Lessons on Innovation From Industry Leaders

My team has stopped asking questions. They now wait for instructions. A leader shared this observation at last Thursday’s Melbourne Business School - Retail & Consumer Goods panel. It perfectly captured the curiosity crisis facing our industry in an uncertain operating environment. In a brilliant conversation with Adam Murphy 🌻 , moderated by Lenny Chudri, GAICD, we explored how to reignite innovation when uncertainty is our new normal. Here is what resonated most: 1. The 5-Question Rule That Changed Everything At a global FMCG giant, we were stuck. Innovation had become theatre, all talk, no breakthrough. So we tried something radical: “Curiosity Time”. Rule: For one hour every Friday, you could ONLY ask questions. No answers. No solutions. Just questions. The first session was painful. By week six? We had identified three breakthrough opportunities worth $5M. 🎯Try this tomorrow: Start your next meeting with 5 minutes of questions only. No answers allowed. 2. When Budget Cuts Forced Our Best Innovation Leading innovation at a major CPG company, I faced a 30% budget cut. Instead of scaling back, we asked: “What would we do if we had 10% of the budget?” That constraint forced us to partner with suppliers in ways we never imagined. We reduced a 12-18month innovation cycles to 3 months. The result? Our most successful launches that decade. Key insight: Every constraint hides an opportunity. 🎯 List your top 3 constraints right now. Pick one. Ask “How might this force us to be brilliant?” 3. The $8M Mistake That Taught Me Everything Years ago, I led a “perfect” innovation project. Great consumer research. Flawless execution. It failed spectacularly. Why? We had curiosity at the top but killed it everywhere else. Only 24% of employees feel curious at work, yet curiosity increases creativity by 34%. That gap is your innovation problem. At my next role: We measured “learning velocity” alongside EBIT. We celebrated fast failures publicly. We made questioning as important as delivering. 🎯 Your move: Ask your teams: “What are we pretending not to know?” Then actually listen. After commercialising 1,200+ innovations globally, from establishing industry-first research hubs, I know this: Curiosity is not a nice to have. It is your sustainable competitive advantage. Sharing this handy question. ❓If your biggest competitor had your constraints but twice your curiosity, what would they do differently? Some 📸 from an inspiring evening of #learning and #unlearning. Lenny Chudri, GAICD Adam Murphy 🌻 Innovation Gamechangers University of Melbourne Melbourne Business School #curiosity #innovation

Wondering what makes great strategic thinkers so impactful? Here’s a glimpse of how these thought leaders have shaped my approach to strategy and business innovation: ☑ Michael Porter – He introduced us to the power of competitive advantage and industry forces, teaching us that strategy is about being different and making deliberate choices in where to compete and how to win. ☑ Richard Rumelt – His focus on good strategy vs. bad strategy reminds me that true strategy is about diagnosing the challenge, creating guiding policies, and taking coherent actions that align with those policies. ☑ Robert Kaplan and David Norton – The pioneers behind the Balanced Scorecard. Their approach taught me how to translate strategy into measurable objectives, ensuring alignment and execution across the organization. ☑ Geoffrey Moore – His concept of crossing the chasm highlighted the importance of understanding technology adoption life cycles, particularly when moving from early adopters to the mass market. ☑ W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne – Their work on Blue Ocean Strategy continues to inspire me to create uncontested market spaces, making the competition irrelevant by focusing on differentiation and low cost. ☑ Roger Martin – His insights on integrative thinking and strategy as choice have deepened my understanding that winning strategies involve making tough choices and embracing ambiguity. ☑ Andy Grove – A pioneer of strategic inflection points, he showed us how businesses must recognize when to pivot or face extinction in the face of market shifts and new technologies. ☑ Vijay Govindarajan (VG) – His work on reverse innovation reminds me that innovation often comes from emerging markets and that disruptive ideas can flow uphill to more established markets. These brilliant minds have each contributed to my journey in building more adaptive, resilient, and impactful strategies. Ps. If you like content like this, please follow me 🙏

Most people misunderstand Philips. They see a legacy brand. They miss an innovation engine. Because what came out of Philips didn’t just succeed on its own. It reshaped entire industries. Not through hype. Through deep, patient innovation. Some of the most critical companies in modern technology didn’t merely collaborate with Philips. They emerged from it. • TSMC   Enabled by Philips’ process know-how, patents, and manufacturing expertise, helping create the world’s first pure-play semiconductor foundry. A model that now underpins the entire chip industry. • ASML   Born from lithography research inside Philips labs. It became the single most strategically important company in semiconductors today. • NXP Semiconductors   Evolved from Philips’ semiconductor division into a global leader in automotive, secure connectivity, and industrial chips. These weren’t incremental successes. They were category-defining breakthroughs. And here’s what’s often missed: Philips didn’t optimize for control. It optimized for impact. It built deep research. Shared capabilities. Spun out talent. And connected ecosystems across continents. That kind of innovation doesn’t come from chasing short-term dominance. It comes from long-term industrial imagination. Three lessons worth sitting with: 1. The most powerful innovation isn’t a product.   It’s a foundation others can build industries on. 2. Some companies matter more as ancestors than as operators.   Their real legacy compounds through what they enable. 3. Innovation doesn’t always look loud or fast.   Sometimes it looks like seeds planted decades ahead of the payoff. Philips proves that world-changing innovation can be quiet in the moment. And overwhelming in hindsight. What other companies should we study not for what they are today, but for what they quietly made possible?

“Innovation leaders ‘have a tolerance for failure—but an intolerance for incompetence.’ Innovation requires freedom to flourish, but boundaries and conditions in order to thrive.” Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on creating an innovative culture with practical examples from leading innovators: - If innovation “hardware” is the strategies, governance, processes, org structure, metrics, etc., then an innovative culture is the “software” that runs on it—the way people interact in an organization to develop and market new products and services to customers. Companies with “hardware” alone are 35% more likely to be innovators, and those with only a strong innovation culture are 60% more likely. But those with BOTH are 90% as likely to be world class innovators, and do it with (on average) 10% fewer FTE’s in innovation roles. - BCG identified four aspects of innovative culture:  (1) What do you celebrate, reward, promote? 3M gives employees the time and space to think beyond their day jobs by letting them spend 15% of their time on side projects. (Post-It notes were an outcome of the “15% rule.”) It created the Tech Forum, an informal forum where employees can collaborate on a project. Mentoring, teaching, and developing others factor into performance reviews, and are requirements for promotion. (2) How do you get new ideas, create, get outside input/customer insights? Unilever relocated its Foods R&D Center to a university campus regarded as one of Europe’s foremost food and agricultural research centers, and partnered with other universities to augment its own expertise and research, expanding access to talent while reducing costs. (3) How do you lead, who makes decisions? EDP, a Portugal-based green utility, balances empowering teams with providing the right level of direction with a process that prioritizes the most promising ideas and vets a large number of ideas through the filters of feasibility and impact. It focuses on solutions first, rather than technology. (4) How do you team, create an inclusive environment that allows everyone to participate and leverages diverse perspectives?  When Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company, got bogged down translating documents from Japanese to English, the CEO announced that all company communications going forward would be in English; only those who learned English (via company-provided training and tools) were promotable. By having one common language, the company was able to access global talent and facilitate collaboration. - Culture leaders: (a) clearly articulate the specific behaviors critical to innovation success, such as balancing freedom with accountability, empowering risk-taking, and playfulness with company standards, (b) provide the “hardware” to support the culture and have leaders who model the desired behaviors, (c) embed the core behaviors in how they hire and incentivize employees. #innovation #innovationculture #insights #teams #empowerment #innovators #culture #collaboration

As leaders, we face a perpetual challenge: how do we take complex, abstract ideas and make them resonate with our teams? I've learned that one of our most powerful tools is our ability to draw meaningful connections to experiences we all understand. When confronted with uncertainty, our minds naturally search for familiar patterns, seeking wisdom from past experiences - analogies. This isn't just instinct, it's a sophisticated cognitive tool. Analogical thinking is the art of drawing meaningful parallels between past experiences and new challenges to gain clarity and make better decisions. A very interesting case study comes to mind. When Reed Hastings (co-founder of Netflix) stood at Netflix's crossroads in 2007, he used analogous thinking to navigate the situation. He saw a parallel in the textile industry. In the early days of industrialization, textile manufacturers powered their factories with in-house energy plants. They saw these power plants as critical to their operations. But when centralized electricity grids became available, the manufacturers who clung to their private power sources struggled, while those who adopted the new grid, thrived. The lesson? Generating electricity wasn’t their true strength; producing textiles was. Reed Hastings applied this same thinking to Netflix in 2007. At the time, Netflix was primarily a DVD rental business, but streaming technology was emerging. Hastings realized that, like the textile companies, Netflix’s real strength wasn’t in distributing physical DVDs but it was in delivering entertainment. Just as the most successful textile companies let go of in-house power generation to focus on production, Netflix needed to let go of DVDs and embrace streaming as the future. This analogy helped Hastings and his team make a difficult but transformative decision: prioritizing streaming, even when it meant disrupting their own successful DVD business. This kind of analogolical thinking shows how the richest insights often come from unexpected connections across different industries. The most powerful analogies don't provide ready-made answers. They offer new ways of seeing and understanding our current challenges. When wielded with caution and awareness, analogical thinking becomes a bridge between past wisdom and future innovation, helping us guide our teams through uncertainty with both confidence and humility. What analogies are shaping your leadership decisions today?

Many senior leaders I work with care deeply about innovation. And still, they experience a tension they don’t always state out loud. Control vs. curiosity. Alignment vs. disagreement. They know innovation doesn’t come from everyone just doing what they’re told. But they also believe that too much freedom, without enough structure, can quickly turn into chaos. What they often do not realize is that they do not need to pick a side. Instead, they need to learn how to hold both at the same time. In my work, I’ve seen that innovative teams don’t try to get rid of dissent. They embrace it and shape it. And they don’t just tell people to “be curious.” They use practices that make curiosity possible, every day. Here are a few principles that help leaders navigate this tension: 1. Keep dissent about ideas, not people. The best debates focus on the work: the data, the assumptions, the trade-offs. Not egos, titles, or who’s “right.” When leaders stay open (especially when they’re being challenged) it gives everyone else permission to do the same. 2. Give curiosity clear boundaries. Curiosity actually works better with structure. Be clear about where experimentation is encouraged, what constraints matter, and when decisions are final. Too much freedom without clarity is overwhelming. Clarity creates room to explore. 3. Don’t mix learning moments with performance moments. If every conversation feels like a test, people stop taking risks. Say out loud when the goal is learning, reflection, or trying things out. And protect those spaces. 4. Reward contribution, not agreement. If people get ahead by agreeing, that’s what they’ll do. If they get ahead by improving thinking, raising risks, and expanding options, you’ll get better decisions. 5. Remember: culture follows behavior, not demands or promises. Curiosity isn’t what leaders say they want. It’s what they notice, what they ask about, and what they act on, especially when things get tense. To me, innovation does not mean letting go of control. It’s about using control more thoughtfully, in ways that leave room for learning, challenge, and discovery. Leaders who get this right build teams and organizations that keep learning long after today’s problems are solved. #teams #collaboration #control #innovation #rules #practices #tension #learning #leadership

Far too often, I see leaders and companies move on from innovation, believing it's only necessary during the startup phase. In reality, it's what keeps companies alive and thriving. As companies grow, it's easy to fall into routine and let creativity fade. But innovation must continue-even as you scale. An older HBR article I came across this morning highlights how breakthroughs in management can create lasting advantages that are hard to replicate. Companies focused only on new products or efficiency often get quickly copied. To stay ahead, businesses must become "serial management innovators," always seeking new ways to transform how they operate. This idea remains as relevant now as it was back then. The benefits of sustained innovation are undeniable: •Competitive Edge •Increased Revenue •Customer Satisfaction •Attracting Talent •Organizational Growth and Employee Retention Embrace the innovation lifecycle-adapting creativity as your organization matures. Sustaining creativity means creating an environment where people feel safe to push boundaries. Encourage your teams to think big, take risks, and use the experience of your organization. Here are three strategies that I’ve seen work firsthand: Make Experimentation a Priority: Mistakes are part of the process—they help us learn, grow, and innovate. As leaders, share your own experiences with risk-taking, talk about what you've learned, and celebrate those who take bold steps, even when things don’t go as planned. It sends a powerful message: it's okay to take risks. Promote Intrapreneurship: Many of the best ideas come from those closest to the work. Encourage your people to think like entrepreneurs. Give them ownership, the tools they need, and the freedom to explore. Whether it’s through ‘innovation sprints’ or dedicated time for passion projects, showing your team that their creativity matters sustains momentum. Address big challenges, ask tough questions, and let your people feel empowered to tackle them head-on. Break Down Silos: True innovation happens when people connect across departments. Create opportunities for cross-functional interactions-through gatherings, open forums, or spontaneous connections. Diverse perspectives lead to game-changing solutions, and breaking down silos opens the door to that kind of synergy. Innovation doesn’t happen by accident. It requires dedication, a commitment to growth, and a willingness to challenge what’s always been done. To all the leaders out there: How are you ensuring your teams remain creative and engaged? What strategies have you found that create space for bold ideas within structured environments? —-- Harvard Business Review, "The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation" #Innovation #Leadership #ContinuousImprovement #Creativity #BusinessGrowth #Intrapreneurship #CrossFunctionalCollaboration #ImpactLab

90% of transformations fail. I know why. (And how to be in the 10%.) I spent years helping CEOs create billion-dollar transformations as head coach for Satya Nadella's innovation team. Here are the principles, patterns, and tools that actually work. The biggest lesson comes down to this: 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝘂𝗰𝗸. 𝗜𝘁'𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱. Every CEO I worked with faced the same challenge: how to transform while still delivering today's results. The winners had three things in common: 1. They started with business outcomes, not technology 2. They built experiments, not just strategies 3. They visualized value before investing millions Inside this playbook: • The "Business Before Technology" framework that kept us from chasing shiny objects • The C.E.O. Pattern (Customer, Employee, Operations) for focusing innovation efforts • Journey mapping techniques we used with Fortune 500s • The micro-story structure that gets executives to actually listen • How to build a culture where experiments drive billions in value This isn't theory. These are the actual tools I used at Microsoft and beyond to help leaders transform. No fluff. Just what works. What's the #1 friction point slowing your organization's transformation? Follow me, J.D. Meier, for frameworks that created billions in business value.

Netflix has become one of the clearest modern case studies in risk based strategy. Almost twenty six years ago, the market leader in home video rentals, Blockbuster, saw a new entrant to the market, Netflix show up with its envelope based direct mail rental service. Ten years later, Blockbuster would file for bankruptcy and Netflix would launch its streaming service taking a market dominating position. Fast forward to this past December when that same video startup, (now a multi market media powerhouse ) would pose its $82.7 Billion Dollar Deal to acquire Warner Bros. Entertainment and HBO in a head turning acquisition. The recent Fortune story highlights how Netflix consistently outperformed legacy media players not by scale alone, but by agility, cultural discipline, and a willingness to challenge its own success before the market forced the issue. Three strategic lessons stand out. ➡️ First, Netflix treats strategy as a living system, not a fixed plan. From DVDs to streaming to original content and global distribution, the company moved early and decisively, often disrupting its own business model while it was still working. ➡️ Second, resilience is cultural, not reactive. Netflix built a high accountability culture that empowers leaders to make fast decisions with clear ownership. That discipline allowed the organization to adapt through industry consolidation pressures involving players like Warner Bros. and Paramount, without losing strategic clarity. ➡️ Third, innovation at Netflix is intentional, not cosmetic. Leadership has consistently challenged the organization to ask what comes next, even when the current model is profitable. That mindset, shaped early by founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph , remains embedded in how the company operates today. For boards and executive teams, the takeaway is clear. Enduring advantage does not come from defending the status quo. It comes from building organizations that can move, learn, and reinvent themselves faster than the market changes around them. That is not just media strategy. It is leadership strategy. Read the full Fortune Story in the comments below. #Strategy #Leadership #Innovation #CorporateCulture #Agility #BusinessTransformation #BoardLeadership