Innovative Leadership: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement.

Ever wondered how to create a culture that fosters innovation within your organization? What if the key lies in psychological safety, collective mindset, and effective leadership? If you're ready to explore these concepts, this episode is for you.

In this episode of the "It's an Inside Job" podcast, we engage in a conversation with Annicken R. Day, a trailblazer in cultural strategy and corporate transformation. Annicken shares her extensive experience as a culture strategist and highlights the importance of fostering innovation within the corporate landscape. She discusses her book, "Fly Butterfly," and her self-development courses, "Happy Life, Happy Work."

Imagine working in an environment where innovation thrives, and everyone feels safe to share ideas and make mistakes. 

By listening to this episode, you can:

1. Understand the Role of Psychological Safety: Learn how creating a trusting and safe environment encourages people to innovate without fear of ridicule or blame.
2. Embrace a Collective Mindset: Discover the importance of a collective mindset where individual egos are set aside for the greater purpose of the team and the company.
3. Implement Effective Leadership Practices: Gain insights into the importance of leaders who communicate effectively, involve team members, and celebrate both successes and failures.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Enhanced Innovation: Develop strategies to create a culture that fosters continuous improvement and risk-taking.
2. Improved Leadership Skills: Learn practical approaches to leadership that inspire and support innovative thinking within your team.
3. Stronger Organizational Culture: Understand the hard work involved in building a meaningful culture that aligns with organizational strategy and performance.

Are you ready to foster an innovative culture within your organization? Scroll up and click play to join our enlightening discussion with Annicken R. Day. 

Learn how to create a safe environment, embrace a collective mindset, and lead effectively to drive innovation. Start your journey towards a more innovative and resilient organisation today!

Contact:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annickenr/
Website: https://www.corporatespring.com

Chapters

• 0:08 Introduction to It's an Inside Job podcast
• 0:45 Introducing Anakin R. Day - A Trailblazer in Cultural Strategy
• 4:26 Exploring the Myths and Realities of Culture and Innovation
• 9:08 Balancing Conflict and the Need to "Kill Your Darlings"
• 13:31 Instilling a Culture of Innovation and Resilience
• 17:54 Leadership parallels between parenting and leading innovation cultures
• 21:45 Learning through challenges and building resilience
• 24:47 The importance of diverse thinking and avoiding groupthink
• 29:38 Creating a Culture Code for Effective Teamwork
• 33:06 Part one: Creating a Culture of Innovation
• 34:39 Cultivating Innovation: The Need for Active Effort
• 39:41 The Art of Giving Feedback: Timing and Balance
• 44:00 The importance of the innovative mindset and staying relevant
• 52:56 Culture is about collective behaviors and values
• 56:00 The challenge of middle leadership in larger companies
• 59:10 Change and innovation as essential parts of company strategy
• 1:02:21 Embracing fear and using it as fuel for growth
• 1:11:55 The Value of Reflection
• 1:14:31 The Importance of Culture in Organizations

Transcript

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

Introduction to It's an Inside Job podcast

[0:09] Welcome back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Liem.
Now this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to become more mentally and emotionally resilient so you can be better at bouncing back from life's inevitable setbacks.
Now on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience into practical advice, skills and strategies that you can use to impact your life and those around you.
And with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:37] Music.

Introducing Anakin R. Day - A Trailblazer in Cultural Strategy

[0:45] Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. I'm glad you can join me for a new week and allow me to be part of your week.
This week, I have a returning guest, Annicken R. Day.
You can find her first episode with me in season four, episode three.
So let me now use a few moments to reintroduce Annicken Day for any of those new to the show.
Now Annicken, she's a trailblazer in the realm of cultural strategy and corporate transformation.
Anakin has dedicated herself to reshaping organizational cultures, drawing from her extensive experience, including roles as Chief Culture Officer for Tanberg and Cultured Strategist for Cisco.
In today's episode, our primary focus will be on innovation and culture within organizations.
We're going to delve deep into the essence of innovation, exploring how to cultivate it within the corporate landscape.
Annicken's expertise in fostering creativity and joy in workplaces will also underscore the vital role of innovation in fortifying organizational resilience.
As we navigate the intricate interplay between culture and innovations, her insights will illuminate the path toward building adaptable and resilient organizations.
Without further ado, let's slip into the stream to meet Annicken R. Day and explore the the ideas of fostering innovation.

[2:06] Music.

[2:18] And I'm so happy to be here again. Maybe you could just briefly introduce who you are and what you do.
Of course, I'm very happy to. So yes, my name is Annikin Day.
I am a culture strategist. I work with corporate culture.
That's kind of my speciality. And I have been doing that for over 20 years now.
I have a company called Corporate Spring.
And what we do, we help companies make their culture a strategy for growth.
And then I'm also an author.
So I've written a book called Fly Butterfly. And I also do self-development courses called Happy Life, Happy Work, which is an online training class.
And recently I've added to my portfolio of things since I just moved to Italy.
I'm originally Norwegian, but I now live in Italy after having spent quite a few years in California.
And that is retreats. So I do chill connect create camps or retreats here in Tuscany a couple of times a year and having my first in a few weeks.
So I'm very excited about that. So lots of fun things in there.
But if you should kind of try to put like one word that is the essence of my career and also like professional passion, it is culture.

[3:34] And I would also like to add innovation, because, you know, you started a company or a founder, or an author and now you've moved to different countries to run your business. And now here you are in Tuscany running retreats. So there's an innovative process. This episode is a part of a series I want to run this month on innovation. And I want to include culture into that.
Recently, not too long ago, you wrote an article on LinkedIn about myths and bust those myths when it comes to cultures.
So I was wondering, maybe we could explore some of those things around culture and then sort of circle back and how we connect this to sort of an innovative mindset or innovative culture.
Would that be an okay roadmap for you?

Exploring the Myths and Realities of Culture and Innovation

[4:26] Absolutely. And actually, I wanna share like a quick story before that, because when you said added innovation, it just reminded me of something because I've been working with culture on the inside of large companies for quite a few years.
I was part of Tenberg, which was a huge technology success company with.

[4:49] Very, very strong focus on culture, as strong as it actually hired me as its chief culture officer.
And this was back in 2002. That was long before people, most people talked about, you know, the importance of culture.
And my job was to help build the company to be able to do extraordinary things, grow while keeping our values, and become the world leader in technology and video conferencing that.

[5:14] We were aiming to become.
And it was all about innovation, but the interesting thing is we never talked about innovation.
You know, it's a little bit like the fish never talks by water.
We never talked about innovation because that was everything that, you know, we stood for.
It was all about challenging ourselves, thinking new, growing, learning, failing, trying again, you know, and not letting limiting beliefs stop us for anything.
And so I've been asked many times about innovation culture and the innovation culture that I helped build in Turnberg.
And that made me just think that I very rarely use the word innovation.
I talk about culture, but it is about creating a culture that enables innovation.
So that's kind of how I talk about it. But yes, you're right.
I also have a very, you know, I'm passionate about innovation as such, but I don't think I use that word as much either, but I definitely do live by it.
So yeah. reminding me of that. Yeah, no, no worries, no worries. Well, maybe I'd like to kind of maybe start there. I mean, you've come from, obviously, a culture of Tanberg originally that didn't have to use the word innovation because it was in its DNA as a company. From your perspective, how would you operationally define innovation? What is an innovative mindset?

[6:39] Well, I think in order to create an environment that allows innovation it has to be very trusting.
It has to be very free.
It has to allow people to come up with crazy ideas and not being afraid to be ridiculed or you know not being blamed if they make mistakes and all that.
So it's very much about creating a safe environment. We talk a lot about psychological safety, which I think is crucial in order to have, that.
Trusting relationships. It's about having a common purpose that everyone kind of knows why they're there and what they're working towards.

[7:19] And I think the most dangerous thing you can do if you want to have an innovative culture is to limit people, like also in the way they are organized or what they're asked to do and all that.
Have very often you see companies where you have over here is the innovation department like you guys do innovation the rest of you do the work.
But I believe like if everyone in the whole company knows that okay we're here to do something extraordinary and we all need to look at all the time how we can do things better, differently, how we can take chances just to become like the best version of what we can be as a team, as a company.
So for me, it always boils down to culture. It's the environment that you create.
And without that kind of environment, it's very hard to make real innovation happen.
And I know this because I've seen a lot of companies that are trying to figure out how, to become more innovative and creative.

[8:18] But I always tell them, if you're not willing to do the hard work, which is actually creating a place where people dare to be innovative and they are inspired to be innovative, that's That's going to be a hard nut to crack.
You know, innovation for me, you know, there's a number of adjectives I could assign to that, such as change, such as creativity, such as curiosity. But an important element, I think, is also conflict. I mean, if we can come up with innovative ideas, but sometimes we can become so enamored with our own idea that we stick all our eggs into one basket. And if we don't learn to kill our darlings, you know, then we can get so jaded if our idea doesn't float and it sinks.

Balancing Conflict and the Need to "Kill Your Darlings"

[9:08] Now, I think part of an innovative culture, from my understanding, and again, this is from a layman's perspective, is that you need to be able to have some level of conflict to discuss ideas, to play with ideas, but to understand that not all ideas will take off, that some will crash and burn, and that we have to some extent, you know, kill our darlings. What I mean by that, we can't be so locked in, so enamored on one particular idea because we've invested so much time.

[9:38] For me, innovation also means that there's a plethora of different ideas and that everyone brings in, you know, a spectrum of different ideas to play with. I mean, what's some of your thoughts on this? Well I have another great example to you of the first thing you talked about that you sometimes have to kill your darlings and this was back in the Tamberg days and we had you know the R&D department and we're working on lots of different products and solutions and all that right and then like once in a while and actually quite often there could be a team that that had worked so hard on a project, and they were so happy, and they were so proud of their achievement, and they'd given it all for such a long time, for a year.
Then there's a strategy meeting where you're actually looking at, okay, what is going to be our core products, core business moving forward?
They actually had to kill some of those projects, even though they had gone really well, even though they had this team, and they could have worked on it for a year, and created something extraordinary.

[10:46] But being able to say, you know what, it was great.
You did an amazing job, but this is not going to be part of our portfolio or strategies.
We just have to stop this project.
It's a really, really hard thing to do as a leader, and it's a really hard thing to experience as a person who's given their all and their night and day for such a long time.
But then again, you come back to culture. Because if everyone is there, They know they're there for a greater purpose.
They're there for making the company and the team and these products go out in the world and make it a better world, which was what we really believed.
And I still think to a large extent we did in Timbre, because we were one of the first ones who brought videoconferencing to the world.

[11:32] But the fact that people then accepted it, and we even had like little morning time.
It was like a week or two just like chill, work on some fun project before we start on the next one.
But everyone understood the reasoning behind it. They respected it, even though they didn't like it.
There was also, thanks to the culture and a common understanding that sometimes that just happens.
So yes, you're so right and I think you said another thing which is extremely important and that is you just cannot have egos in such a setting.
Because if there's an ego and a person with his own or her own agenda who wants to be there and stand like a shining star and just like they go right to the deathbed to just like make this product live on, you know, it will be of the wrong reasons.
You also need people to collectively buy into we here as a part of something bigger than ourselves and we're doing this together and it's not about me or you or them, it's about all of us. And I think when you create that kind of culture, you know, you can handle anything and you talk a lot about resilience. I heard you talk about and I think that is like you create that kind of resilience that you can take the ups and downs and the challenges that comes along the way because you're part of something bigger.

[12:52] You know, an innovative culture for me, it seems it requires a lot of investment, a lot of cultivating, because we can all be ego-driven.
I mean, we can get so dedicated to a certain project that to think that project is not going to be a part of a portfolio or part of a strategy moving forward, you know, that can gut many people, depending upon how invested.
So to sort of front-load, to try to minimize that, I don't think you can ever completely wipe that out, but to sort of mitigate some of that impact, taking it too hard when we have to kill a project.

Instilling a Culture of Innovation and Resilience

[13:31] From your experience at Tandberg, and obviously as a consultant working in many different, companies, how does the leadership, how does a team leader or a project head instill that kind of mindset?
How do we do this nuts and bolts?

[13:50] I'm just going to keep on repeating myself sometimes, but it boils down to culture again.
But of course, it is also a culture of leadership.

[13:59] Because the kind of leaders that I see are most successful in leading these innovation cultures and are able to take people through also that painful process of killing their project, is the ones who really communicate and involve people, explain the why, you know, respect them, and don't just sit there in an office and make a decision and tell people about it.
They include people also in the process of it, you know, so people kind of almost see it coming and if not, even though they know they're not the final, have the final decision, there is just like an understanding that this can happen.

[14:40] And also the respect for what has been achieved and celebration.
So one of the greatest leaders I know of in that area is a person who celebrates the losses and the failures as much as the wins.
Because in his opinion, when you fail, you have tried something new, and if you don't fail, you just sit still.
And so he actually believes in celebrating when something went wrong as well.
So it was this project, and this is a client of mine, that didn't work out as well.
But he threw a party for the team who'd done that because they deserved to be celebrated for that.
They wouldn't be on the stage because they had the best product, but they were celebrated internally because they gave it their best and gave it a shot, and that's worth a lot as well.

[15:31] You know, a lot of what you say is a lot that we can, when we're talking about parenting, example, right? We don't always want to judge a child or a teenager or a team member or any human being just simply based on the outcome because the outcome can shift depending upon variables.
And a lot of the times we don't even know or we can't even see the variables in play.

[15:52] And so, coming back to the effort, it's looking at the effort. You know, Carol Dweck called it the growth mindset, right? And not a fixed mindset. And it sounds like this client of yours, you know, he or she had their head in the right place, because maybe it didn't cross the finishing line. But what we were celebrating is not so much the product, but the effort or the initiative and all the motivations and thoughts and the sweat and blood that went into trying to make that idea or product float. Is that what I'm understanding you're here? Or am I drawing too many parallels with other things?
No, I love your parallels. No, it's so true. And growth mindset is key. I mean, when you talk about innovation culture, growth mindset is key.

[16:37] And I call it the people long-stalking attitude, you know, she used to say, I've never done this before, so I'm sure I can figure it out, you know.
And that's the whole thing. Yes, you haven't done it before, but that's exactly why you have to try to do it.
Yeah, no one has. And the worst, absolutely worst you hear is like, people, well, we've done this before and it didn't work.
Well, let's try it again, because it might work next time, you know.
So it's that not being jaded and not like stopping just because it didn't work didn't work out first time. There's so many examples through history.
Like people just had to try again and again and again and fail many, many times.
And then they made it. So imagine how much innovation that hasn't happened just because people gave up too early.
So that is also as a leader to be also that cheerleader and be that like having the torch, you know, showing the way and being the cheerleader and also the one, the comforter when things are going tough, you know, you can also be the shoulder to cry on.
And it's all, you know, for me, always when I talk about leadership, it boils down to being human.
It boils down to just as you do the parallel, you know, the parenting, 100% yes.
It's so much similarities there.
I think if you're, sometimes if you know how to be a good parent, you will know how to be a good leader and vice versa.

Leadership parallels between parenting and leading innovation cultures

[17:54] You know, often when I'm running workshops and working with teams and such, I sometimes Let's go back and share sort of my dad's philosophy that he constantly instilled in myself and my brother is that he used to say, you know, Jason, when you move into any situation, there's only two outcomes.
You either succeed or you'll learn. And you know, if you succeed, celebrate, take the time to celebrate before you move on.

[18:19] When you learn, it's just another way of saying when you flop up, fail and you know, trip up.
To feel whatever emotions, you know, disappointment or incompetence or what have you, fine.
Listen to the emotions, understand those emotions, but they do not define you.
They define the situation maybe.
But the question is, after you've got over that and don't spend more than 24, 48 hours, you know, sinking in that emotions, you can pity yourself for a bit, but pick yourself up, learn from the situation, adapt, and maybe in your vernacular, innovate, you know, move move forward, evolve, adapt, grow, develop, whatever, whatever verb we want to use.
So when you speak of that, I can almost hear my dad, you know, my dad's voice when he was on the planet, saying that philosophy to me, even as growing up, and I think that philosophy has always stuck with me and it's given me a deep sense of resilience.
And that's something I incorporate in a lot of my training. And I hear you, Anakin, you almost, we almost have the same philosophy in that sense.
We use different language, but I think we kind of resonate in that same sort of sphere of ideas.
Yeah, first of all, I have to say what a wise dad you had. That sounds absolutely amazing to, you know, to have that kind of wisdom already installed in you as a kid. I think most of us.

[19:42] We learned it through trying and failing and maybe you know our parents said some of it, but just like to be able to articulate it that way, that was amazing. I think I didn't learn, exactly what you said now until I actually, I did join Tamberg, which were you know, we had a a chairman and we had a leadership board and there was so much, you know, talk about philosophy.
We discussed that it was just like beliefs and values and philosophy and that you could be guided by that. And I think that was such a, you know, life-changing experience for me to hear.
And I also want to say, these were not philosophers. These were like really hardcore businessmen.

[20:25] But they also knew that in order to create this kind of environment, you had to create this kind of culture where people believed in something and were allowed to show up and become the best version of themselves.
And that there was like certain fundamentals that makes that happen.
And I think your father's wisdom captured that so well.
My father wasn't highly educated. I mean, he was a factory worker.
He was an immigrant that came, moved to Canada after he met my mom in England.
And you know, so it has nothing to do per se with how much educational it is.
I think it's a mindset. It's a mindset that we can adopt and then we can take on.
And yeah, he taught me that philosophy, but I actually had to experience failure and flop ups and messing up for it to actually, that's what he meant.
You know, once experience taught me and I connected to my father's, if we can call it wisdom or his philosophy, that's when I connected the bridge and it's like, ah, and that became sort of wisdom, if I may use that, and then that's kind of sat with me.
But I think it's only through experience that you learn this, that, you know, you can read it in a textbook fine, but I think experience knowledge is so much more valuable than simply which is text knowledge, textbook knowledge.

Learning through challenges and building resilience

[21:46] Yes, 100% and then we jump back to our kids, right? And it doesn't matter how much we want them to be happy and safe and all that, but we know that is from their challenges, they will learn.
That's how they will be stronger. That's how they will build resilience.
And I think as parents, maybe we protect our kids a bit too much sometimes because like, yeah, well, they will have to learn later then if they don't learn it earlier.
So it is, as you said, learning by doing. I think that goes for anything.
And that is essential for innovation.
It is learning by doing. You can't innovate by reading a textbook and follow a, you know, a template or like a list of things to do. You just have to go through the motion and do the experimenting and do the failing and all that. It's just part of the game.

[22:34] And I think that's so important because when we talk about psychological safety, you know, it's almost sometimes it goes too far where an organization will completely bubble wrap someone.
So if they fall down, and they'll kind of bounce.
But you know what? I think it's the same thing, the same philosophy when you see little kids playing or in some competition and everybody's a winner.
That's not how life works. I mean, if kids don't understand, if adults, if any human being doesn't understand that sometimes you have to scrape your knees, sometimes you're gonna have to get a little banged up and bruised up, but it's from that banged up and bruising up that we learn that we do become more resilient Because resilience is nothing that's just given to us.
It's something we have to earn. And you have to go through the crucible of disappointment and pain and failure and rejection.
Even those things don't feel good.
They're actually those emotions that are some of the best teachers on this planet from the human condition.

[23:33] You just said something. I just keep on jumping back to what you're saying because I think this is so interesting.
Because when you said that bubble wrapping thing, I actually had that conversation with another client of mine who wanted to work with how to create psychological safety and ended up bubble wrapping the whole organization.
So it was so safe that people, and I said like, you know what, innovation actually doesn't happen just out of that.
There has to be these frictions as well. It has to be, you know, sometimes you have to throw them out, in the deep water and just see if they swim as well.
You can't just like have them back on the shore feel safe because nothing will happen then. So I think like it's so interesting because we typically take these concepts and I know so many talk about psychological safety now and I'm a huge believer burn it. But you have to like.
Look at it a bit more nuanced than it's all about that, because there's other things as well that you really have in order.
Honestly, a lot of my jobs, I wouldn't say, oh, they were psychological safe.
I mean, they didn't throw me under the bus when I made a mistake.
Well, that's good. But no one told me that I was psychologically safe. I just hoped I was.
It's something about that as well.

The importance of diverse thinking and avoiding groupthink

[24:47] I think some friction, some tension, some challenges, And we must also be like dare to challenge others, but also to be challenged, you know?
And that's part of it. And innovation doesn't happen just like everyone's sitting around a table and agreeing on something. Like nothing new comes out of that.
And we come from the Scandinavian consensus culture.
And we also come, you know, we talk about, it's so important to be kind.
And as much as I love that whole philosophy of being kind, some people think that being kind is to not having any arguments, or not having discussions, or not giving any real feedback.
I'd say that's not being kind. It's not kind to not do that.

[25:35] Sometimes people become a little bit, I don't know, just like dancing around each other.
Then someone suddenly says, oh, I disagree with that.
I really think we should try this.
You can actually liven up the whole crowd, like finally someone who spoke up.
Being that person sometimes that does speak up and does challenge it and sometimes challenge it just to challenge it, I think that's really important.
Back to how do you create these environments? You have to also look at the kind of people you have in a company or in a team.
You have to look for people that actually see, have the courage to speak up and do have these different kinds of ideas and have a diverse way of thinking from the rest of the group, because one of the things that I think is most challenging and that I see in lots of companies is groupthink. Everyone kind of walk around and say the same and think the same. They come from the same schools, the same education. It's dangerous.
It's really dangerous if you want to be innovative and you want to kind of create something new.
So that's an important part of it as well. Who do you actually have in the team?

[26:46] And I think there's two things that you brought up. One is diversity and there's the first one I'd like to talk about is what you kind of brought up but in my language I might call them there's two moral imperatives. Meaning that imperative is something that's important and we're driven by two things and I think innovation means to sometimes cross swords about ideas and that.

[27:07] Sometimes it will end up in some level of conflict. And coming back to what you said, you said being kind. You know, I always see these two moral imperatives of being honest.

[27:20] Speaking the truth, and benevolence, being nice and being kind. And I think a lot of people find having hard conversations, especially when it comes to innovation per se, is that I have to either choose honesty versus benevolence, being nice. And they see it as crossroads. And so a lot of sometimes what I've seen from experience is that people will sacrifice honesty for being nice.

[27:47] Exactly what you said. They won't address the issue because they don't want to rock the boat.
They don't want to hurt anyone. But I think that's a very sort of short-term perspective because they get so wrapped up in the here and now and how that conversation is going to make them emotionally feel and what they believe the other person's going to feel. But what you said, an innovative mindset in itself is someone who can take the longer perspective.
They know if I'm going to be honest, it will create some level of social pain and disappointment or whatever you want to call it.
But in the long run, I'm also being nice because what that means is if I can balance benevolence with honesty and take the long-term perspective, that means we can have a hard conversation now.
Emotionally hard-hitting for both of us, but we'll get over that discomfort because we're not wrapped up in bubble wrap. And so we can move things forward. We can have a better product, a better idea, a better performance of whatever system we're trying to build together.
But if you can't have that hard conversation because you're thinking, if I'm going to be honest, I'm going to hurt them, and then you scrap that, well, for me, that's not sort of a real innovative type of mindset.
And again, this is from a very layman's perspective.

[29:08] No, but you're spot on because, and then it boils back again to how much you trust each other as people in order to be honest, in order to also feel it's safe to speak your opinion.
But I think an underestimated thing to do in, especially like innovation teams or any kind of team, including leadership team, is to have those really, really honest.

Creating a Culture Code for Effective Teamwork

[29:39] Discussions about how are we going to work together? How are we, what is our way, our code, I call it like a culture code.
How do we speak? How do we solve problems?
If something like that happens, how do we solve that?
Because when you do that, you actually create that safe space where you have as a team agreed, we are going to be honest with each other.
We do it for the greater good.
We are going to, if something doesn't work out well, then we are going to tell each other.
It's going to be okay. We will know it comes from a good place.
We believe in each other's good intentions.
It can be as simple as that. Just have that really good, open, honest discussion.
I often recommend doing that in the beginning of a project team, a team that's put together, not going to solve this problem or create this product, whatever.
It's like start out with a whole day, with a team, and just talk about how you're going to make this happen.
How are you going to talk together?
Instead, most companies or most teams, they get this project plan and they start running.

[30:42] And then all these stuff happen along the way and they don't know how to handle it.
So, and they never agreed that they should be honest with each other.
So they end up not being honest with each other.
So I said, you will save so much time if you start out every project, every, and sometimes even, you know, a team meeting, we're like, okay, how are we going to pull this together?
How are we going to treat each other, talk to each other?
What's okay, what's not okay?
That's an underestimated value to do in any kind of situation when you are going to create or do something together with other people.

[31:15] So as I understand what you're suggesting and from your experience is that it may be a good idea for a team, a creative team, an innovative team, they should have an alignment meeting on expectations. So before we start talking about the project let's align on expectations of how we can confront each other. Yes or how are we going to make this happen, how are we going to work together as a team? What are the ways of communicating? How do we handle unexpected issues? How do we, if someone in the team is not living up to our agreement, how do we handle that? It's.

[31:56] All about these interpersonal things that is taking so much energy and takes so much time and is actually one of the reasons why a lot of projects and a lot of things don't, workout, it is about the human dynamics.
I'm just a huge believer in addressing human dynamics from the very beginning.
That is also why sometimes I go in and help teams just start out and we say, what's the culture code for this project?
Then it can actually change a little bit for another project.
It depends a little bit what you're there to do.
So it's not like it's always the same, but if you are going to create a product that's going to change the world, you can't just like go around and pat each other on the back and say, oh, that's nice.
You have to challenge each other. You have to challenge yourself.
And, you know, you have to have a very particular kind of environment to do that.
And I just think people give this too little thought in the beginning of every episode.

[32:58] Music.

Part one: Creating a Culture of Innovation

[33:07] Part one, Anakin outlines her perspective on innovation, emphasizing the necessity of a trusting and free environment.
She stresses the importance of allowing people to express unconventional ideas without the fear of ridicule, creating a psychological safe space in other words.
According to her, innovation hinges on the culture cultivated within an organization.
It involves fostering creativity, curiosity, and addressing conflicts, even if it means letting go of our cherished ideas. A process she describes as killing your darlings.
Central to innovation is a collective mindset that transcends individual ego.
And it can suggest that celebrating efforts and embracing a growth mindset where failures are seen as opportunities to learn, well, that's essential. She believes in striking a delicate balance where psychological safety doesn't suppress the essential tension and challenges that naturally come with innovation.
In Part 1, Anakin also delved into the critical problem of groupthink and the delicate equilibrium between being honest and being benevolent.
Anakin recommends establishing a customized culture code that outlines how the team will interact, how it will communicate, problem-solve together, and how it will resolve conflicts.
So now let's slip back into the stream with Anakin Arday where we will continue exploring the interaction of cultures.

[34:30] Music.

Cultivating Innovation: The Need for Active Effort

[34:40] We're thinking about innovation, you know, a lot of people think, oh, it's a creative process, it's organic, it flows. But that would beg the question to have the infrastructure that we've talked about to create an innovative culture. I mean, how much does it have to be actively sort of cultivated? I mean, is it something we can just let grow like a crazy garden or is it something we need to cultivate and to manicure per se to create such a vibrancy of culture?

[35:11] I believe in the latter. Just as I don't believe you should just let your culture happen by chance and hope for the best, I don't hope you should do that with innovation either and just like yeah just like let's create that environment and hope that people will innovate. I think you actually have to put things in structure and in place and to you know trigger certain things or encourage it it or just like make things happen.
And that could be like dedicated meetings talking about things like that.
It could be ways of, you know, I'm a huge supporter and believer in feedback culture as well.
But putting it into a system, not just hoping that whoever tries to or feels like giving feedback, gives feedback.
But some of the most successful projects that I've seen, people who are so have embedded feedback culture so strongly in what they do. So for every little task, Every time you sit down, how did this work? What can we learn from this?
So whenever one person made a mistake, everyone could learn from that mistake because that was part of it. And then everyone around the room could come with suggestions of how can you do it better next time.
And it all came from a good place. So the person actually was only grateful to get all these, as they said, free coaching, someone called it, because they got so many ideas of how you can just solve that problem better next time.

[36:31] And it creates that, but it doesn't just happen by itself. You have to put some kind of effort into making these kind of conversations find place as well.

[36:41] So what I hear is that, you know, companies have to be very cognizant to create a space where after a project or something has happened, where they can actually sort of do sort of a diagnosis, like look at it as a case study. And hopefully the emotional weight is no longer there because it's kind of the project being done and dusted. But now we can use it as a case study and sort of draw best practices or best learnings from that. Is that what I understand you're saying?
Yes, yes. And it's not easy, you know, because also what happens is as humans, we don't love receiving feedback. I mean, it's very human not wanting feedback. So even though you know it will make you better, you still will want to avoid it at all costs because it hurts.
I can actually give an example from my own work because I stand in front of people if I'm on a stage or I have a workshop or a group and all that. And I always want to improve. I want to be better.
And I have a pretty, you know, I can be pretty judgmental on my own behalf, so I do have a lot of like, analysts going on. Yeah, the self-criticism.
Yeah, the self-criticism, that's pretty hard. So I was so, because I was a promoter of feedback culture, I wanted to be a role model for that.
So I was like, okay, so after every workshop, after every talk, like, come and tell me, did I do good, what can I do better, and all that.

[38:09] Then I realized as I was standing on stage, I was getting nervous about what people are going to say to me when I walked off the stage.
I was just starting to feel the whole emotional, how I didn't want that feedback because I actually just want to be told how great I was, just because that's the human nature.
But then again, I did want to get better. What I learned through my own experience, and it's also what I advise others, It's like, so when you have a project, you're like you're ending something.

[38:41] Don't just do it right away. I mean, don't go like, okay, you were on stage there, this was good, this was not so good because you're very vulnerable at certain times.
So let the self-reflection happen first and just like things land a little bit.
Then so typically what I tell people is like, hey, can we talk tomorrow or the day after?
Like today I'm on a high or today I just would enjoy the fact that I think I pulled it off.
It feels good. Tomorrow, can we talk about what I could do better because then I will be ready.
So I think when we talk about feedback culture and this goes for teams and individuals and all that, I think sometimes you just think you should just throw out feedback here and there and all the time.
But because human nature is our strong dislike of being told that what we're not good at.

[39:27] Having that structure around it again, just like and also the timing of it.
So when is it good to give feedback? Well, it is when it's landed, you had a little bit of breathing and reflecting and then, okay, let's talk about how we can do this better next time.

The Art of Giving Feedback: Timing and Balance

[39:42] So I think that's also an important, because sometimes I work with companies and they say, oh, we have a strong feedback culture. It's like everyone kind of shouting out to each other, oh, you shouldn't have done it that way, or you could have done this better.
You know, I was like, that's not feedback culture. That's just like being harsh to each other.
So that's also, I think, we need to like, everything needs to be a certain balance.
You know, it's not black and white.
There's a lot of gray zones in between. And to navigate that, I think, is a really important responsibility where we have like as leaders and if you're leading a project, it's just like where, how would we like to create this for the best and optimal results?

[40:20] No, I think it's very important. I mean, you need someone at the sort of the top that's leading such processes or a team.
It doesn't matter if they're introverted or extroverted, but that they have psychosocial emotional intelligence, that they are able to tap into people's thoughts, to understand the narrative they're assigning to it, to tap into the emotions and to address those emotions, whether they are positive or negative, we can just call it that.
And also to understand sometimes what the behavior is, right?
In a simple sense that you have a leader or a project head who can tap into the head, the heart, and the hand, and look at those three areas to create sort of that inclusive, diverse culture in order to spin off some sort of innovative thinking or innovative mindset.
Does this kind of, is this some of the things you saw at Tanberg at your previous job or working with some of the clients.

[41:23] Absolutely. And I also love what you say. I mean, it's so many different parts. You can't only speak to people's heads, for example, you have to speak to their hearts as well.
You also have to inspire them to actually do something, right? So it's all that. And when you are able to, you know, awaken people's hearts and their passion for a project or whatever they do, you know, they will be doing it, they will be running, you know, all that.
But sometimes you think that, oh, no, it's all the rational, no, it's emotional.
I mean, innovation is emotional, culture is emotional, business is emotional, leadership is emotional, because this is like, and that's people are emotional, most of all, right?
We think we're emotional beings.
And I think when you realize that, everything gets a little bit easier when you realize it's all it's not all about rationale here.
Actually how do you get people to want to be part of it and to give it all and take those risks in order to create something extraordinary. And my favorite poet, Maya Angelou, she had this beautiful saying and she always said.

[42:31] That, or she used to say that, it's not about what you do, it's not about what you say, but it's how you make people feel. And I think that goes to culture and to leadership and to innovation as well. I think that has a a lot to do with how our memories are formed, right? Because there's always a level of emotions, you know, and memories are only formed by the emotional significance. So if I asked you what you did last Tuesday for lunch.
Oh, I had an amazing spaghetti vongole with white wine. Yeah, Tuscany. Yeah. But then that's emotional significance. You remember it, right? Innovation is that if you have the emotions that are associated with the thought process, it just lights up the brain and then we can also draw from experience. And usually what we draw from are things that have emotional significance, that have emotional gravitas. And that's how we can kind of fuse this. A lot of organizations, I know that they're fast paced, they got so much coming at them. And it actually for them, it's actually a luxury if they can actually find the time in a working day or working week to actually take apart something so they can learn from it. What suggestions would you make, Anakin? You know, so pragmatically, if someone, a manager comes up to you and says, look, Anakin, you know, that's great.
But in the reality of our corporation and what we're in our business, this is not going to fly, how would you convince him or her that no this isn't it?

The importance of the innovative mindset and staying relevant

[44:00] Important process of the innovative mindset if you're going to stay resilient, if you're going to stay relevant moving forward?
Well, one of the very simple, powerful models I sometimes share with leaders who say that, you should know that most people, you already know that, that most leaders actually do say that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we don't have time for this culture stuff, we don't have time to talk about innovation, we're here to get work done.
I was like, okay, well, that's actually what it is because culture is how we get worked up.
Anyway, but then I asked them, so people are running really hard, fast and working really hard.

[44:38] How do you know that they're running towards the right place and working on the right things, and spending all this time they are working on what will actually take you where you need to go?
I'm sure you're aware of Simon Sinek's, the golden circle like he has.
Oh, yeah, he's from the same province I am in Canada. Yeah, okay.
Okay. Not far from where I was, I grew up actually.
Really? Yeah. Yeah. And he, yeah, that those three, these three circles are, are so brilliant in their simplicity.
I wish I had come up with those, by the way, just the why, what and how, right? Exactly.
Yes. So it starts with the inner circle is the why and then comes the hows and then comes the what.
Says like most companies and he's referring to Apple, for example, like not Apple, like other companies, they start the what.
So they talk about what we do, what we create, what we have, what our products do and all.

[45:34] That. And, but very rarely talk about why, why do these products exist?
Why are they all right? Well, that goes also for, for work.
So I said, okay, so, so you have this team and they're doing all these what's, they have this project, they have this to-do list, they have these meetings, and they have these whatever they are doing.
But do people really know why they're doing what they're doing?
Do they have an understanding what is the greater purpose of this product, or what is the greater purpose of a company and why am I doing?
So I said, if you start with the purpose, start with who you are, what you're here to achieve, what is your overall objectives and goals, and then the next one will be how, which is the second circle, how are we going to work together to make this happen?
What kind of culture do you need to build in order to fulfill that purpose?
And then the third outer circle is what?
What are you going to do?
They say the problem is that you just do the what's and your team has no idea of why they're actually doing it.
So how can you know they're doing the right thing?

[46:40] And that's usually like a little bit of, eye-opener because they said like, well, I'm not actually sure they do know why they're here, and I'm not sure if they are spending the time on the right things.
They say, okay, well, that might be worthwhile to spend a day or two to investigate that, to see that you all align on the why, and align around the how, and then you can just let them free, and then they come out and run on the what's.
But at least you know they're working on the things or doing things that make sense, and that is supporting the business and not just doing it because someone once told them to do it, and it might have been a good idea back then, but now maybe it doesn't make sense anymore.
But they don't know because they haven't, you know, been invited to have that thought process of going through why, how, and what.
I mean, if we broaden the altitude and the latitude of this conversation of what you've just talked about, what you've just articulated, the why, what, and how, I mean, if you look at one of the greatest fighting forces on this planet, it's the Americans.
I mean, the American Marines, whatever, and how they've influenced NATO.
And just back to what you said, you know, if the commanders will tell the what of the mission and why they're doing that mission.
So they have the reasoning why they're doing it because sometimes the platoon or.

[47:52] The soldiers out there, communications may get cut off. But what they figured out, if they understand the what and the why of the mission, then they can figure out the how of implementation.
And I think that is where you have centralized command and decentralized control is so important.
And that comes to the innovative process. Again, now I'm just making sort of links here to increase the broadness perspective, because those soldiers don't really know what and why they're doing it.
It's hard for them to achieve the mission. And I think sometimes that's what you see the difference between almost like the Ukrainians and the Russians. The Ukrainians have that ability to adapt and constantly evolve to the situations where the Russians become very stagnant because Everything is centralized command and centralized control, and they don't allow the implementation or the innovative thinking across the battlefield.
So this is not just in the meeting room or the laboratory.
This is also real life, you know, combat battlefield experience.
So everything you're talking about, it can, it has, you can see its imprint.

[49:02] On so many different aspects of what domains, different domains if I may say it that way. Yes, no, no, that's the brutal truth. If people don't know why they're doing what they're doing, they will just perform a task. You know, their hearts and even their minds won't be in it. It would just be the hands, right? The hands are doing doing what their hands are told.

[49:25] But if you really want to engage people, you will have to take them through the reason behind it.
That's again, you see the most passionate teams, the one that feel they're on a purpose, are also the ones that are most successful.
There's so much research done on that from the business world, where you see investing in people's, how they feel about the company.
They feel it's meaningful and they feel they're valued and they're enjoying their jobs.

[49:52] I mean, those companies are up to 50% more profitable than others.
So it's like, it makes perfect business sense, but a lot of companies just don't think about it in that way because they think that is something, oh, that's for a rainy day.
So one of the things when we're coming back to the culture myth that we started with, one of the culture myths that I hear a lot is that, well, culture, that's this soft thing, right?
Soft stuff that, you know, maybe we do it another time or we can delegate it to HR or we can have someone else do that.
And that's when I say that's what you got wrong, because there's nothing soft about culture.
Culture is hard. It's really hard. It's not easy to work with, but it does also generate hardcore results.
And also because it's hard means that a lot of leaders avoid it, because you know what's really hard about culture, it is about values, it's about mindsets, it's about behaviors, it's about emotions, it's about creating, you know, building relationships, it's about human dynamics, all these things that most leaders never learn in business school and haven't really the skills or the competence or ability to do something about it.
And that's why I think a lot of leaders avoid it.
But when I show the data and the statistics and everything, that this is actually...

[51:19] Drives your business, this is what creates Would you even think about delegating that?
That's your job. You're here to run a successful business.
And these are the people who's going to make that happen. So don't say culture is soft.
Culture is hardcore strategy.
And if you want to innovate, you cannot innovate without making that investment and making that focus also in creating that kind of culture.
Yeah, I think we've addressed two or three of the myths. One is it's not soft stuff.
It's actually hard stuff, right?
It's something that has real world impact on strategy or performance and such.
And I think the other one is that culture just happens. No, it's something that you have to cognizantly cultivate and grow and to constantly address.
And there was another one you talked about.
Yeah, I was wondering if you could elaborate why culture is not just about perks and how it can actually influence collective behavior and habits in an organization.
Yeah, because maybe this is the most normal one. When I ask people, even executives, like, what is your culture like?
And they say, oh, our culture is great.
I'm like, great. Tell me about it.
Well, you know, we have free lunch and once a month people can bring their dogs to work.

[52:39] And we have a ping pong table in the lunchroom. And we have a ping pong table.
So our culture is great.
And that's when I say, you know what, what you just talked about, that's perks.
That's a great thing to have. and I salute you for having that in your company.
Keep on doing that.

Culture is about collective behaviors and values

[52:56] But that's not culture because culture is actually about collective behaviors.
It's what people do every day. It's how they show up.
It's how they collaborate. It's how they solve problems.
It's how they build your products, treat your customers. It's all about what they do, and it comes from a place of values and mindsets, and to think that just because you have certain things, and people might be happy about in the moment, But it doesn't in any way define behavior, give people any guidance of how they're going to show up at work and how they're going to treat each other.
That's where what we talked about earlier, like a culture code comes in.
That's not really hard to make.
A lot of companies have values and unfortunately, a lot of companies don't use their values.
It's lost a little bit of its magic. I'm a huge believer in values as long as they're lived by, and they're real and authentic, and people are guided by them and inspired by them and recognize them, then values is amazing.

[54:02] But so many companies just have their values on the wall and no one knows they are and don't really care about and don't recognize them in leadership behavior.
And that's when I said, like, typically, what you can do is just sit down and decide, okay, how are we going to work together?
What is what's going to be our culture code, the way we solve problems, the way we treat each other, the way we, you know, treat our customers. It's all those little tiny things.
What we do, what's the do's and the don'ts kind of our day-to-day interactions. That.

[54:33] Is not a big, difficult job, but so few do that. And that's what I say, like, okay, you have all these perks, now get yourself a culture code as well, and you'll be good to go.
It sounds like you need to prioritize the practice of some of this. When I'm in and out of.

[54:50] Organizations sometimes i see there's a discrepancy between what it's sort of let's say an executive's intention and employees perceptions when it comes to culture i mean if i can call it this gap how can we bridge this gap between you know leadership's expectations and what actually people their employees perceptions when it comes to culture.

[55:16] Yeah, there's lots of research on this and it shows like an average, I think like 69 to 75% of executives think their culture is great and around 40% of employees agree.
So that's kind of like multiple studies show that, yeah, it's a big gap between that.
And I think it has a lot to do, well, and I honestly believe they think so.
I don't think they're lying. they think so, but the culture probably does feel different from the top than it does lower down in the organization.
And the bigger the organization, the bigger the gap between how people experience their realities and maybe even what the leadership wants and thinks they're doing.

The challenge of middle leadership in larger companies

[56:01] So it's a lot about listening and having a dialogue. And a lot of people does engagement surveys and do feedback and all that, which is great, But I don't think that's enough because I don't think you get the full picture and the honest answers always.
So I always recommend, you know, to be out there and talk to people and get some feedback.
And again, you have to deliberately build the level of trust so people can be honest with you. Because if they're not, you know, you're still being oblivious of what it's really like.
I also think, so one of the things I'm seeing the larger the company.

[56:41] The greater this level between executive team and the people on the ground, if I can use that expression.
There's very often like a mid-layer, and I see it especially in the US to be quite honest with you, where you have a lot of like a leadership level that is very dense in a way because they are used to having power and influence and used to things being done in a certain way and, used to be having more or less the last word.
So sometimes when I can talk to a CEO and I can talk to someone on the ground, it's a big difference.
But I can see a lot of the challenge often is in the middle.
So you have to handle the middle, which is like the middle leadership.
Mid-management and such?
Yes, because there's a lot of, we talked about it earlier, there's a lot of egos, like people who have worked hard and they fought their whole life to get to a certain level.
So I can from one perspective understand they want to hold on to their roles.

[57:44] But in the world that is moving so fast and also in a company where you need to innovate and question things and challenge things, you also have to challenge the way you're organized.
You have to challenge how decisions are made.
Because it doesn't matter how great innovation comes from the rest of the organization, if it just stops somewhere in the middle because it's threatening someone.
Either it's the power or just like not invented here. There's just like all these different reasons why that can happen.

[58:14] So, when I work with bigger companies, I typically recommend to work in a very dedicated team with direct access to top management in order to kind of avoid that stop.
It's like the stopping in the system in a way, which unfortunately still is very, very normal in a lot of companies.
I mean, what you're talking about is sort of that density, that thickness in the mid-management, kind of, it's almost like a syrup or molasses that can slow down the adaptability. I mean, especially in the current times when you literally see signals of the decoupling of globalization.

[58:56] Where you see, you know, regions are becoming very, they're kind of fragmenting into their own such. With climate change and AI and machine learning and the war on the edge of Europe, It challenges everything that we understand.

Change and innovation as essential parts of company strategy

[59:11] There is no more normal. I think change is just part of what we need to accept.
Like strategy is part of a company.
We focus on strategy. I think change has to be part of that.
And part of that ability to adapt to change is to have an innovative culture.
And so everything you talk about, you know, it can sound like an academic, a very pedagogic conversation between you and I, Anakin.
But everything we're saying is so pragmatic and practical, and it has real-world implications.
And the faster you can get a feedback culture up online, when you can have constructive conflict, when you can have all the different various elements we've spoken of just in the last hour, then I think that makes a company and a team very resilient, very robust.
But you need to go through the crucible. Because you have to experience it and not just listen to people pondering about this but actually take it and do something with it.
Yeah. At least that's my two cents.

[1:00:12] Yeah, that was a bit more than two cents, but they were very good.
Okay, five cents. It was a whole nickel.
Yeah, no, no, but you're so right, Jason. And I think, you know, if I should pinpoint one thing that I think is like the biggest showstopper for innovation and why most, you know, companies and teams never actually get to their full potential, it's fear.
A lot of people are scared and now I'm talking about scared in a way that they're scared of change.
They're scared of not being able to keep on to their jobs. They are scared of being ridiculed.
I mean, there's so much fear going on.
And then to add on it, there's companies out there that think that like a burning platform message is a good idea.

[1:01:03] So what happens like when people get a burning like do this or you know that will happen?
Well they're well you know all about this what happens to their brain right they just like freeze or they fight or they go into threat response yeah exactly and there's absolutely zero innovation that happens for a place from there because when people are fearful and scared they are so focused on just protecting themselves and staying safe so anything that's new will feel threatening. And innovation is per definition new things, right? So, which kind of takes me back to the beginning again.

[1:01:42] Innovation. You cannot create real innovation. You cannot have innovation culture unless you create the environment for it. It has to start like with how people are feeling. Fear just cannot be part of it. And I think fear can be a good thing because it can protect us but it's how we optimize that fear. Because if we take that fear and we look at how we can take it and how we can find a sense of control, how we can use it as a tool and not something that can overwhelm us us and drown us. So if, because I think a lot of innovation sometimes comes right in the middle of turbulent times in a storm when you are forced to.

Embracing fear and using it as fuel for growth

[1:02:21] Change, you know, the environment says you either do or you die. And then we are forced to change. And I think human beings, naturally, we adapt to change. I mean, we have always that's why you find us in every climb in every part of this planet, even in space, you know, we can adapt and we can evolve and change. But yes, if we become crippled by the fear, then that's a problem. And you know, when this podcast talks a lot about individual resilience, and sometimes it's not to shy away from the fear, but it's to walk into the storm, it's to embrace the struggle, it's to embrace the suck. Because when you go into it, then you can learn from that fear.
And that can actually, that can actually crystallize into something, we can actually weaponize that fear, because all of a sudden, we feel the fear, but we see it as information. Okay, do I want to do with this data? Let's focus on what we control, what we can influence, let's create a sense of certainty of what we can do. At the top of this conversation, we talked about not always worrying about what the outcome is, because the outcome will be shaped by future, we can use it for orientation and direction. But at the end of the day, it's like, okay, guys and gals, how can we invest our effort to create some sort of stability. So we can use that fear actually as a fuel, but not something that will drown us, but will drive us.
Yes. No, I 100% agree with that. And I actually think there's a huge difference, but there's.

[1:03:46] Like two kinds of fear. Fear is the one that you feel, the bad fear, is the one you feel like something is happening to you that is so overwhelming that you just like are paralyzed, right? The other one is actually the one you make happen yourself. And I'll be the first one to say that. I do so many fearful things. I've done so many fearful things. And every fearful thing that I've done, even though I'm scared, has led me to a greater place.
You know, not one single time will I say, oh, I was so afraid.
I wish I hadn't done that. You know, it was always a good idea to do that, but it was scary, you know.
So that's what I call like healthy fear or the kind of fear you have, you don't have control over it, but you actually initiate it because you believe that at the other side there will like be something, something else.
So but the crippling fear and that's like the reason why I'm mentioning it is that I see it especially in the corporate world and when we talk about these layers of the density and the organizations, that is driven by fear and that is why I think nothing changes there, you know, that's why it's a very constant because fear is so strong.
But you cannot, and I agree with you, you cannot have real innovation unless you are willing to do, you know, scary things.
And that's more the healthiest fear that I would call it.

[1:05:10] Fear does trigger the threat response or the, what we call the F3 response.
There's flight, well, it means you can run away.
There's freeze, you can choke up. But I think the third one, even though it is fear-based, it's the fight.
It's to roll up your sleeves and go into the fight. You know, get your knuckles a little bloody, if I may use those terms, because I think the fight response of the F3 response of fight, flight and freeze is the most productive as, long as we sort of, we're cognizant of how we are moving into a fight. I mean, you could be a street fighter and just kind of throw your arms around or you can be a martial artist, someone who goes into the conflict to protect, to move things forward. But in the sense of what I'm talking about here is sort of a, not a constraint, but you slow things down, in order to make better reflective responses and not just to be reactive to the situation when it comes to the fight response.
And I think that can be a true, true pure fuel that can burn to create innovation.
And I see that with a lot of individuals a lot of the times, right?
The fear moves from crippling to enabling, if I may use those terms.

[1:06:26] That's, you know, that's really interesting. I have not thought about it that way. I have actually thought about fight as a not negative, not positive thing. I've been thinking that.

[1:06:37] Fight and typically, you know, working with organizational change or something, and we see these, these, these three Fs showing up, right? And then I've been thinking about fight as a way to fight the change, you know, fight against it and all that. But what you're saying now is actually, it could be like fight to use it as like a energy force in order to weaponize it so you can move in you can deal with the the the challenge yeah oh okay i think i'm going to start talking about it a little bit differently that's no no but it was good it was good because i think it's it's a really good way of moving forward it's almost like you can't calm down because when you're in in a threat response, you're in a threat response. I think I've spoken to this sort of ad nauseum on this podcast, but the difference between anxiety and excitement is what the story would tell us because physiologically, they have identical markers. You can't tell them apart.

[1:07:38] But what changes is the mindset. And I think it's just that, you know, from a crippling mindset to a enabling mindset, is to take the fear response, the same fight response, One could be just a kind of thrash out and lash out, or the other one could be a much more calculated strategic move in order to fight our way through this, right?
And that's why I've always seen it both on an individual level and at a group level.

[1:08:07] And that's just the way I've interpreted it. And that's how I sometimes help individuals and teams to get through things, right?
It's not to...
It's actually to use your threat response in a good way and I think that's the whole philosophy from my perspective of martial arts like literally physical martial arts because it's not just a physical self-defense but it's also a mental self-defense in order to protect yourself right.

[1:08:34] And so that's why I can sometimes see a lot of this cross-fertilization of philosophies whether it's the meeting room or the dojo in a sense. It's interesting because I'm just like reflecting Because you're a man and you do martial arts, and I'm a woman and I like to dance.
And then, you know, it's like words have different meanings.
But I agree with you. And I think it's an interesting perspective.
And I also want to share something that I do when I talk about how do you handle fear?
Because okay, so it's there.
And yes, you can fight and freeze and fight and all that. But for me, it's also a lot about like, how do you change your mindset around the fear or the story, and the stories we tell ourselves.
And so many times, and I mean, I do it myself as well, you kind of come into that worst case scenario kind of story, like there's something that's really scary, and then there's a movie that starts playing in your mind, and it sounds really scary.
And for me personally, I just switch it over and like really work on like, what's the best case scenario?
And then I start playing that movie instead and think like, oh, all the great things are gonna happen.

[1:09:42] I also done this with teams who are focusing so much of all the threats around them, and all the reasons why this project or this company, whatever, it might fail.
Then I help them switch around and say, okay, well, let's decide to play a different movie, where everything goes well, what does that look like?

[1:10:04] You just need to have a different way of seeing things. Then suddenly someone could say, well, I haven't thought about it that way before, but hey, then we might want to do like this and that, because it opens up a different, I think, channel in your mind where you actually can be more creative and be more optimistic as well about the future, not only be dooms and glooms and fearful, but actually like, okay, yeah, there's an upside with this challenging and fearful thing.
There's actually something good that can come out of it. So let's start focusing on that.
That's a great story to illustrate the idea of innovative thinking, you're asking questions of possible permutations of a positive future. So we're thinking about, people start thinking about possibilities and opportunities. That actually comes back to what I was saying about, you know, the fight response is like, okay, fight to build something, fight to look how we can push through this storm to come out on the other end. What are some possibilities and opportunities and how can we influence that? What do we have to do? And I guess that begs the the entire innovative process, right?
It's starting maybe with the end in mind and then back or reverse engineering to what we have now and to deal with the realities.
Okay, this is not gonna float, but how do we get around that obstacle or that pitfall or that hindrance?
Yeah.

[1:11:27] Yeah. Put a little Norwegian drift in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Well, brilliant, Anika. I mean, we were coming close to the top of the hour and such.
I was wondering, when it comes to the innovative mindset, when it comes to the culture code, as you so eloquently put it, was there something that our listeners should, take away and listen or think about?
I'm sorry.

The Value of Reflection

[1:11:56] Well, I think you said it earlier about that taking time to reflect a bit.
I think that's an undervalued thing in our society, is to just sometimes just stop and reflect a little bit.
I think it has to do with us as individuals, and I think it has to do as businesses.
Because as the world is changing, and well, we have to change with it, it is not like the natural thing to do. The natural thing to do is to just keep on doing things the way you always done it, because it's safe and you know how to do it.
But if you really want to be part of an exciting future, you need to probably start making some changes.
What I've seen a lot of you are doing is a little bit like desperate change like, we have to change this and this and that, and like someone comes and yes, and then someone read something, and someone hears something, and then you do all these different things, and it just creates chaos.

[1:12:50] So I'm a huge believer in taking a step back, even though things are just crazy around you, take a step back and think of it and reflect and discuss and make some sound and good decisions.
Agree on the way forward, like where you wanna go and how has all these changes created or has it changed the direction of your company?
Has all this influenced the culture of your company?
Are there things you need to do in order to work better together?
Just doing that, I think will just make anyone, like in your life and in your families, and in your teams and your businesses, just so much more effective and happy as well.
Because I think when we're kind of, back to we know why we're doing what we're doing and it's aligned with how we, the world around us are changing and evolving.

[1:13:43] You know, we will enjoy the process more and we will get to where we need to go also much faster and better. Well, Anakin, I think that's a brilliant statement to end the episode on.
You know, this conversation, even though it was about innovation, it forced my brain to make some connections from sort of just two different subjects and different domains that I didn't think I would make the connection. So thanks for that. You kind of created a new mindset in me today. No, I really enjoyed it. It's always so much fun to talk to you, Jason. I learn a lot as well. So it's two of us. Brilliant. Thank you again for your time, Anikin.

[1:14:22] Music.

The Importance of Culture in Organizations

[1:14:32] Nurturing an innovative culture is a multifaceted journey. It starts with gleaming insights from past projects and fostering cultural feedback. It encourages deep reflection, encompassing, both emotions and cognition.
But here's the heart of it. Culture isn't a soft concept. It's the backbone of your organization.
It's about our values, mindsets, behaviors, and emotions.
It's the force that propels your business forward, not merely a ping pong table in the lunchroom. Values matter, but they must be lived, they must be genuine, they must be inspiring.
Having them framed on the wall won't cut it if people don't generally embrace them.
Finding a unique culture code means collectively deciding how to solve problems, building trust, and determining how you engage with customers on a daily basis, how we engage with each other as colleagues on a daily basis.
However, a challenge arises when there's a disconnect between a leadership's vision of culture and how employees perceive it, especially in larger organizations.

[1:15:35] To bridge this gap, you need open dialogue, active listening, and continuous feedback, all firmly grounded in trust. The biggest roadblock to unleashing an organization's full potential is often the fear of change, the fear of the new.
New.

[1:15:51] When individuals feel threatened, innovation becomes stagnant. It grinds to a halt.
To break through this barrier, it's essential to maintain ongoing communication, to engage in meaningful conversations, and to establish clear expectations.
These steps are crucial for dismantling the obstacles that hinder companies from reaching, their full and maximum potential.
In such an episode as this, it's so hard to encapsulate and summarize everything that has been said over an hour, an hour and change.
So what I suggest is hit that rewind button and listen to what Anakin has to say because there's a lot of wisdom, depth, and a lot of experience that can be pulled that you can apply to your day to day.
And a big shout out to you, Anakin, for your time, your insights, sharing your knowledge and experience. I really appreciate it.
It's always fun to talk to you because we don't have a planned script per se.
Far from it. It's just an organic flow of ideas and thoughts and this back and forth which leads to a very, natural and authentic conversation which I learned so much from.
So thank you again, Anakin.
If any of you would like to reach out to Anakin, I will leave all her contact information in the show notes.

[1:17:09] But here we are at the finishing line of another episode. For those of you who follow me on my socials, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and, such.
Please, I appreciate it when you like, but if you could also share the post, this will help me to reach more people to spread the word of resilience, equanimity, and well-being.
And until the next time we continue this conversation, keep well, keep strong, keep moving forward.