Innovator's Journey and Mapping your Progress with Robyn Bolton, founder of Mile Zero and author of Unlocking Innovation

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Robyn Bolton, author of the new book, Unlocking Innovation. Robyn and I talk about the Innovator's journey for unlocking architecture behaviors and culture of innovation and ways you can measure and map your progress. Let's get started.

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Interview Transcript with  Robyn Bolton, Author of Unlocking Innovation

Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Robyn Bolton. She's the founder of Mile Zero and author of the new book, Unlocking Innovation: A Leader's guide for Turning Bold Ideas into tangible results. Welcome, Robyn. 

Robyn Bolton: I am so glad to be here. Thank you. Brian. 

Brian Ardinger: Thank you for coming on the podcast. We've been friends, and long-time listeners of the podcast and newsletter from Inside Outside should be familiar with some of your work. You came out and spoke at our Inside Outside Innovation Summit in 2022, but since then you've got a lot of stuff that's happened. So, I wanted to have you on the show to talk about your new book that's coming up today. Yeah. And talk about innovation. And maybe a little bit of background on how you began your innovation journey. 

Robyn Bolton: So, I began my innovation journey purely by luck straight out of undergrad. After graduating from undergrad, went to work at P&G in brand management and was put on the team that was developing some new cleaning products. And a year after joining the team, we launched Swiffer. 

So, I was part of that kind of amazing journey of corporate innovation. And all the experiences and the scars and, and all of that. And then kind of fast forward a bit, moved up to Boston, got my MBA, did some consulting work in one of the big firms, but then spent almost a decade at the firm that was founded by Clayton Christensen.

Nearly a decade immersed in not just disruptive innovation, but all the different types of innovations that companies do and the challenges that companies face. And then since 2018, have been running my own firm. Mile Zero, which has continued to focus on corporate innovation and really supporting the leaders and the teams who are doing that hard work.

Brian Ardinger: You do some great writing and that. If you've followed our newsletter, I try to find the best articles every week to disseminate to our audience, and you come up there fairly regularly. Stuff that I want to... 

Robyn Bolton: I am always quite honored. 

Brian Ardinger: Let's talk about writing. So, you have a new book out called Unlocking Innovation. What made you decide to write another book on innovation and what is the secret nugget that you wanted to talk to your audience about? 

Robyn Bolton: So, I resisted writing a book for a long time because it's like the last thing this world needs is another book on innovation. But eventually I broke through my own resistance 'cause you know, in reflecting on my career in innovation, I realized that like, hey, the Innovator's Dilemma came out in the late nineties and in the 30 years since that happened, the results, the success rate of corporate innovation has not changed. 

And all that's changed in 30 years is we've kind of had this innovation industrial complex get created of consultants, guilty books now guilty, articles, all this stuff that's grown up, but it hasn't changed the success rate.

And I got curious as to why that is. And I think it is because, and this is what the book focuses on. Is that we've tend to take a really siloed approach to innovation. You know, we come in like, you need this team structure, or you need this process, or this governance, or on the other end of things, you know, we need to build a culture of innovation.

And the reality is, is you have to take a much more holistic approach, which I call the ABCs, that you need to have the architecture of innovation to the process structure strategies. It's necessary, but not sufficient for success. You also need to be really focused on leadership behaviors and how leaders are interacting with innovation teams, how they're supporting innovation.

And you need a culture that, at least at the very beginning, isn't resistant to innovation. So, you need to be working on all three of these things, all of the ABCs all at the same time, but in different ways as the team progresses. 

Brian Ardinger: I think one of the challenges you find with that is oftentimes if one or two people have been given the mantle of the person who has to figure that out. And this is very difficult as a director of innovation or whatever you want to call those folks to be able to move that battleship in in the right direction a lot of times. 

Robyn Bolton: Yes, absolutely. And it gets even harder when, you know, you look at the research and I think it's something like 90% of innovation teams get shut down within three years. Yeah. So, you're tasked with moving a battleship or an aircraft in three years, and you know, we all know that three years doesn't mean you actually have three years to produce results. You have to produce results really in two years so that you're able to keep working in year three before you get shut down.

So, it's this crazy short period of time that you have to produce results and you're working on something that is really a long-term investment. So you have all of these contradictions that as someone who's in charge of innovation, you've gotta grapple with. 

Brian Ardinger: Well, and I think the biggest challenge is the fact a lot of folks don't really understand how difficult that exploration process is to find a winner, quote unquote. In your book, you mentioned a stat, something like one in 50,000 incubated ideas ever reach a million dollars in sales. And so, you think about those types of odds and the types of shots on goal you have to consistently make to explore through that maze of crazy new, bad ideas, to find one or two that actually starts getting traction and making it 

Robyn Bolton: Yeah, exactly It, you know, when you think of, okay, I need incubate 50,000 ideas to get one that makes a million dollars, and oh by the way, the resources allocated to innovation are usually like two people and $10. Yeah. So, the odds are very much stacked against you. But I also know, I mean, you and I both know as innovators, like that doesn't deter you.

You see the potential and you're like, no, we can figure this out. We can do this. And so, this book is very much written for those folks who are the rebels, the realists, and the fixers who are like, no, no, no. We see the potential. We could do this. We're going to give it a shot. 

Brian Ardinger: We talk a lot about finding the curious and the restless within your organization that have more of the tool set skill sets, mindsets around innovation. Knowi...