation really means at scale in companies, what it means to allow people to be innovative, and it's a phrase we use all the time. We demand a lot of innovation and we don't really understand the mechanics of it. She does a great job of dissecting what does it really – what does it look like? What can it be? And allowing that to be kind of more democratized in how she approaches it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. It's really fascinating. And how she created this innovation business of hers, from her experience in design architecture, and how to look at things. I just personally, shockingly enough, I love the first question, is like, how do we want people to feel when this is in place? And everything stems from that. It's not about the numbers. It's not about the industry trends. It's not about what the competitors are doing. It's not about all these other things that we think, the why behind innovation or change are. No, no. It's like, how do we want people to feel? If we can narrow that down and figure that out, then we can work backwards on to how we get there. 

Alex Cullimore: I really like that too. She said, “If you can prove it, it's going to work before you've done it is not innovative.” Because it would have to be based off of something already. It’s a great tidbit and we can't keep applying old models to try and create new things. We can have ideas, we can get analogy, and we can analogies from other industries and other areas of expertise or other things we know about that might help us think that this is a good idea, or it has potential. But if you're doing something innovative, you got to walk into the world of lack of proof, lack of lack of members, and be ready to face on what are people going to feel? And what do we want them to feel? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Which I guess, it resonates with us, particularly, because that's how we approach our work and the work we do with Siamo, is we’re doing a lot of things that I never thought as innovative. I thought as well, common sense. But when we think about the fact that we are approaching whether it's leadership development, consulting, change management, any of those from a new way, a different way of doing things, not a proven way, then that's it. It's like every time we look at things, and we're like, “What would make sense here? How do we want people to feel? Now, let's figure that out? How do we get there?” And we definitely did it before meeting Carla. So, we were on that track already. And, at least, I have a personal allergy when I hear like, “Well, where's the data? Where's the proof that this is going to work?” I'm like, “Let's talk about how people are going to feel and track that.” If people feel like they actually got something out of this, then it's a success. I don't care about the data. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. If you could prove that it's going to work, then you're living in a different world. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yes. And you’re definitely not living in the Siamo verse. 

Alex Cullimore: Well, if you can prove something that hasn't happened yet will work, like you have an amazing crystal ball. You're dealing with humans, you got to figure out what's going to fit for your context, even if it's worked for other companies, for other whatever, you're going to have to fit this to you. So, you don't get to have proof. And as difficult as that is, that's also if you can let go of that, a very liberating way of looking at it because truly, you can't know. You are at some level, always into the fog. 

Cristina Amigoni: And then you've become very adaptable, which is another big theme of what we talked about with Carla, is how to become an adaptable organization. 

Alex Cullimore: That's a great conversation filled with lots of gems. Please enjoy and go out there and be innovative. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, enjoy. 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives, 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that's with our families, coworkers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens. 

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: This is Alex Cullimore. Let's dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.” 

“Authenticity means going with your gut.” 

“Authenticity is bringing 100% of yourself not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.” 

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.” 

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.” 

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.” 

“It's transparency, relatability. No frills. No makeup. Just being.” 

[EPISODE] 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human’s day. Cristina and I are joined with our guest, Carla Johnson. Welcome to the podcast, Carla. 

Carla Johnson: Thank you Alex and Cristina. It's great to be here. I appreciate you inviting me. 

Cristina Amigoni: Welcome. 

Alex Cullimore: Super excited to have you on. Just to give everybody a little background, what's your story? What brought you here? 

Carla Johnson: I guess here is us talking today, which is thanks to the mutual introduction of a wonderful friend who thought our lines of work had some interesting overlap. I know you both work in leadership, and my background is in innovation and helping leaders make innovative thinking their competitive advantage. I actually started out working in the world of architecture. I'm not an architect, but I did marketing for architects. And it was what I learned about how design architects approach their work that really formed everything that I looked at, not just for marketing, but for business, and also to a huge degree for innovation, which is why I call myself an innovation architect. Really, that blend of structured creativity and teaching people these principles that I learned from architecture and how they applied to innovation, and making it something that everybody can contribute and be a part of. 

Alex Cullimore: That's super interesting backgrounds. I don't always think of – I mean, I just think of like, especially elaborate buildings as particularly innovative. But since architecture has so many zoning things, I've become curious how you work with innovation in a somewhat, I guess, regimented profession. 

Carla Johnson: And it's interesting. I think one of the great things I had about my early years in architecture, was that I got to work with design architects, and one of the things that they do, and I always say, design architects were the original design thinkers. They just didn't have that marketing arm to give it that name like IDEO does. But they really look at everything that they design, and they create, the question that they ask is, how do we want people to feel when we're in the midst of this experience? 

So, you think of leaders. How do we want people to feel in the midst of this change, in the midst of this project, in the midst of whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish? I think of it from an innovation perspective is how do we want people to feel about the ideas that we share and the vision that we set? So, with design architects, they really look at how can we unlock what's possible for how we think and what we believe is true and possible. They do this by doing a couple of really interesting things. 

So, if you think about an architect wants to design a building, that when people walk into it, they feel excited and energized. Maybe it's a concert venue or a performing arts center, or something like that. That's a very different feeling than if they walk into perhaps a place of worship. So, they understand those end-point feelings, and then they reverse engineer how they get there. I think that's one of the most interesting things that I've learned from design architects, that really applies to the world of innovation is lots of times we start with, where are we right now, and let's innovate forward. But there isn't a really clear, specific articulation of what the future looks like. 

It can be like a bottom line number or something like that, which is often what people default to. What we're really looking for, what's that big vision? How do we want people to feel? What's the experience we want to create because of this? Then, how do we reverse engineer it? I think the other thing that I learned from architects, that it really applies to all creative thinking and innovative thinking, and Steve Jobs talked about this, is how do we connect those dots in fresh ways? I think once we practice some of these skills, you don't always have to look backwards, to see how the dots connect. You're able to be a little more strategic, thoughtful, and intentional about finding those dots to connect as you move forward. And I think those have been some of the most beautiful lessons that have really served me that I learned early in my career. I feel lucky to have started out in that world of architecture. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's super fascinating. I love the question, is like, how do we want people to feel in this change project? Innovation and engagement, innovation initiative of that future vision. It really gets to the core. 

Carla Johnson: It can depend a lot on the culture. Do we want people to feel stable and assured? Or do we want people to feel a little off their feet and not certain what's going to happen? Because for different cultures, those both can be exactly the right way to move forward. It just depends on what's right for each situation. 

Alex Cullimore: I think that’s a lot more bespoke, a lot more, “Hey, this is what really is happening for this.” This is not just like some one size fits all solution. Let’s just get to the phase of it. So, have you started translating that into a wider world of innovation? 

Carla Johnson: I think one of the statements I hear about innovation that gets me all spun up is that the ideas are the easy part. It's execution is where the real world starts. It's kind of like, go sit at the kids table idea people. We've got the real work, the serious work to do right now. And there's not an appreciation for great ideas. I think that's a big part of what innovation is about. It's not just coming up with an idea or a handful of ideas or 40 ideas. It's coming up with more ideas that will end up delivering better quality ideas. I mean, that's just a matter of statistics, right? But that also look at solving a specific business problem. Even when you have that idea, or three, or four ideas that you want to try, even when you move into execution, you still need ideas. So, I think there needs to be a greater appreciation of how to generate ideas, especially on the fly, under deadline, under demanding situations, because that's a big part of why I hear we don't have time for this. We have so much on our plate. We're so deadline-driven. We don't have time to innovate. You may not, but I would guarantee your competition does.  

Cristina Amigoni: Everybody is innovating and thinking ahead. 

Carla Johnson: Exactly. 

Cristina Amigoni: How do you get people to get past this, I don't have time for this? Or even attaching the bottom line future vision with the, well, we got to start with how you want people to feel? 

Carla Johnson: Yes, well, I think there's been a lot of work in the last 20 years around purpose. And companies that focus on purpose. And I think when you look at purpose-driven organizations, I think there's a lot of emotion in there that they understand isn't a soft, nice to have, but it's a strategic necessity. I say this, because I come from a family of engineers, is that even engineers have emotions. They might not recognize them, but we all make decisions based on emotions. And if we're always trying to data and evidence our way into creating change, into driving bigger performance, into driving growth, into driving transformation, we’ll never realize the potential that we have, unless we tap into that human nature of emotion.  

And what does this mean to me every single day when I get out of bed? So, if you think about some of the dynamics that we have in the business environment, right now, with talent disengagement. I saw something in Fast Company the other day that talked about the lazy girl job, and it was a job where people just wanted to work 40 hours a week, and they wanted to get paid a reasonable salary for it, and it was just described as lazy. I'm thinking our expectations of what work and what we expect of people, and I think even of ourselves, is so distorted. But if we can start with what do I want to feel about the work that I do? I feel that I'm very lucky. I get excited every day when I wake up and I see something new that I get to do. I'm a person who tends to thrive on change, but not everyone is like that. 

So, understanding how do we want people to feel? And then how do we start to work our culture as leaders, so we can take that into consideration. We don't want people to feel exhausted and worn out, and drained, and feel like every single second of their life, they need to be checking email, they need to be on their phone, they need to be chained to their desk. When we can realize that's not the best thing for performance, that's an amazing feeling for leaders to start to lead from that place. If we're always looking at tracking the metrics, and not the emotions, I think we're selling ourselves short. 

So, when we look at that, as it ties into innovation, one of the most powerful things that I've seen as I've worked in this, and it's so interesting. My book came out in June, my last book came out in June of 2021, so we were well into the pandemic. And one of the most common things that I heard from people is, “I love this process. Because it inspires people. It lets people see how what excites them and lights them up in their everyday world.” Maybe they're an exotic fish collector. Maybe they're a mountain biker. Maybe they're a traveler. Maybe they love art history. They can tap into that, and understand what they love about that and relate that into their own work to come up with ideas that do have practical application, every single day, at whatever level of a business that they work in. 

When you think about this, in that dynamic, Alex, of how do we connect all of these dots in some different ways? I think the only way you get to greater productivity is that you have greater acknowledgment that people have emotions, and we're emotionally driven people, right? So, once we acknowledge that with those emotions, like what gets us excited? You both have hobbies, I'm sure of it. I know I have a lot of hobbies. So, the more I can bring that hobby into the work that I do every day, the more excited I am, the more engaged I am, the more productive I am. 

One of my hobbies and passions is architecture. So, you can hear by the pace of my voice. I'm talking faster, I'm louder, and those are all signs of excitement because I understand how to connect the dots and bring that into my work. And so, when we can look at that from a leadership perspective, it just opens the doors to so many incredible opportunities that I think we don't give credit to. 

Alex Cullimore: It’s such a great framework of just how to even start this kind of work. What if we just had the goal and people should feel better about what they're doing during the day, and then of course that you can find the thousand different expressions that might help people get to that, or help to help people achieve that. But yes, that's a wonderful framework of just a starting point, like, what if we didn't have to be drained, and what if we did want to be fulfilled? 

Carla Johnson: Right, exactly, exactly. And I think there doesn't have to be such a hard line between who we are as people and what we do every day at work. 

Cristina Amigoni: Indeed. 

Alex Cullimore: I love what you said about not being addicted to all the metrics. I was rereading Adam Grant’s originals, and he talks about how Seinfeld, which of course, went on to be like one of the most successful sitcoms was almost canceled, and there's basically barely made it onto the air in the first rounds, because it wasn't like anything anybody's seen before. So, we’re all using these previous metrics and ideas of what did work, and it didn't seem to match up. It was almost tossed out several times before going on to be incredibly successful. Because when we use those metrics, especially on something that's innovative or different, we're using a previous framework on something that doesn't match up. So, we can't rely on data to drive our way through that. 

Carla Johnson: Absolutely. I think, when you look at the most powerful and impactful things that have ever been done, they break that mold of measurement, previous metrics that have been established for what success looks like. When we think of the pure definition of innovation, if you can prove that it's going to work, then it's not actually innovative, right? But that's what makes everybody nervous, because it's risky. That's what I dug into what the research is, is asking the question, is coming up with original ideas that have a bottom line impact, a process that people can learn. It is, and it doesn't mean that every idea is going to be proven to work before it takes off the ground, because then it wouldn't be innovative. 

But we can tap into examples of where pieces and parts of what we're wanting to push forward have shown to be successful in other situations, and in other areas in the past, to the degree that our aversion to risk, and maybe legals and brands, and the line can go very long with other people in our organizations who are averse to risk, are at least willing to be a little bit more open-minded in trying some things. 

So, I talk about innovation being the ability to consistently come up with new, great, and reliable ideas. Short sentence, but it carries a lot of punch. A new idea doesn't mean that it doesn't have to ever, never have been done before. But maybe it's never been done in this way or never been done like that in your industry. 

An example is a while back, McDonald's was looking at how to redesign their drive-thru for their fast food so they could get more cars through faster, with a higher, or at least the same quality of service. What they did is they went and they studied a Formula One pitstop. There's a lot about a Formula One that relates to a McDonald's as far as function and need, and how it has to perform. Now, what McDonald's took from Formula One and applied absolutely new and never ever been done in the history of this world? No, because they learned from experts who had done it well, but they related it and adapted it to their own environment. That's one characteristic. 

But just having a new idea isn't enough to be sustainable and be innovative. If it were, those one-hit wonders would still be around someplace. We wouldn't be doing all those flashback shows. Then, like a great idea, I think about advertising great David Ogilvy who talked about a great idea, is one of those that gives you goosebumps and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, because it's so good and you can feel it. But it's subjective. It makes you a little jealous that you didn't think of that idea yourself, like, “Oh, man, I could have thought of that.” But you didn't, right? You didn't. So, that's a great idea. 

But kind of like a new idea, a great idea on its own isn't enough. At the end of the day, we need the reliability pillar. A reliable idea is one that makes money. But just an idea that it makes money doesn't mean it's innovative. I mean, there's a lot of gas stations that make money. Are they innovative? Probably not. They're just following those best practices and picked a great location and all of those things. But the ability to come up with ideas that have all three characteristics, they're new, they're great, and reliable. Then, to be able to consistently come up with them over a long period of time, is something that makes a person or a team, or a culture within an organization truly innovative. That's why we look at companies like Netflix, and Google, and Apple because they're constantly getting us a little curious and excited about what's around the corner. What's next? “This is awesome. They'll never beat this.” “Oh, you wait.” 

Cristina Amigoni: It's so true. When we spoke before the podcast, you mentioned something that was really fascinating is that like, sometimes we think of innovation as Apple, the iPhone, or landing on the moon the first time. It has to be this big thing, and so you have to have an innovation team and that's what they're only dedicated to doing. Nobody else come up with new ideas or innovate, because that's not your job. How do you break that mold into an organization? 

Carla Johnson: I love that you brought that up, because there was an interesting statistic that I came upon during my research, and that's that 90% of innovation in an organization actually happens outside of those traditional innovation teams or research and development groups. I think, that – I mean, that took me by a huge surprise. I assume that's what really drove innovation in an organization. And when you think about 84% of CEOs say innovation is critical to the growth of their organization. But 94% are unhappy with their performance. It's because they put too much weight on that innovation or that R&D team. The Apple effect, I guess you could call it, where they're looking for those huge fireworks to really make that industry-shifting, disruptive innovation. 

But what I've seen with organizations that are the most successful is that they really fuel and nurture that other 90%. I mean, it seems like common sense, just looking for the low-hanging fruit, right? But I think it just doesn't have the sex appeal, that an innovation group does, that that that 10% does. But I think most organizations invest so much into a very small team, and I've talked to a lot of innovation leaders who say, good grief, our shoulders, not to mention our budget, and our team could never be big enough to handle all of the innovation things that our organization is asking for us. 

So, the only way to deal with the scarcity of access to the innovation team, and the opportunity gap that's there with this other 90%, is to teach people within an organization, how to be the idea generators. Now, that doesn't mean that you need to come up with the next product or the next big thing. But look around where you work, and what are the opportunities that you see. And that's the first step of the process that I teach is, let's be a little bit more observant. And we think about oftentimes when business gets tough, it's about survival of the fittest. But really, when you look at it, from an innovation standpoint, it's survival of the most adaptable, because otherwise, it would just be the gladiator factory, they live or die. But if you can adapt, that's really when you become powerful. But the only way to adapt is if you adapt at scale. 

So, I'm going back to that architecture approach. If you want an organization that's adaptable, you have to reverse engineer into the individuals that you have. Because it's the individuals who make up the team, and it’s the team performances at scale that makes a difference in how a company performs. How is it that you can teach everybody how to become an innovative thinker, and that was my quest with learning this process that highly prolific innovators use, is to teach a process that's easy to learn, simple to understand, and it scales. 

So, for example, one of the companies that I interviewed during my research was ParkMobile. He was the chief marketing officer at the time. He's now the CEO, Jeff Perkins. And he talked about when they would shut the company down for a week, twice every year, which is a major commitment for any organization, especially a tech-driven organization. But it sent a message to both customers and employees that this is important to us and this is how we do business. Every employee was required to participate. 

Now, that doesn't mean that they had to come up with tech ideas that drove the platform forward and how it will be done. People contributed in the ways that they felt they were valuable, and that they were helpful, maybe in ways that were new to them, but the skills that they wanted to learn. So, maybe somebody was already really good at putting together a PowerPoint deck, or crafting a narrative from some really technical information, so they could tell a great story. So, whatever talents people have they contributed. 

One thing was that they had these really interesting dynamics of people who had never met in the organization, and now we're working together in a very collaborative nature. They got to know people that they wouldn't normally know. So, you think about silo busting, that's a big part of getting innovation to actually work within an organization. It wasn't that they forced people together, they put up the challenges for the week and let people sign up for what they wanted to do. People got to choose where and how they contributed. But it was the after effect. 

I don't know what's the opposite of a hangover. I guess it's the hangover – the positive hangover from innovation week, is that people then went back to their own day to day work, and they started to look at it a little bit differently, and they became more observant. They looked for these opportunities, and it was a woman who worked in the finance department who every month she was spending 40 manual hours running a report. To me, that just sounds like we need to get back to emotions. How do I feel every day when I get up to go to work? That's not the emotion I want to have. So, she taught herself a programming language, wrote a program and now that report runs in 12 minutes rather than 40 hours. 

If we think about innovation, if you can – she essentially gave herself three more months of productivity in a 12-month period, and opened herself up to more value-based, more thoughtful contributions, rather than doing that grind, that mind-numbing kind of work. I think that's incredibly innovative. If you can add 25% productivity to your employees across the organization, not that it would scale at that degree, that's incredibly innovative compared to launching a new Apple product. 

Cristina Amigoni: Which may or may not go well. 

Carla Johnson: Right. Well, we'll need new adapters for it anyway. We know that.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: We'll definitely have a new plug, that’s for sure. There's so much great material you just unpacked there. I mean, there's 50 things that immediately strike out first. The idea that you could do something like that report example is a great one, and she has 25% of our time back. That's a huge boost. That's obviously something enormous. But you if look at it, it's just like, “Well, it's a report, and yes, it's a little arduous to do this report, but like, we'll just move past it.” That's the kind of thing that absolutely just builds up cruft in an organization. You just have 10,000 processes like that, that, yes, it's a little bit frustrating, but we just work around it. 

Then, if you did have that 10% innovation team, what are the chances they could deliver something through that kind of inefficiency on the other side? And then there's the other half of it, which is like, what if you don't have the buy in? If you teach everybody to look at these, then they’ll be bought in on the solutions. If you teach one team to do it, then everybody's like, “I don't have time to adopt your new brilliant idea. I'm not going to do it.” You lose the human nature. 

Carla Johnson: Yes. But this is almost like innovation with a little “i”. we think of like the Apple innovation is all caps, all across the board, maybe even a bigger font, and some emojis in there, too. But this is just like the smallest kind of innovation. It didn't take form 651-B and a committee to approve it. It didn't take all of those things, that are the hurdles for innovation inside an organization. And I joke about form 651-B. But that's actually an excuse, I heard from a client about why something couldn't be done. Because the committee, they didn't submit form 651-B correctly to the committee. So, kicked it back, it's three more months. 

It's all those little things and I can guarantee she feels incredibly empowered when she comes to work every day now, because she sees the ideas that she has can make an incredible contribution, yes, to the company, that's awesome. But to what she has control over every single day. And back to how do people feel when they come to work every day. I think one of the things that makes us mentally check out and not care is that we don't feel like we have control over anything. That's a terrible place as a human to be in. So, not only does she give that to herself, but think about that ripple effect to other people on the team, where it gets out. I mean, ParkMobile is not a 100,000-employee company, but it's a big enough employer, and they're moving at an incredible pace of change. So, they're not thinking about surviving. They're thinking about constantly adapting every single day, and this is just one of the tools, the mindset tools that they use to get there. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's incredible. Well, just contrary to popular belief, people actually do want to have meaning in their work, they actually do want to go to work, and, well, not be expected to work 80 hours as a norm. But be able to actually work the 40 as the norm, but have meaning in it. Be energized. Go in and not spend 40 hours a month on a report when you can spend 12 minutes, so that you can do all these other things and provide value. So, finding ways to allow for that freedom. It's so amazing, because you see the other side of it, and you just see people's souls being sucked out of their bodies, when they don't feel that freedom to actually craft their work around where they're best at. 

Alex Cullimore: It seems like there would be such a virtuous cycle in that too, because there is that a total drain if you don't have that autonomy. Because it can actually be draining. If you can flip that switch. If you lose that autonomy, obviously, you can then spiral out a whole lot of disengagement, and that can have all kinds of ramifications down the line. And on the other end, if you can start to open people up each individually, and whatever small “i” innovation ways might be the beginning, but that's clearing the path for big “I” innovation on the organizational scale. 

Carla Johnson: It doesn't and it really teaches people. I think this ability to teach people how to connect the dots with things is something that also isn't given credence. Because one of the things, and I'm sure you see it all the time in the work that you do with leaders every day, is one of the things that here’s everything lands on my desk. Everything lands on my desk, in my inbox. Everybody is waiting for me to make a decision. And it's because it's a dynamic where people are used to waiting to be told by leaders what to do. Not encouraged to think for themselves, and thinking for yourself, you're never going to be right all the time. I mean, leaders are never right all the time. So, how do we create that environment where they learn how to come up with the ideas and then we can mentor and nurture them? Yeah, it does take a little bit of time. 

But think about if that woman in finance had never invested that time, and she's still running that 40-hour each month report. Yes, she doesn't have the time. But she stepped out of that familiarity zone. I won't say it was comfort zone, because I don't think it was comfortable for her to do this mind-numbing work every single month. But I think it was familiar. I think that's the trap a lot of people fall into. It's familiar. I don't have time to innovate, because have you seen my calendar, my Tom O'Neill: do list? Well, does everything actually need to be done? And I think that's a question that we need to ask, is that we get in that hamster wheel of this is how we do things, instead of stopping and observing, like great innovative thinkers do, and really looking at what the situation is. 

She could be cranking out that report one week a month for the rest of her life. But instead, she's not, and she has this incredible space every month. I mean, I'm sure it's been filled up by plenty of things, since she's made that change, plenty of things. But we could all have that choice, too. I know, I get busy enough, and there's things like I'm like, “Ah, I have to learn ChatGPT now also, and all these other things.” Yes, it's super time-consuming, and there's other things I would really rather do that I think are more valuable. But the truth is, if you're never going to invest in it, you're never going to change. But my friend says, “When the pace of change outside of an organization is faster than the pace of change inside an organization, that's when you're really at a threat of becoming obsolete.” 

Cristina Amigoni: That's a great way of looking at it. 

Carla Johnson: He's brilliant. I want to make sure. That's his thing that he talks about and he’s so brilliant with it.  

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, it's great. Well, and what I like about, thinking about it from an innovation point of view, especially with the process that you have created and are describing, is that it's not changed for change sake. Because that's the other side of the extreme is in order to not be the organization that is not changing at the fast pace as everybody else, or is at the external world, we're just going to change. Because that's what we need to do. If we look like we're changing all the time, then we're actually fine with the industry and what's happening, and that's not it. There actually has to be appointed a change. There has to be a process to figure out like what are we trying to innovate? What is the future vision? Let's work backwards to figure out how we get there, as opposed to let's change. Now, we're changing. 

Carla Johnson: Yes, exactly. That point about reverse engineering backwards, then what is it that we're going to do? I think that's one, to your point about why is it that we're doing the change, I think is one of the biggest things that leaders struggle with. So, before, I take people through the idea generation process, I have them fill out an objective statement about why are we doing what we're doing, and it has three parts. And the first is we need new ideas, too. I think that part is something that is easier for people to think through. They may need help a little bit with clarifying about what is it that we're actually doing, but for the sake of ease of an example, it's like we need new ideas for a campaign to retain customers. 

Okay, the second part is so we can, and this one is really, really hard for people to articulate. It's, well, what is the impact that we're ultimately trying to have? Are we trying to lower customer turn? Are we trying to increase revenue? Because when you get leaders into a group and ask them these questions, a couple of interesting dynamics come up. There's a lot of conversation, but nobody can actually say what is the change that we're trying to make, and then as a group, they can't agree on it. If at the leadership level, you can't agree on what the change is, or why it's being made, it goes exactly right back to that dynamic that you described, Cristina. It's a lot of spinning, but nobody's changing, and definitely nothing is moving forward. 

Then, the third part of this is with these constraints. So, ideas would be amazing if we never had to live with them in the real world, right? I usually ask people, at least two, no more than four. It could be budget and timeline. Those are the most common things. But it could be culture. It could be a market situation. There's a lot of different constraints. But I have them when I take them through the idea generation process, I haven't put all of that aside until the very, very end of the idea generation process. And we work on the inspiration of bringing in that passion for that tropical fish, and what is it that you see with fish that you can learn and see trends from, that you can relate into your work that sparks these new and exciting ideas. Then, we'll start to filter them out. 

But we need to understand where we're going before we head down that path. But we don't want to narrow our focus so tightly from the get-go, that we never allow our mind to see possibilities. But I think that biggest part is leaders don't understand the outcomes that they want, or agree on it, and how can that not create confusion in an organization. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, it's ridiculously confusing, as people who have made a career out of helping people through change. That's the first question. It's like, what's the future vision? Why are we doing this? But not the – it's industry trends, and we need more revenue. That's not a why. 

Carla Johnson: Everybody needs more revenue. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Why are you actually doing this change? What is this? So, what? What are you expecting that behavior? Where are they expecting those emotions to be when we're there in that future? So many times that falls down, I would say more often than none. That's when it falls down. Especially, from the agreement of the leadership doing that. It's like, if you ask every single person, you'll get a completely different answer. I'm like, “Okay, go back into the room and figure this out. You can't start this change until you figure that out.” 

Carla Johnson: Yes. Because it's classic, right? You start down the road with some leader with a change, and then you get how many months, years into it, and somebody else goes, no, no, that's not what I think needs to happen. And you are millions of dollars and months, years into the process, and people have given up weekends and holidays, and they're stressed, and they're looking for that lazy girl job on the – just only 40 hours. Even if I only had 40 hours in like three days, that'd be amazing. It's no wonder people feel the way they do. And it's no wonder that leaders feel like, “I just can't find people who want to work.” Well, you can find people who want to care about the work that they do if you do the same. 

Cristina Amigoni: They're everywhere. Everybody wants to care about the work that they do. It is soul-sucking to go home, and every weekend, realize how miserable you are at your job. 

Carla Johnson: Yes, there's a reason the highest rate of heart attack is Sunday night and Monday morning. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, incredible. 

Alex Cullimore: You can find people who do want to have meaning, and you can also find people who will flee the lack of meaning, who will be tired of like having been suggested 40,000 confusing changes that didn't get quite delivered. And now, you’re year in, and now they're changing it. 

Carla Johnson: Well, yes, and you can you can see why change is announced, and people just stare at it blank, because it’s like, “Tell me something new. Do you know how often we've been doing this in the last 10 years or whatever it is?” I don't need to engage, because it's just going to change in six months or a year, anyway. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. We're not even going to get to that future vision to that true why, because it's going to change before we even get there. 

Carla Johnson: I was talking to somebody in sales the other day, and she said, in four years, she had four different sales managers. She said, there was no need to make the effort to change to this new dynamic, because they weren't going to be around very long anyway. 

Cristina Amigoni: That it's very, very common. 

Alex Cullimore: One of a dozen different ways to kill buy-in. 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. 

Carla Johnson: And I think also, leaders have an opportunity to encourage curiosity with employees. I think with curiosity, you can inspire change with curiosity. What could this look like? How might we be able to think of this differently? In a way they can get people to play almost like, let's pretend as you do as kids, but maybe a more grown-up version of it, and start to look at what some of these possibilities would be like. What would it need to look like, so that you do have time for innovation? There's a fun innovation tool called the Stinky Fish, where you can bring a team together, and you literally print out pieces of paper with the fish on it. And people write down the things that are holding them back from accomplishing things they need to do. And you put them up on the wall or on a mural, if you're doing it online, and then you put the stinky fish into similar schools of thought, and where is it that we have these biggest roadblocks.  

So, when you start to get curious from that perspective, then you can start to get curious about, well, is this something that's actually a roadblock? Or is this just something that we've always done? Is this a cultural thing? My grandma always cut the end of the ham off before she put it in the roaster, and it turns out, it was just because her mom did it, it wasn't for any other reason. It was just habit. So, my mom did it. Looking at why is it we go through the things that we do and we have these habits? Are they even relevant anymore? That's something that can really help people take a different look at their work is when you encourage that curiosity. 

Cristina Amigoni: I love that. Then, that helps build that adaptability. If you can build a curiosity, then the next time a change is announced, then you're like, “Okay, let's figure this out.” As opposed to like, “Well, just wait six months, it's going to go away, so I can just put my head down.” 

Carla Johnson: Head down, follow through, they'll be gone. 

Cristina Amigoni: It'll be gone. 

Carla Johnson: Yes. Even curiosity about why do we as an organization feel like we need to make this change every six months. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. 

Carla Johnson: Maybe that's more self-awareness than curiosity. 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. It’s like, why don't we actually let the change happen before we bomb it, and come up with a new one? What's happening there? Because there's some internal stuff that needs to come out. 

Carla Johnson: It's almost like changes the chief marketing officer of an organization. So, if you Look at the tenure of CEOs and CIOs and CFOs, it’s years and years and years, and like a chief marketing officer is 18 months. So, if you don't get in and do something in 18 months, you're gone. It’s like the same thing with a change initiative, right? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, it definitely is. There's this need for immediate result, immediate outcome. And it's like, well, first of all, that's not how it works. But it's not just not how it works for this change. It doesn't work anywhere in life, in any situation. 

Carla Johnson: I know. I went to the gym once and I didn't change. I eat an apple, I didn’t change. 

Cristina Amigoni: I had a salad last month. 

Carla Johnson: I know. Where's my JLo body? 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. It's interesting. I think we had a friend who posted something like that recently on LinkedIn, and it was just like, I was so frustrated about that, I immediately commented. Because I'm like, “What is it?” With this lack of patience, and just realistic perspective on change in workplaces. We like we wouldn't expect any athlete, we wouldn’t expect Tiger Woods or any of the athletes to be able to play at that level after taking one golf lesson, or even a week worth of golf lessons. So, why do we expect leaders to go through leadership training and all of a sudden, that's it, they're done. You got your certification, you're done. 

Carla Johnson: Yeah, I think that's a great analogy about sports. So, Tiger Woods, or Roger Federer or Serena Williams, they really break it down to the smallest, most incremental things that they work on for change. And if we could look at that, from the organizational level with change in innovation, and how we look at the work that we do, we would get so much further faster than trying to overhaul everything at once and expecting it to be different in six months. It's that degree of 1%. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Carla Johnson:  I had a boss early in my career, we were doing a big change initiative at this – it was an international architecture firm, and it was probably the greatest metaphor I ever could have had, especially young in my career. He talked about, you can't turn the ship too fast or you'll get your arms ripped off. We've seen people try to do that, try to do too much change too fast. And that's always the metaphor that's in my head is this like powerful ship just going full speed straight ahead. And bodies laying on the side because they tried to change something that was in motion to turn it too fast, too soon. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, that's a great analogy. Because it is that. I mean, even if you're a smaller ship, you capsize. Try to turn a small ship that fast. Everybody drowns. You're done. 

Carla Johnson: Yes. And everything you've been trying to take advantage of with that change then is just gone. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And innovation is the same. It's like you can’t expect big things all the time from a tiny team. 

Alex Cullimore: That’s like even when we go back to the examples of Netflix or Apple or everything. They didn't do this overnight. We do love like talking about overnight stories. But it's never an overnight story. Facebook is huge. But that started on random college campuses, something else, and the iPhone was fairly disruptive. But now we're down to innovating on like, there's a little bit of a new camera, and mostly we're fixing like the UX. Now, we’re going to have another plug. But there's something like it's slowly moving, even these big examples that we pointed to, like, well, I want that kind of big change. That didn't happen immediately. We want that. But none of those stories have ever been true and nobody gets that, the gym bodily immediately. Nobody gets the apple immediately. 

Carla Johnson: Yes. It was a beautiful thing to watch when I was everyday working in architecture, because people would see the ground break, and then this beautiful building come out of the ground. And they're like, “Wow. Did you see that? It came out of nowhere.” And I'm like, “Do you know how many years we've been working on this behind the scenes? You have no idea, the pain, blood, sweat, and tears that it took to get that beautiful thing out of the ground.” But it's the same way with ideas and innovation and change and how we bring people into the fold in this way of thinking. It's like braces. It's that constant little day, everyday pressure that changes the direction of it. I've had braces and I have three kids in braces. So, I guess that's a metaphor that really popped into my head. I'm very close with my orthodontist. 

Cristina Amigoni: I felt the pressure as you were saying braces. Like, “Oh yes. I remember the daily pressure.” And as soon as you get comfortable, it's like, “We're going to tighten it up.” 

Carla Johnson: Yes, exactly. Exactly. My dear friend Kathy Button Bell, CMO of Emerson, I mean, that was the 133,000-employee company. And she talked, I mean, she did was able to champion incredible change over 20 years. She said, “You have to think of culture, a little bit like a rubber band. You have to know just how far to stretch it, but not snap it.” I think that awareness of making sure we're pushing enough, but not enough to snap it is really important. 

Cristina Amigoni: Definitely is. So, how do you illuminate leaders and organizations around innovation? 

Carla Johnson: I always say like, does performance matter? Does growth matter? Are you tired of everything landing on your desk? Are you tired of that constant pushback of why things can't be done? I really look at teaching them how to use new-world ways of thinking for real-world problems that we're in right now. And it doesn't have to be the overhaul. I give McKenzie and Accenture and places like that a hard time that you don't have to invest hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of people to come in and infiltrate your organization to make these changes happen. You look at any kind of change, and it starts at the grassroots level. You, as a leader, have to be committed to it, and understand that it's important and be a part of it, be in the thick of it. I think that's what was so great to see with these organizations that I saw were so successful, is that the leaders themselves were innovators. 

I tell the story of Jeff Hoffman, I mean, an incredible entrepreneur. He was at the grocery store one day, and he came across this display of bananas. One was those, like, beautiful Photoshop. I saw a picture of bananas and the other were the crappy brown bananas that people only buy to make banana bread from. He looked at that, and he like really observed those details, and he understood it was really about a pricing model. So, he looked at what he observed and distilled it into patterns, maybe a trend even. So, this is about a pricing model. So, if I think about this, how can I relate that pricing model into the work that he does? I'm saying as him. I do as an entrepreneur. How can I look at pricing models maybe a little bit differently? 

That's what gave him a new idea, and he called a friend who worked at the airline industry, and he said, “If I were able to set up a website where you could sell unsold seats on a flight, right before they took off, would you sell me those seats?” Now, this was a while ago, when flights took off, and 10% to 15% of all seats were never sold. His friend said, “Absolutely, I would.” That was the start of Priceline. I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right? Priceline is valued at over $100 billion. So, executives, if you want to make those billion, if you want to make those big fireworks, it has to start with little things. But not everybody in an organization is going to pay attention to the banana stand. It's kind of like arrested development. There's always money in the banana stand, if you stopped paying attention to it. 

But it was, what he talks about is the most innovative thinkers study things outside of their normal area of expertise. So, he takes just a few minutes every single day, and exposes himself to something that has nothing to do with his day-Tom O'Neill: day work, or business that he's in, or something that he's already familiar with. I think the more that we can do that ourselves, I mean, kind of like even engineers have emotions, executives can have interests too. They can be interesting people and hobbies. But we get caught up, I think, in our own routines. Maybe it's golf, maybe it's tennis, maybe it's running, whatever it is. What if you tried something completely different yourself? Try curling, try cricket. I mean, the rules of cricket in itself could be, I think, like a lifelong study habit. But what is it that you're willing to expose yourself to that's completely different, that could turn into that idea that adds 25% productivity, or turns into $100 billion industry? 

So, when I talk to leaders from those kinds of perspectives in those contexts, then they start to go, “Okay, I do start to see an opportunity here.” Now they do have to look at what they're willing to commit to in order to operationalize it. Because if you weren't willing to change how you do business every day, it will never work. That's just honesty. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's a lot about everybody else changing and you stay the same.  

Carla Johnson: Exactly. 

Alex Cullimore: I love that as a beginning point. It's such a powerful tool of analogy, of having some other analogous thing you've noticed, the blandest, and you notice that there's something leftover though, some other parts of your life that you can go bring into this. There's a great book called Range that talks a little bit about that, about how people who are not the experts in the industry, are able to solve things that are intractable issues in industries, because they've just gotten too wrapped up and this is how we think about it, this is the same thing, and you have somebody coming from the outside and be like, “Well, it kind of sounds like this one thing I heard about once”, and suddenly you have a new take on it and a new spin, and there's a solution to something that has been a problem for people who are experts in the field for so long. 

Carla Johnson: Yes, absolutely. And I haven't heard of that book, but I'm going to look it up. 

Alex Cullimore: I will send it your way. It’s great. 

Carla Johnson: That's what they've done. They've connected the dots in fresh ways, because they have a different set of experiences. So, they aren't blind like others. Fascinating stuff. I could talk about this all day. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we could too. 

Carla Johnson: We won't. 

Cristina Amigoni: We won’t. Maybe we will, over dinner, at some point. On that note, so we have a couple of last questions for you. One is what does authenticity mean to you? 

Carla Johnson: Authenticity to me means always being that kindergartener. I think kindergarten is a beautiful age when you're coming out of that young toddlerhood, into discovering your independent from other people, you have choices. But you're still very curious about the world, and you haven't yet been jaded by the world telling you can't do things, or that's not possible. Authenticity is about believing in your own ability to create the world in which you live, and I think as kindergarteners, when you look at art, or you look at how they play, it's all about the world of possibilities. To me, authenticity is about possibilities. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's beautiful. I love that. Then, the last one is how can people find you? So, we know you do speaking events, and you're helping a lot of leaders. Tell us how does it work. 

Carla Johnson: My website is Carla, with a C, carlajohnson.co. I say .co for the great State of Colorado, because all three of us here live in Colorado. That's my website, and you can subscribe to my newsletter. It's called The Rethink Lab and it comes out just twice a month. I teach people every week, every issue is a story about something like we've talked about today. And then I share a new blog that I've written, and then I give people a seven-minute challenge.  

So, in my keynotes, that's one of the things people may have said afterwards is, “I just don't have time for this.” But seven minutes, so you can invest seven minutes. If you stay, you can't let me look at your social media usage. You can invest seven minutes. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Carla Johnson: And it's invest seven minutes to learn this one tool or skill or think about this. You add those up, that's 14 minutes, three hours a year, you can become a significantly more innovative thinker in that amount of time. And then, I'm always happy when people connect with me on LinkedIn. 

Cristina Amigoni: I love your posts. Thank you. So yes, it's always like very, very insightful. Lots of learning from your posts every time. 

Carla Johnson: Thank you. 

Alex Cullimore: Well, thank you so much for joining us, Carla. And thank you so much for sharing all these insights. This is just a fascinating look into innovation, and I think we may – we'd love to have you back on, at some point, to keep getting deeper into this. This is truly fascinating stuff. 

Carla Johnson: It would be great. My next rabbit hole that I'm starting down is about curiosity. And I think curiosity can be one of those things that people think, “Oh, that's kind of nice and fun and go off and be curious.” We've got real work to do. But how we think about like really applied curiosity. So, it does affect the work that we do. We can talk about that next time. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, that definitely lights like, yes, we bring up curiosity a lot in the work that we do, because it's that. It's like, how about you walk into this next meeting with curiosity, instead of having a script on how exactly it's going to go? What if both parties did that? Maybe we can resolve what's going on. 

Carla Johnson: Exactly. I don't think you can be curious and judgmental at the same time. 

Cristina Amigoni: You can't. You really can't. Yes, judgment is going to be there. But it's kind of like a passenger seat. It's like not your turn. 

Carla Johnson: Yes. I like that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Stay quiet for a little bit. 

Carla Johnson: Well, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it today. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you, Carla. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, thank you. Have a great rest of the week. 

Carla Johnson: Thank you. You too. 

[OUTRO] 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo podcast.  

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Lara; and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood.  

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas or questions. You can reach us at podcast wearesiamo.com, or at our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. We Are Siamo is spelled W-E A-R-E S-I-A-M-O. 

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human. 

[END]