

Creative Confidence Podcast
IDEO U
IDEO’s Creative Confidence Podcast shares candid conversations with creative leaders, changemakers, and innovators navigating today’s most pressing challenges. Through real-world stories and insights, we explore how to lead with creativity, build resilient teams, and drive innovation. Grounded in IDEO’s 40 years of expertise in design thinking and innovation, each episode offers inspiration and practical tools for audacious leaders at every stage of their careers. Hosted by Mina Seetharaman, Head of New Ventures at IDEO, the podcast brings a human-centered lens to the complexities of making more courageous futures.
Discover more at IDEOU.com.
Discover more at IDEOU.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 30, 2020 • 45min
Designing Your Work Life: Bill Burnett
In the #1 New York Times bestselling book Designing Your Life, Bill Burnett and his co-author Dave Evans showed us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling. With their second book, Designing Your Work Life, they zero in on finding happiness at work. In this episode of the Creative Confidence Podcast, Bill gives advice on how to assess the potential of your current career and shares ways to redesign and re-engage with your job. View the full recap at ideou.com/blog.

5 snips
Jan 14, 2020 • 46min
Generating Better Ideas: Brendan Boyle
Brendan Boyle, IDEO partner and founder of the IDEO Play Lab, joined us on the Creative Confidence Podcast to share how to bring more playfulness into your work. Get into a creative mindset and generate an abundance of new ideas with his favorite creative warm ups and group activities. See more on the IDEO U blog.

12 snips
Jan 10, 2020 • 43min
Effective Storytelling at Work: Zena Barakat & Brian Janosch
Resident IDEO storytellers Zena Barakat and Brian Janosch talk about the importance of stories in the world of business and innovation. Learn how to get started weaving stories into your work today with real life examples and tips for using stories in common business scenarios.
Learn how to create a story brief, explore different mediums, and create multiple versions of your story to gather feedback from others in our 5-week online course Storytelling for Influence: https://ideo.to/Yjfodp

Dec 17, 2019 • 41min
Bringing out Creativity in Others: Rochael Adranly
Rochael Adranly, IDEO partner and general counsel, has spent her career finding the balance between the rules-based world of law and the ambiguous, non-rules-based world of design. In this Creative Confidence Podcast episode, she shares how to bring out the natural creativity in others and encourage colleagues to be your partners in innovation—instead of your roadblocks.

11 snips
Dec 2, 2019 • 46min
Identifying Business Potential: Kanyi Maqubela
As a venture capital investor at Collaborative Fund and Kindred Ventures, Kanyi Maqubela has invested in dozens of companies—including Lyft, Kickstarter, Beyond Meat, and Blue Bottle Coffee—and evaluated hundreds more. He seeks out founders and businesses that are not only addressing a market need, but have the potential to reinvent our future. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Podcast, he shares the elements he looks for to signal a strong business idea, an impactful leader, and a collaborative team.
Build your leadership abilities in our course Leading for Creativity, and learn how to design prototypes to test and iterate business ideas in Designing a Business: https://ideo.to/XX94SR

Nov 18, 2019 • 36min
People and Culture at Scale: Margo Downs
People and culture leader Margo Downs joined us for an episode of the Creative Confidence Series to share lessons learned from her years as a leader in people operations at Stitch Fix, Starbucks, and lululemon athletica—companies well known for their distinctive cultures. We dove into the building blocks of culture, her framework for operationalizing culture at scale, and how to impact culture regardless of your seniority or title.

Nov 8, 2019 • 43min
Adopting a Musical Mindset: Michael Hendrix
An IDEO partner and global director of design, he’s also a lifelong musician and associate professor at the Berklee College of Music. He’s spent many years studying the shared mindsets of musicians and designers and is in the midst of writing a book on the subject to come out next year. He joined us on the Creative Confidence Series to share more about what the business world can learn from the musical one.
To learn tactics for experimentation and generating new ideas, check out IDEO U's 5-week online course From Ideas to Action: https://ideo.to/fFtiIN

4 snips
Oct 22, 2019 • 44min
Scaling a Business with Heart: Sheryl O'Loughlin
Suz chats with Sheryl O’Loughlin who says there’s a dark side to entrepreneurship, but it’s possible to run a startup in a healthy, joyful way. In this conversation, we dive into Sheryl’s vast experience as a CEO, founder, mentor, and advisor to pull out key lessons she’s learned at critical moments in her career. Walk away with tips for launching and growing a successful business while maintaining a fulfilled life.

27 snips
Oct 10, 2019 • 46min
What Leaders Need to Thrive in Uncertainty: Tim Brown
Tim Brown, IDEO Chair and former CEO of IDEO for 19 years, shares his perspective on the qualities necessary for creative leaders in today’s unpredictable business and economic conditions. He discusses what we can do to find the opportunity in ambiguity and design and build better systems to meet the needs of the future.

44 snips
Sep 19, 2019 • 46min
How to Create Winning Strategies: Roger Martin
Roger Martin is a bit of a legend in the strategy world. His book Playing to Win, written with former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley, is a favorite in business schools. And decades of work consulting with some of the world’s most recognizable companies have cemented his place as one of today’s leading business thinkers. In this conversation, get an inside look at Roger’s approach to business strategy and hear about our newest course, Designing Strategy: https://ideo.to/u3xSQA