213: How She Unlocked Incredible Process Innovation at Southwest Airlines & the DoD

What does it really take to fix a billion-dollar bottleneck inside a company famous for saying no to new spending? And how do you translate that same problem-solving into one of the world’s largest bureaucracies?

This week, I sat down with Danielle McCormick, Founder of Immersive Insights, whose talent for turning messy systems into high-performance engines has saved companies like Southwest Airlines and defense contractors billions of dollars.

At Southwest, Danielle faced a straightforward request: get a single aircraft hangar approved. What she uncovered instead was a tangled web of disconnected teams, undersized infrastructure, and a fleet plan with no roadmap for growth. Her answer was radical in its simplicity: build a twenty-year plan that no one could refute, backed by math and front-line buy-in.

From aligning network planning, airport affairs, ground operations, and maintenance to fighting for trust on the hangar floor, Danielle reveals how real innovation is often about listening better and connecting the dots others overlook.

She then shares how she applied this same mindset to the Department of Defense, navigating the notorious “Valley of Death” to bring cutting-edge counter-drone technology into the hands of young warfighters, proving that even the most rigid organizations can adapt when they care about the people at the end of the process.

Stick around to hear Danielle’s answers to my three hot seat questions: the greatest innovation of all time, the historic team she would join in a heartbeat, and her wish for how to fix the workplace once and for all.

If you want to understand how process innovation works in the real world and why it is more human than technical, this is an episode you cannot miss.