In this episode, we are joined by Greg Satell, an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and innovation advisor. Greg has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company Inc., The Times of London, and Business Insider, and has just published his first book, Mapping Innovation. Previously, Greg spent 15 years in media businesses in Eastern Europe - from Poland to Moscow to Kiev and from small business journals to large news organizations and lifestyle brands. His work as an innovation advisor spans from Fortune 500 companies, to mid-size firms, and startups.
What was Covered
- Greg’s approach to mapping innovation, what he calls a “playbook for navigating a disruptive age”
- How organisations can no longer just look to their internal capabilities and assets to solve their most important problems but need to leverage external platforms in order to extend those internal capabilities
- How companies like Eli Lilly and Experian used new approaches to problem solving that involved the ecosystems of talent and technology which are key to sustaining innovation in today’s world of work
Key Takeaways and Learnings
- Looking at innovation as an important problem which requires a novel solution – in the end a line manager is less interested in whether an innovation is sustaining or disruptive but if it answers the perennial question of, “What the hell do I do next?”
- How power is moving from the top of the heap to the center of a network which means the indispensable partners are the dominant players
- Why managing connections to external ecosystems of talent is today’s essential management skill as competitive advantage switches from being the sum of all efficiencies to the sum of all connections
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Podcast