Ep. 128 - Aaron Proietti, Author of Today’s Innovator & Transamerica Innovation Champion

Creating environments where innovation can thrive Aaron Proietti is author of the new book, Today’s Innovator. He’s spent 17 years working in the innovation space, including leading initiatives at Transamerica and Capital One. Aaron believes everyone wants innovation to happen, but the traits that make the company successful are the very things that are standing in the way of innovation.  Today’s Innovator In his new book, Today’s Innovator, Aaron focuses on how to create an environment where innovation can thrive. He focuses on strategy, culture, systems and that YOU are today’s innovator. Who do you need to be to thrive in a complex organization (people, politics and traits). Aaron also examines the stages of Innovation maturity and business models. Can you have core business operations, but push innovation and invent new things? It’s difficult to find the balance.  Innovation should be considered a business competency Systems are not setup to be innovative. You need repeatable, scalable, and sustainable ways to be innovative. Innovation should be considered a business competency. Companies used to bring in consultants to help develop ideas. When the consultants left, the idea generation stopped. They didn’t change the nature of the business. Organizations are now talking about culture and competency. When you build a leadership and more nimble culture, it allows for innovation to last and be sustained. How do you get over the hump?   Companies need a strong champion at the highest levels of the organization. Sometimes innovation becomes important because one aspect is not meeting objectives. The champion needs to call out roadblocks. This process is broken or we need to go around the process here. Agitate organization to create a new awareness or muscle.  Making changes from the middle If companies don’t have a burning platform, how can a person in the middle of the org make changes? Aaron’s book, Today’s Innovator, is designed to help them. They need to build a new skill set which includes: becoming an Innovation leader, building high performing teams, setting expectations, strong innovation network, empathy, and how to lead and promote change.   Where to start? To create quick wins, start with the innovation layer, instead of the core operating business. At Transamerica they started with the data layer, because they had tons of data and a great data science team.  You can Preorder Aaron’s book, Today’s Innovator, on Amazon or contact him on LInkedIn. If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy Ep 95 - Steve Glaveski with Collective Campus and Episode 124 -Amy Radin, Author of The Change Maker’s Playbook. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy