Episode #270: Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation with Larry Keeley

Larry Keeley is an innovation strategist who has worked for over four decades to develop more effective innovation methods. Larry is President and co-founder of Doblin Inc, an innovation strategy firm best known for the Ten Types of Innovation framework.

Since 1979 Keeley has worked with many global companies on innovation effectiveness, among them American Express, Apple, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Ford, Gillette, GE, Hallmark, Mars, Mayo Clinic, McDonald's, Novartis, P&G, Pfizer, Rockefeller Foundation, SAS, Shell, Sony, Target, Whirlpool, and Zurich Financial Services.

BusinessWeek named Keeley one of seven Innovation Gurus that are changing the field, and specifically cited Doblin for having many of the most sophisticated tools for delivering innovation effectiveness. They also separately selected Keeley as one of the 27 most influential designers in the world. Keeley teaches graduate innovation strategy classes at the Institute of Design in Chicago, the first design school in the U.S. with a Ph.D. program, where he is also a board member. He lectures in executive education programs at Kellogg Graduate School of Management and is an adjunct faculty member for their core MBA and their Masters of Manufacturing Management programs. He also lectures at University of Chicago, plus business schools worldwide.

I enjoyed tapping into Larry’s incredibly vast reserves of knowledge gained from over four decades in the space of design and innovation. In a corporate innovation landscape that is absolutely awash with charlatans, it’s always refreshing to speak with a critical thinker like Larry who appreciates that ideas are just a tiny part of the battle and that it’s the execution that matters.

Expect to take many things away from this conversation, including:

1 - What large companies can do to balance the core business with the exploration of emerging business

2 - Why the focus on building a culture of innovation is misguided and what companies should be doing instead

3 - Three things one must do to become a successful innovator

You’ll learn this and more in my thought provoking conversation with the one and only, Larry Keeley.

Topics Discussed:

• How Larry first got into the space of design and innovation
• Is today’s fear mongering about tech disruption justified or is this a common pattern that Larry has seen come and go in waves in his four decades in the space?
• Why the Ten Types of Innovation has stood the test of time
• Case studies of large organisations successfully balancing the core business with emerging business
• Why creativity and innovation are two different things
• Why the pre-occupation of executives in this space with design thinking is short sighted
• How the human tendency to stick with what’s familiar and do what’s easiest sabotages innovation
• What slows down large organisations from moving at the pace required to innovate
• Common misconceptions about innovation
• How to attract, engage and retain the right talent
• What more progressive companies in this space are doing differently
• Why you should build a platform, not a product
• The importance of empathy in business

Show Notes:

Doblin Consulting: Doblin.com

Buy the book - Ten Types of Innovation: https://amzn.to/2MpxKYT

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Listen on Apple Podcasts @ goo.gl/sMnEa0

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