TEI 029: Reflections on Being a Serial Innovator in a Large Organization

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode 029 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Steve Pierz is a serial innovator at Caterpillar. A serial innovator is often on the cutting-edge if not the bleeding-edge, in mature organizations. They are the problem-solvers that substantially contribute to their company’s financial value. Highlights from the discussion include… Innovation is looking at things differently and questioning traditional wisdom.Innovators can be irritating to experts in the organization who do not welcome having the way things work being questioned.Serial innovators’ reputations for discarding old ideas and promoting new ideas can create uncomfortable first meetings. Steve often receives an “Oh, I have heard about you” when meeting people in the organization for the first time.Innovators fail – just don’t fail spectacularly. Quickly run experiments and learn.Steve started a weekly webinar for anyone at Caterpillar to learn more about innovation, called Friday Morning Coffee and Disruptive Technologies. Each week attendance has dramatically grown. Participants are from a wide variety of functions, not just engineering. Frequently, external experts join the webinar to present ideas and processes.