EP 205: [Interview] Innovation Capabilities - Natalie Turner

Natalie is an experienced innovation specialist with over 25 years of experience working as a corporate innovation director, business consultant, and entrepreneur. She has worked with some of the world's leading organizations, including Cisco Systems, GSK, LEO Pharma Asia, Edgewell, and the Singapore Government, to help them build innovation systems, culture, and capabilities, as well as generate new ideas to help them grow their teams and businesses.

In today's episode, we'll be diving deeper into the topic of innovation capability development and using a case study of one specific team to explore this concept further.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast, Spotify or other platforms.

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EP 205: [Interview] Innovation Capabilities - Natalie Turner

Natalie is an experienced innovation specialist with over 25 years of experience working as a corporate innovation director, business consultant, and entrepreneur. She has worked with some of the world's leading organizations, including Cisco Systems, GSK, LEO Pharma Asia, Edgewell, and the Singapore Government, to help them build innovation systems, culture, and capabilities, as well as generate new ideas to help them grow their teams and businesses.

As the founder of The Entheo Network, based in Singapore, Natalie has made her passion for purpose and people-driven innovation practical as well as inspirational, elevating people's thinking on not only what they can create but also how - the mind, skill sets, and cultural environments - that make everyday innovation happen. This is Natalie's second appearance on our podcast; her previous episode, number 187, was titled 'Yes, you can innovate' where we talked about her book and her methodology for coaching people to innovate.

In today's episode, we'll be diving deeper into the topic of innovation capability development and using a case study of one specific team to explore this concept further. I'm excited to learn from Natalie's wealth of experience and knowledge in this field, and I'm sure you will be too. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation."

Guest Links:

Natalie on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieturner1/

Website: https://www.six-i-innovation.com/

Book yes you can innovate: https://www.yesyoucaninnovate.com/?r_done=1

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Transcript:

(This Transcript is AI generated)

Natalie Turner

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Human Innovation Podcast, the podcast for innovative leaders. I'm your host, Jens Heitland, and today we have Natalie Turner joining me. Natalie is an experienced innovation specialist with over 25 years of experience working as a corporate innovation director, business consultant and entrepreneur.

[00:00:21] She has worked with some of the world's leading organizations, including Cisco Systems, gsk, Leo Pharma, Asia Etal, and the Singapore government to help them build innovation systems, culture and capabilities, as well as generate new ideas to help them grow their teams and their businesses. As the founder of the Ethno Network based in Singapore, Natalie has made her passion for purpose and people driven innovation, practical, as well as inspirational, elevating people's thinking on not only what they can create, but also how the mind skillset and the culture environments that make everyday innovation happen. This is Natalie's second appearance on my podcast. Her previous episode number 187 was titled, Yes You Can Innovate. Where we talked about her book and her methodology of coaching people to innovate. In today's episode, we will be diving deeper into the topic of innovation, capability development, and using a case study of a specific team to explore this concept further.

[00:01:30] I'm excited to learn more from Natalie's wealth of experience and knowledge in this field, and I'm sure you will be too. Please welcome to the show, Natalie Turner.

[00:01:39] Hello, Natalie. Welcome back to the show. Great to see you again. 

[00:01:43] Hello, Jens it's very good to be here. Thank you. 

[00:01:47] Today we talk about the corporate part of innovation. I'm really excited about that. So we we're not going too much into your background, but for those who are interested, if you can just give a very, very quick summary of you, who you are. Just to get the ones who are new to this episode into the picture. 

[00:02:06] Sure. Thank you. Yeah, thanks Jens. Well, I have a background in corporate innovation, so that is always an interesting start. And I left the corporate world and set up my own innovation agency back in 2006 in London.

[00:02:21] Then I took it to Asia in Singapore. And actually the business is still operating out of Singapore, but I actually now live in Lisbon, in Portugal. But it's operating all over the world through a network of practitioners. But yeah, so I had a background in c. Became an entrepreneur. I've worked in startups, I've worked in capital raising, I've worked in all the different types of areas of innovation both in teaching it, helping people to do it and doing it myself,

[00:02:49] So yeah. Very, very steeped into this area. 

[00:02:52] Yeah. And I can tell you or everyone who is listening to this, that's the best condition to help other and help corporates to innovate. If you have done it yourself, if you've seen a lot of organizations doing it, rightly or wrongly, there's always challenges in all organizations.

[00:03:08] So good start and good background for people to corporate and innovate. So let's talk about corporate innovation. You have a methodology that's called the six I's. . If we just run. Through this methodology and look how this will benefit corporate innovators and as well corporates in general.

[00:03:31] So more large organization that are interested in innovating and as well teams inside of larger organization. So let's start with the perspective. How do you start working with organization when it comes to the six I's? 

[00:03:46] It's certainly a journey and I call the six ayes a bit of a journey map. I think when we are thinking strategically of working with an organization, depending on what level you're coming in, I, I always start with the center of the model, which is around purpose.

[00:03:59] You know, what is our purpose? What's the organizational purpose? What's it trying to achieve? Strategically what's, its sort of its whole drive, its whole direction, and that can be at a number of levels, right? From the sort of big purpose down to project purpose or team purposes. And actually to have that discussion alone is a great place to start because that just gives everybody talking about.

[00:04:25] Why? Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it we are trying to achieve? So that normally is the starting point. Now with regards to the model, obviously there's different ways in sometimes an organization might be saying, right? We need to train people on how to be innovative. It's all well and good to say, go and be innovative to your staff, your employees, but.

[00:04:50] You know, and, and a lot of them will often question, well, how, how do I do that and what does it really mean to me? So having that conversation about what is innovation? And what is innovation to me in my job, regardless of where I might be in the organization is another really important area. So having sort of training sessions around that can be one way in.

[00:05:12] And we have a whole approach around using the six Eyes in action. So understanding. The, the self as an innovator, the different skills that we all contribute and we contribute in such different ways and we all have a valid contribution. I think that's really, really important. But then also knowing how to innovate, learning how to identify opportunity.

[00:05:37] It's learning how to see things differently and problem solve. Learning how to be creative or to generate new ideas, to investigate them, et cetera. So looking at the whole of that journey map is, is really important. And that can come in through a training type engagement or a consultancy type engagement.

[00:05:57] And more frequently these days is where we're sort of training other people to train the six I's inside their own organizations. 

[00:06:05] Let's take this as an example. So imagine I'm an innovator inside of the corporate. I'm just a new, let's say, let's call me team leader. Team leader, taking over a team, and we got the opportunity inside of a larger organization to build an innovation team.

[00:06:21] Look into how do we innovate in different ways. The team has no real innovation background. They have done a couple of tests. They have heard about design thinking. They, they kind of browsed what's going on in the market. They looked a little bit and read books, but they haven't had like a formal education or anything that helps them to do anything inside of the corporate.

[00:06:43] So my challenge as the leader is I have a team that's not educated in innovation myself, is. Let's imagine I don't have a background in innovation. I'm really eager to learn and I feel a little bit equipped, but there's a lot of things missing. How do we get started?

[00:07:00] What would be the first engagement where I'm reaching out to you and say, Natalie, I need help. I want to educate my team, but get the demand from the organization that we need to deliver result as soon as. 

[00:07:13] Yeah. And that's a great position to be in, isn't it? Well first of all, I would say to you, well, what is it you want your team to achieve to innovate around?

[00:07:21] I think it's an interesting combination when we're looking at training, because in my experience, just training people. How to do things. I mean, of course there's value in that, but if you train people on something that's live to them, a real business challenge, a real commercial issue, something that they're trying to tackle as a team, then it gets very, very powerful and very useful.

[00:07:44] Because not only do you learn skills, or you learn tools, or you done new ways of thinking, you take something out. So that would be my first question to you. You know, I'd be saying, okay, well what. That we're bringing the team together to do, to try to achieve what is the result we wanna get from this engagement.

[00:08:02] So that would be where I would start. And then I would say it'd be really useful if everybody could also take an assessment to understand their innovation strength. Because we all innovate in different ways. Being creative is only one aspect of being innovative. And you know, a lot of times people still think that that is innovation, but actually it's a lot more than that as we know, really.

[00:08:27] So in taking this online assessment, which is about seven, seven to 10 minutes long it asks you a number of questions. How strong do you think you are at the. And then how important are these skills to you in your job right now? So you get a sort of a differential what you consider your strengths to be around 36 different discreet skills required to innovate across the whole of the cycle of innovation and also how important they are.

[00:08:58] So that gives a good starting point. Both for you as a team leader for me or for one of our, our other practitioners to sort of say, okay, so yeah, your team Y is, you know, you are full of igniters. Yeah. You, you've just got everybody there. It's just full of ideas. But there are, you don't have many implementers there.

[00:09:16] You know, you haven't got many people that are actually gonna take those ideas and drive them forward, for example. And that helps to give some real strong data. To have a great discussion of self-awareness and other awareness and team dynamics around how you are working. So that would be a couple of the things just to, to start the whole discussion. 

[00:09:37] Yeah. So I, as the leader, would go back and look into, okay, what is the real challenge we are facing? And most probably I will discuss this with my manager who caught. Into this team, leading this team. We say, okay, what figure out it can be, okay, we need to create additional income streams.

[00:09:56] We need to innovate in the core. We need to develop new products, new services, whatever that will be. And then on top of that, I will get my team doing the assessment so that we understand how are we set up as a team? Do we have the right strengths? Do we have all competencies from a strengths per.

[00:10:16] That we need to be a holistic team and maybe we need to hire new people with different capabilities, bringing other people with different strength in from the organization. So we have an understanding of what's the challenge, and we see the team as a whole to say, okay, we are having this strength.

[00:10:36] We understand where we are, how do we take the next step? 

[00:10:42] So once we have that and I would say, you know, we'd spend a bit of time on that, getting people to sort of unpack their own strengths and reflect on it and understand, well, what does that mean to me and what does it mean to us as a, as a collective?

[00:10:56] The, the next sort of area would be really, you know, it. Well, I would say actually as part of that too is just for the team to have the discussion, what does it mean to be innovative in the team, you know, and what does that look like? What are you trying to achieve together? I know how broad is the scope of innovation?

[00:11:14] Is it, is it around ways of working? Is it processes that you are creating? Is it digitalization? Is it you know, looking at, you know, the development of new products and service? And to give examples of where the team may have. innovative in the past because that really helps people to say, all right, actually we are quite innovative.

[00:11:34] Maybe we didn't see it that way. And the, the, that helps a sort of a shift in the mindset where people start to think. Not only can I contribute, but actually I'm already doing this. I just maybe haven't seen it that way in the past, which gives people a lot of confidence to then sort of go the next level up, if you like.

[00:11:53] So having done that, I would then say we take the topic areas that you want to focus on. and to really sort of say, okay, what areas are we gonna focus on? And we run it through the six eyes. So we start with purpose. What is the purpose you're trying to achieve with this particular new thing that you're trying to do?

[00:12:16] And that can be at different types of levels as well. Then we look at, well, who's the customer? You know, who are we trying to? Four, where is the opportunity? What is the problem we're trying to solve, whether it's opportunity or problem. And we would use different tools, different techniques to help unpack that.

[00:12:33] And that can be from, you know, something sort of sort of strategic, like a pestle type analysis to the big picture, down to sort of customer journey mapping and understanding touchpoints of a journey that a customer might customer might go through. So you're trying to identify the. And we stay in that land of curiosity, that mindset of curiosity, which I, I sort of pair with that identify stage.

[00:13:00] So that's the first sort of thing I'll get people to really think about. You know, start with purpose and then move into, identify and really try to understand what is it you're trying to do and why.

[00:13:11] So if I understand you right, starting with the team perspective or coming from the online assessment, understanding it myself, understanding it as a team.

[00:13:20] There's as well maybe it's below the surface while you work with the team on these topics. It's also kind of a team building that brings the team closer together. because they're getting to know each other. They're from different perspective. They have worked maybe in the same team, maybe in the same company, but they have never talked openly, Hey, these are my strengths from an innovation perspective, where are you compared to me in this team setting?

[00:13:48] So I'm just guessing correct me if I'm wrong, that there's a kind of team building exercise, which is not meant to be a team building exercise, but is gradually happening automatically. 

[00:13:59] Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. And it's really interesting because what happens is that, say, say you come up and identifier on.

[00:14:08] Profile. And then you are, you know, obviously showing and demonstrating your strengths because we're in the identify phase and so you might be contributing a lot more in that stage. People maybe who weren't high on identify, are learning how to identify, you know, they're learning cuz they're being taught that there's a way to do this.

[00:14:27] There, there are tools that you can use, that can help you to think, curiously, that can open up your mind perception. So what happens then is we can have like a discussion, not just on what you are doing, but how you're doing it. So how are you thinking as a team? How did you approach it? What helped you?

[00:14:47] What's held you back? How has the team dynamic and to get people to really reflect on behavior. Helps them then understand, oh, you know what, Yenz was a really good facilitator. That's what got us really going there cuz he understood how to get the team to really sort of open up their perception, for example.

[00:15:08] So what we're doing is we're not just focusing on the what. The outcome, we're focusing on the how because we're helping people to really raise consciousness of how they work and how they think, because then they get better at it. They get more productive, more efficient, they get more agile in knowing, oh yeah, that worked for me and this is a way I can approach.

[00:15:29] So absolutely is very, very, For team building and team dynamics, but also for the individual's consciousness to rise in themselves to say, yes, I can do this. I just need to have the right sort of approach of thinking about how to do it and it can work for me. 

[00:15:48] If we go back to, I'm the team leader of this team, newly started and now you come in as an external, you help us facilitate the.

[00:15:57] Development of the team and the direction of where we want to go with the innovation. What are the different roles like you as the facilitator, as the expert, me, as the leader of the team and team members? Do you have different roles and how does that play together?

[00:16:11] Yes, I think there is. If you're working, say you are the team leader and I would be working with you or one of the practitioners working with you to help determine the areas that were focused. You are gonna be playing an interesting role. Being in the team and out of the team in a sense.

[00:16:28] you've got a, you are sort of the champion owner of the result, but at the same time, you are part of the journey and you are part of that group dynamic that's going on. And I've had some very interesting experiences with team leaders where, you know, sometimes they've actually said to me, you know what? I think I'm gonna pop out for a while and just let the rest of the team just have a real go at cracking.

[00:16:53] Without me in, you know, me coming in to try to do that. And that, you know, and then they come back in later. So that's actually happened a few times. But some, you know, oftentimes I think, you know, what can happen with team leaders is because they are part of the system, they find it hard to facilitate.

[00:17:11] Because they're already in it they're part of it. And so to have someone that's outside of it that can act as a, a, as a sort of a, a coach if you like to, that process can be very valuable to the team leader. But when we come to the sort of the investigate stage or the invest stage, so remember the six eyes we've got, identify, ignite, investigate, invest, implement.

[00:17:37] When we're at that sort of investigate stage where maybe we're converging and we're starting to say, well, you know, we've got all these different ideas and, you know, that could become potential propositions and solutions. The team leader might then come in and say, okay, yeah, I think that the, these ones, because you're gonna have to apply critical thinking, then, you know, you've been diverging and creating and coming up with stuff, but then you've got to, to look at the.

[00:18:02] And say, well, what? What do we think realistically we can do? You know, what's the timeframe? What's the budgets, what's the allocation of things? You know, looking across immediate short term results versus maybe longer term, you know, innovation activities. So the team leader's role there is really important for decision making for the invest stage, because otherwise things never get off the.

[00:18:26] You know, everyone has a great time. They all generate some wonderful things, but they don't do anything afterwards. So that's where the team leader is critical for taking, taking that, that you know, what the outputs are, and then starting to shape those up to make them into something that's gonna be implemented.

[00:18:46] So it's kind of being the owner of the totality and making sure. I as the leader know what's going on, but I'm not in the way of the others exploring where they, what they're going, and really looking into how do I make sure as the leader that it's going to happen afterwards as well. 

[00:19:04] Yeah, absolutely. You have to have that without that. Things tend to get stuck, you know? Yeah. And the ones that I've seen to be most powerful and most effective in using this as an approach, because normally what will happen is, you know, you'll come together and your focus on the team, the team dynamic is, Skillsets the group dynamic around working together, you'll look at, you know, things like, well, what does it mean to be innovative and purpose?

[00:19:30] And you'll identify opportunities and generate ideas and, and think that, think which ones you want to take forward. But that's only half of the half of the whole journey, you know? Yeah. And, and people can often go back to work to the workplace having, you know, whether they've been doing it virtually or, or face-to-face, but they go back into their normal work and these things, if they're not then integrated.

[00:19:57] Into the plans of that team in, in its biggest bigger sense from a budgeting perspective, from a resourcing perspective, those ideas don't go anywhere. And that is often the sad thing. You get people very excited about doing some stuff and getting together, and then nothing happens with those ideas, and that's.

[00:20:21] The other eyes, invest, implement, improve, are absolutely fundamental to innovating. Because if we don't actually invest, if we don't have courage, if we don't say yes or no, or you know, if we just sort of bleed things in an limbo land, there's still decisions. There's just a decision not to do anything. Then you've wasted all that time and energy of the.

[00:20:45] So that's why it's so, so important and the role of the leader, the champion in that process is critical. Otherwise it just doesn't happen. 

[00:20:54] Me as the leader, I would think of, okay, I get it. We're we are looking into the planning and the budgeting part, and where are my managers? Do you involve the managers, the decision makers of the organization as well as part of that, let's say, journey so that they understand where they come from?

[00:21:15] Because in this hypothetical example, let's say the team is unexperienced. I'm as the leader, not really set in the organization so I can inspire the CEO to take decisions or executive management team. How do you play this ball? To one part is help the team understand how to do that, but as well help the organization to do.

[00:21:38] Yeah, absolutely. Some of the most effective sort of approaches that I've used or people working in, in the organization have used is where you have strategic projects. In the organization and you're bringing the leadership team together from across divisions, across departments, and they are tasked with, you know, tackling some big, you know, big goals of the organization.

[00:22:04] And so obviously they have their teams below them, they have their managers below them. But they, they work initially as a group to. Affects the whole of the direction of the organization. And so it can be very powerful to have it as a sort of a form of a strategic project, but with an innovation angle.

[00:22:22] It's not just trying to to do the day to day necessarily, but really thinking how are we gonna grow or how are we gonna tackle this problem or that problem or this challenge, et cetera. But, but to have those actually sort of thought through as areas, then the, that leadership team to be mixed up.

[00:22:40] Into different sub-teams. So they're working together in a very different way than they probably normally would just as a straight leadership team when they get together to sort of, you know, work on the business. So that works really well to affect higher levels of the organization. Obviously you can also go in at sort of departmental levels or divisional levels or team levels, and you are just working on those particular challenges that those teams are having.

[00:23:07] It may not be affecting. Other areas of the business necessarily. But a lot of the times it will do. And actually one of the things we always do as part of the journey on the implement side, cuz obviously they can't, people can't implement in, in an engagement they're gonna implement afterwards. But the, to get people really thinking, who are the key stakeholders?

[00:23:30] Who are the people you need to influence internally or externally to get this off the ground? Because if you don't understand you know how you're gonna get buy-in, how you're gonna work, the politics of the organization. It doesn't matter how good your idea is, it won't actually go anywhere . So, because you've gotta be very good at relationship building, at influencing, you've gotta be good at being able to navigate.

[00:23:55] So really building that in as a thought process is very important. Not just going off with the ideas, but going off with a plan on, okay, this is what I need to do next. And actually I'm gonna go back to investigate because you're, you know, you're gonna, you in a said to you, you may pitch an idea in a workshop or, or something, the invest stage, but you haven't got anything there.

[00:24:18] So you've gotta go back and really do the. Back in the workplace. So that is really, you know, in terms of having that bigger impact and influence on the broader organization, is to really be thinking about stakeholders and influence. 

[00:24:34] Speaking about influence, how do you think about the communication angle?

[00:24:39] That's one part of, let's say, transparency. The other part is metrics and measure. . 

[00:24:46] Yeah. It's interesting in my book. Yes, you can innovate. I have a, a little bit on my, each chapter. How do you communicate more effectively with the different skillset types, if you like and what the do's and the don't.

[00:25:00] Because I think, you know, let's take investigators. People are really good at research, at validating, at taking things apart, tend to have quite a critical mindset. You know, you're going to communicate with those types of people quite differently to say the igniters who are like, you know, popping ideas like a hundred, a hundred a.

[00:25:22] And, and just think that everybody's like them. You know? You know, we can just, you know, just do this and do this. So I think that really understanding that, that we get the best out of other people by understanding where they're coming from, not just necessarily who we are and what our natural style of communication might be when it comes to working on new things.

[00:25:42] It's really, really important. So that's sort of one, sort of. To, to, to, to look at with regards to the, you know, to communication. And, and the second area. What was the second piece? Yes. The measurement. Yes. Now that's, I mean, absolutely. So really thinking through, at each stage of the eyes, what is it that we are measuring?

[00:26:04] You know, how are we gonna know that we are. . Is it going to be that we're going to be, you know, looking at top line growth? Is it something we wanna get a certain amount of new services to market, for example, or products? Is it efficiency gains or productivity gains? Are we taking out waste out of systems?

[00:26:24] So to actually get people to think about how do you. This could be successful. What is it that's gonna really be a, a, a good measurement for you? And to get the teams really thinking about that is very, very powerful. And that can be at different types of stages of the journey as well as the output of whatever you, you know, you take away with you.

[00:26:44] You know, also things like engagement. engagement of people. A lot of companies, corporates in particular, measure those types of things. Yeah. So having some questions in surveys, for example, to say, you know, I, I understand, you know, how I contribute. I'm clear on how I can contribute my innovation skills in my day-to-day work.

[00:27:05] On a scale of one to 10, how clear are you, you know, is it going up? You know, so you can have sort of different ways of measuring depend. on what it is, you know, whether it's the way of working or the outcome or, you know, the actual the, the physical thing or the, or the tangible thing that you're trying to, to, to create.

[00:27:25] Yeah. 

[00:27:26] Let's, let's play a little bit further. So, we are now a team. We are innovating. We, we go through all the different steps. We understand better and better and better how to do this, and the organization sees. as an island, like a team that's a little bit overprivileged. And it's starting to push back.

[00:27:48] I've heard about the word like the internal immune system is fighting against the innovation team. How do you work with that? Either that it's not happening or that, that they can work. 

[00:28:01] Yeah, and I've been in teams and corporates that have been like that, so yeah. Yeah, you often, and it's interesting when you're in the innovation team how you can often be that island and there can be a lot of resentment between that team and the rest of the organization.

[00:28:18] And also, I mean, sometimes it can be quite detrimental. I think it has to be managed quite carefully. The rest of the organization can see, can have the perception that they are doing the work, the innovation team are doing, the innovation and the fun stuff. Yeah. There becomes this massive divide between the the two, and that is, I don't think that's very healthy actually.

[00:28:44] I think that, you know, really helping. people, you know, oftentimes, you know, it's great to have an innovation team if they're, you know, skilled at that. What I'm talking about, the relationship building, the impact in the broader organization helping to, you know, get the organization to innovate. It depends what the remit of that team is.

[00:29:03] You know, sometimes, and I've been in these. Ones as well. You know, you can be set up because you are doing the blue sky thinking for the future. You are, you are completely out of the main organization because the, so the processes and the systems that the big organization has would crush you too quickly.

[00:29:21] Yeah. So you have to be spun out, you know, and have your own separate sort of structures and budgets and everything else. Now that's quite different, I think. You know, but if the innovation team is, is there and tasked to. Build capability in the organization to get the whole of the organization to innovate.

[00:29:39] Then it's all going to be around how how they, you know, in a sense, like sometimes we think about the HR function, you know, good HR FA functions or business partners with the organization. They work with team leaders. They understand their needs from the people perspective. And it's a similar thing.

[00:29:56] Good innovation departments that are set up to influence and impact the bigger organization, act like internal consultants to that, that organization and help, help to affect it that way. But these are things that have to be thought through when you are starting to structure, what is it we're, you know, why are we building this team?

[00:30:16] Yeah. So that would be, I guess it would be a conversation even before we are getting started to understand, okay, these are the preconditions you set yourself. , and that will be the demands which you get in the future.

[00:30:30] Yeah. I, you know, what, what is, what's the perception of the bigger organization? As in why have you been set up?

[00:30:37] Yeah. What's the purpose? What is the purpose of the team and how is it gonna function? What's its sort of remit, what's its ways of working? And how are you even gonna measure that? Your impact around that, I think is you know, an important. 

[00:30:52] Let's turn back the time where we are starting to engage with each other.

[00:30:58] I'm really convinced that you are the right partner helping me, and then comes to c cfo, F o, the cfo. F O is saying, yeah, but I've heard about design thinking there's all the same, you don't need this on top of it, we have an easy and a, let's say, affordable design thinking coach there internally they can, they can help you to do that.

[00:31:18] How would you counter. That argument. . 

[00:31:22] Well, design thinking is fantastic. I'm a design thinking facilitator and I was, I was a design thinking facilitator before it was called design thinking . But you know, I mean, design thinking is part of the journey of innovating it. But it's very much in that early stage in terms of really under.

[00:31:40] Standing needs, you know, what is, what are the needs of the people, of hu of humans, of people, of, of who we are trying to innovate for and having that real human centered approach to. Design rather than it just being completely you know, out of context to that. So of course you want to have design thinking and it must be encouraged.

[00:32:03] What I have found is that design thinking wasn't enough. You're going back to the whole sort of premise of, you know, you take people outside and have workshops for a few days or, or online workshops or whatever it might. And people use design thinking methodologies to create new, new services or new products or new things.

[00:32:23] What, then what happens next? So, when I invented the six Eyes of Innovation, I wanted to create a model that would encompass design thinking and organizational. With these assessment tools to help build the capability of people and teams, and that was really my purpose because I was seeing. , the design thinking wasn't enough.

[00:32:47] You know, we would oftentimes generate fantastic, brilliant, human centered solutions, but they didn't go anywhere. , you know, it's going back to that whole thing. They got stuck in the system somewhere, and so we need other. Approaches as well as it's not an either or actually it's both. It's both that, that centered approach from people then thinking about, well, how do we take that from an organizational perspective and make it happen?

[00:33:19] So you, the CFO obviously, is gonna be very critical to that. The finance department, regulatory departments, all the operational parts of organizations are very important to enabling innovation to happen. And so that's how I, that's how I would see it. It's absolutely imperative design thinking, but it's not enough because you've gotta take those ideas forward to make them happen.

[00:33:43] And you need, you need processes to do that. You need systems to do that. You need operational ways of thinking. 

[00:33:51] And step stepping out of the, the team leader role. I think it's, it's fundamentally different and, or I think the combination, like you said, is, is the magic of this because the organization, if, if you don't take the organization with you as part of design thinking, innovating, it's not going to.

[00:34:15] it's not going to happen in organization, at least in my experience, it's very, very, very seldom. Mm-hmm. . And sometime, yes, it works for a year because the focus is there and everyone was on board. But two years down the line, a new leader comes in somewhere on top and everything is gone. Yeah. So very, very important.

[00:34:33] What I think is, as well, another opportunity because it's kind of a development program of a team understanding. How it works, how you innovate, all the different methodologies, really going on a UL level of what are the different tools you use, if I understand that right. It's also beneficial if you do this and like I have seen a lot of innovators and organizations.

[00:35:00] One day they say, Hey, this is really fun. I would love to do this every day, and I would love to train others. So what if I step. into the white, white west and do this as a consultant, as a coach, and really have already a base understanding of what I can do and have a leverage of tools that that help me to provide services to different clients.

[00:35:24] Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting because over the last few years what's happened with our organization is what we found, well, particularly after I wrote the book, yes, you Can Innovate in 2018, that hit the market. And suddenly I had people contacting me. You know, like you hear these stories say, oh, I read your book at the airport and I'm an innovation director and I really like your six hours of innovation.

[00:35:47] How do we get it into the organization? So, you know, there's that one in terms of the corporate sort of, you know, bringing, bringing you in. But not necessarily just to do, to do these types of projects, but to train. Their own people, you know, internally. And so then the whole model started to evolve over like a practitioner-based program where I started to have four day intensive programs, certification programs to train people in.

[00:36:16] all of this, you know, all the systems, the, the tools, the profiling approaches, et cetera. Then what I found was that I had a lot of independent people also contacting me who had had either left corporates and they were looking for different tools to use with their clients that were a, you know, a bit different, but also combined these, these elements that we're talking about around the sort of what we may say, the more creative and the more disciplined approach to innovat.

[00:36:45] and, and then suddenly I started to be like a business in a box. So over the years since then, we have now created it into an online program where it's video based with hybrid coaching calls, so it could go global and we, we often will have people who are both independent. and who are corporate, you know, working together.

[00:37:07] And that's fantastic as well because they're sort of learning together and they've got great rich experience from both sides of being sort of serving the corporate world and being in the corporate world and creating that whole practitioner program. And that's really. Our flagship now is, you know, to grow this and to be able to, you know, impact people more so that they can be more innovative and have more capability is, you know, really to focus on the six I certification program.

[00:37:36] So if I understand you right, so, so yeah, I can, I can get certified to. Put this basically as star on my shoulders and say, Hey, I have done this program. I know how to handle this. I have the right toolbox, and through this certification, I have a certain quality level you can expect from me because it's a proven methodology and it's not just, I've invented this myself like 10 minutes ago and now I'm going into a workshop.

[00:38:05] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. How, how do I get Certifi. 

[00:38:10] So well, you, you can contact me or can't go on our site six hyphen i hyphen innovation.com. And you can, there's a whole page there on, on the website and that that explains everything. It's basically, I run it over a number of weeks. So every other week we have a live coaching call.

[00:38:31] So you watch videos and everything, and then we have a live coaching call as a group, and then you do some sort of buddy work with somebody else in the group. And then at the end we have, I have two levels, level one and level two. So level one, focus on, on the individual as an innovator and then helping to understand, you know, all the different skill sets and mindsets and ways of working around that.

[00:38:52] And level two is on. So level one, we do first, and then there is an assessment at the end of the the program where each person has to record themselves. Coaching and explaining somebody else's profile. And then I will let them, you know, mark that and assess it to make sure that everybody yeah, that they're understanding and explaining it properly.

[00:39:14] And then the same with the team. So they have videos, we have live calls, and then we have their buddy work, and then they do a team assessment. They don't have to video the team, but they do have to write a report on it, and then they have to do a case study. So it's, it's, you know, it's quite meaty and I've built it that way because I.

[00:39:33] People do need to, to go through the rigor really of understanding how to use something so that they can, you know, use it well and represent it well in the world. So that's how it happens. 

[00:39:46] So how long does it take from, I'm signing up to, I am now certified and I can run with it. 

[00:39:54] So the, the, the level one is eight weeks and then we have a break.

[00:40:00] and then we do level two. So it takes, it takes, you know, a number of weeks to, to do it. But from the end of level one, you know, people can start to pr, you know, start to use level one, start to practice level one in their own organizations. Yeah, so that's, that's how, how we do it now, rather than having these sort of intense four day programs in just two parts of the.

[00:40:22] Yeah, makes sense. Because way more organizations are now used to online as well and a lot of, lot of people are even not back to the office yet, so . 

[00:40:32] Yeah, and it's nice, A hybrid approach I'm finding really is quite, it is quite dynamic because people can watch the videos in their own time and then they can re-watch them if they need to and, and then have that, having that sort of live time.

[00:40:48] Sort of really going deeper into the material, answering questions and you know, having more experimentation around, you know, using things and, and cases is, is quite powerful. Yeah, 

[00:41:00] super. I'm really intrigued to, to have a look at it again as well myself. And of course I will, I will put everything into the show notes.

[00:41:10] So there are ton of resources on your website, so everything will be available for. Listening or watching this? Did we forget anything, Natalie? 

[00:41:21] Well, I think the, the, the other great thing that I'm finding is happening in, in my own innovation journey around this is that building a great community of people.

[00:41:32] You know, we are people we like, you know, working with people, you know, people who are in this space enjoy working with people. And what I have found is building a global practitioner community is so rich because, , you know, people have got such rich, diverse experience, different industries, different backgrounds, different geographies and cultures and everything else.

[00:41:54] To come together as a community to support each other, to to work together on different projects, it's absolutely fantastic. And I must say that. For me, that's been an added benefit of creating this, is to see that impact rollout around the world. And anybody who is interested, please do contact me because love you to be part of part of this community.

[00:42:17] Yeah, I agree. Community is one of the most important things when it comes to, to, to business, but as well, Enabling people to generate impact in this world because we think alike and we do things in the same way and we learn from each other. 

[00:42:34] Yes, 

[00:42:34] absolutely. Super. Natalie, thank you very much for being again on the show.

[00:42:39] I'm pretty sure we have a third version coming in the future as well. Yes. It's always lovely to, to speak to you. Thank you very much.