The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

551: Microsoft Director on How to Empower Anyone to Innovate

May 14, 2025

JoAnn Garbin, former Director of Innovation at Microsoft Cloud and founder of Regenerous Labs, discusses how innovation thrives in collaboration rather than through individual brilliance. She emphasizes the need for community and trust in sustainable innovation, sharing insights on navigating workplace politics and building political capital. JoAnn draws from her experiences, including a life-altering cancer diagnosis, to illustrate the importance of adaptability and embracing risk. She also highlights the power of AI in democratizing creativity and making innovation accessible to all.

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ANECDOTE

Power of Choosing Community Early

Joanne chose Villanova University for its personal community feel when she was a high school senior.
This community has paid dividends throughout her career through mentorship and collaboration.

ADVICE

Invest in People for Community

Invest time and energy in building strong, trusting relationships to create lasting communities.
Collaborate frequently with your network to move faster and explore new ideas.

INSIGHT

T-Shaped Individuals Innovate Better

Innovation requires being T-shaped: deep expertise plus broad knowledge across domains.
Broad learning enables better questioning and collaboration with experts from other fields.

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What if the key to driving real innovation isn’t genius, but orchestration?

Innovation is often seen as the domain of visionaries or tech geniuses. But in this episode, JoAnn Garbin, former Director of Innovation at Microsoft Cloud and co-author of The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft, shows that true innovation is a craft: one grounded in discipline, collaboration, and conscious leadership.

JoAnn brings a rare lens to the conversation — an engineer with a background in philosophy and performance, a systems thinker who has lived through startup exits, corporate reinvention, and a life-altering cancer diagnosis. Her approach to leadership, creativity, and risk is grounded not in theory but in lived experience.

We talk about:

How real innovation happens inside complex, slow-moving organizations
Why orchestration, not brilliance, is the most underrated leadership skill
The critical role of community and trust in long-term innovation success
How to build political capital without becoming “political”
What cancer taught her about control, clarity, and letting go
The mindset shift that makes innovation more accessible (and less magical)

JoAnn also shares how she navigates uncertainty with structured frameworks, how she invests in her learning every day, and why innovation, especially in an AI-powered future, must be inclusive, sustainable, and human-centered.

Whether you’re leading change, launching something new, or trying to stay relevant in a fast-shifting world, this episode will expand how you think about creativity, courage, and what it really means to build something that lasts.

JoAnn Garbin is a former Director of Innovation in Microsoft’s cloud business. She is the founder of Regenerous Labs, where she focuses on building practical solutions across industries that integrate sustainability and innovation.

Get JoAnn’s book here: https://www.innovationatmicrosoft.com/

The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft

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