Talking Innovation & Efficiency with Scott Ritzheimer

‍

Transcript:

hello hello and welcome welcome once

again to the secrets of the high demand

coach podcast and here with us today is

the one the only Danny Nathan he's the

founder of Apollo 21 a unique company

that sits at the intersection of a

management consultancy product design

studio and a venture Studio Apollo 21

helps clients Foster transformational

growth through new Venture creation new

product development and the formation of

internal Venture building operations

they remove barriers to scale by

Building Technology that solves complex

business and operational challenges in

doing so they help organizations

ReDiscover an entrepreneurial spirit and

establish a culture of innovation and he

is here with us today Danny welcome to

the show I I I don't know about you but

I'm ready to Dive Right In so one of the

things that uh I I noticed you had on

your site was uh few different areas

that you help and and you had listed

both corporate Innovation and start

disruption and one of the patterns that

I see even the most disruptive of

startups can struggle to maintain that

uh that Innovation over time so I'm

wondering how do companies need to

evolve in their ability to innovate as

they grow more

successful so I think that one of the

biggest things to bear in mind when it

comes to Innovation and one of the

things that we look at a lot are kind of

the key metrics that companies are

focused on especially as they continue

to grow so often what we'll see is you

know a disruptive startup will hit the

scene they'll start making a name for

themselves they'll start uh you know

beginning to displace an incumbent and

over time as those companies find

product Market fit and begin to kind of

grow into their own shoes if you will um

one of the things that happens is they

begin to optimize for efficiency and

ultimately the the short answer is

efficiency is the silent Innovation

killer and so you know effect L what

happens is if we look at the metrics

that a lot of companies use to determine

uh how they're doing and to focus on

creating better shareholder return and

to focus on um building that kind of

efficiency that helps them ring every

dollar out of every penny in ultimately

what happens is they begin to limit the

opportunities for Innovation and really

they begin building a culture that

suppresses kind of the weird

experimental thinking that really helps

to drive innovation

and so if you look at those metrics like

um you know internal rate of return

quarterly growth things like that

basically what happens is the more

efficient you become the less kind of

open to those weird trial and err things

that that lead to the AHA moments you

are

right and I couldn't have said it better

I love love that

contrast does that mean efficiency is

bad right is that what you're saying is

what's the what's the role of those key

metrics in in success and and is it

possible to maintain them while still

innovating I I'm not saying that

efficiency is bad and that is you know

they're they are direct odds with one

another but at the same time it's one of

those finer points of balance that you

have to look for in creating a company

and it's part of what makes this whole

thing not easy I mean nobody said that

building startups and building companies

was an easy thing to do and I think that

one of the reasons is that you're always

walking that tight rope between how to

create how do we create the efficiency

that we need so that we can build a

viable and um growing business but at

the same time how do we build a culture

that allows for the continuation of the

disruptive mindset that kind of got you

there in the first place and so you know

there are there's a reason that those

metrics are uh utilized today and are

you know a key focal area especially for

you know your CFOs and your Coos and the

folks that are really focused on the

operation efficiency internally but I

think that building a culture that

allows for experimentation and failure

and doesn't get so caught up in the

efficiency that it begins to limit the

opportunities for failure and

experimentation is really where that

kind of fine Balancing Act comes into

play yeah so let's take let's go a

little deeper on that let let's take the

let's take a company um you know really

Innovative at some point in time grew a

ton because of it market leader in their

area but if they're honest they're

sitting there listening and they're like

H I don't know the last time we've

really genuinely innovated how can

companies like that regain their

Innovative

Edge um you know it comes down to one

first of all first and foremost is just

being open to it you know having that

realization and that moment of hm

something has changed and we have slowed

down in our ability to create new and

interesting things to explore new

business models and to really look for

opportunities to continue to be

disruptive the way that you know

ostensibly we were when we were a

startup um that recognition is really

the first big step the other thing that

we encourage companies to do often is to

maintain close contact with their

customers and you know of course a lot

of companies say oh well we talk to our

customers all the time we send them an

NPS survey uh you know we send them a

customer service satisfaction survey

things like that and you know when we

think about talking to customers that's

really not what we mean um you know what

we focus on is the integration of the

lean customer development process and

the opportunities that are brought about

by continually talking to customers

understanding where their pain points

are understanding how your current

Solutions serve their needs but more

importantly where there's gaps in those

Solutions and really what we find is

that by talking to customers you can

kind of create that reminder that even

though you've created something that has

discovered product Market fit and that

has served a need and helped you build a

business you're never done there's

always something more that could be

layered into it there's always new

opportunities for growth or new problems

that customers are coming across that

you can work with them to solve for and

by creating a culture where that

customer development process is every

bit is ingrained as the product

development process you can really

create a holistic view of where your

opportunities are and force yourself to

maintain that view of innovation because

you're never settling for the thing that

you've already built yeah one of the

challenges that I've seen uh larger more

successful organizations face is

relegating things to becoming

departmental initiatives right uh great

company cultures die in the HR

department uh but in the same way I I

find that great Innovative companies die

in Innovation departments and it's a bit

of a pet peeve of M where it's like oh

we're innovated look that's what they do

over there but I found the more you do

that the less everybody else does has

that been your experience and if so how

do we fix it um it's interesting you

know there's a tossup I'm I'm not quite

as hard on the idea of an innovation

Department within larger companies

because to me it is demonstrative of at

least some level of commitment to

maintaining an Innovative mindset now I

think the point that you're driving at

is that if you bucket all of the

Innovation amongst one small team that's

off in a corner off in a Skunk Works lab

or off in some other office then yes

you're really limiting the opport

opportunity for that mindset to kind of

bleed into the rest of the company

whereas you know if your if your

Innovation team is sitting in a fishbowl

as you know as an example in the middle

of your corporate office and everybody

is constantly watching them do whatever

it is they do you know um we've run a

ton of design Sprints as an example and

people get really excited just because

you're putting sticky notes all over a

wall and the more that you can sort of

integrate those teams into the way that

companies work and allow their

enthusiasm and their exploration kind of

bleed out into the other departments I

think the better off you are in terms of

helping people maintain and discover the

mindset that sort of lives and breathes

within that team um you know and then

the other thing that we encourage

clients to do often is if you have an

innovation team like that is to make

sure that they're not so siloed that

they don't have an opportunity to learn

from other people in the business so

bringing in other departments holding

you know Innovation work sessions on a

regular basis and involving people from

other other silos if you will from

throughout the company can help not only

their team understand and kind of bring

your mindset back to their part of the

organization but it can also Infuse the

uh the ideation and kind of the the

thinking from that department into the

Innovation team and so I think that if

you're going to Silo a team off like

that and make them the quote unquote

Innovation gurus um you have to do so in

a manner that allows for that kind of

collaboration across the broader

organization right right got it I love

that

um one of I'm wondering if you can speak

to this because Innovation is changing a

lot right now and what are some of the

ways that you're seeing companies use AI

in particular to innovate I knew that

question was coming um a lot of

companies I think are still trying to

figure out how to utilize Ai and it's

become one of those uh buzzword

basically where every company at this

point is looking around going oh my God

AI is happening we need to we need it

and on the one hand they're right

because AI is coming it is not going

away and it is going to change a lot of

the way that we do business but at the

same time it is still Nations enough

that um we're figuring out what the

impact can be especially for a team like

an innovation team and so I think that

you know the biggest thing that we

encourage clients and you know folks in

that space to think about is

understanding what's happening in the

space learning about it getting handson

with AI enough that they can understand

where it's going and what the

capabilities are today so that they can

begin to ideate and kind of churn on

where it might impact them in the future

but I think that we're still a little

bit early to see um really impactful use

cases of AI on the Innovation space in

particular because Innovation is

something that um is inherently human

it's inherently driven by some sort of

pain point and the the you know the

discovery of a better way to do

something and right now the way that AI

works is by taking sort of at a very

high level taking the average answer

from everything that has gone into the

data set and spitting that out as sort

of the best possible outcome that it can

think of and so average and Innovation

are kind of not aligned to one another

so yeah you know just bear in mind if

you're trying to apply AI that it's a

great place to understand what's

happening technically but it's not

necessarily a great place to really

Drive ideation from yeah I'm glad that

you said that cuz my next question

piggybacks right off of that and and in

particular what's the role of data

management in sustaining Innovation o

that's a really good question especially

kind of on the heels of an AI discussion

um that's one of the biggest problems

that we see is that a lot of companies

that want AI today aren't really set up

for it from a data perspective and so

the ability to collect data and to

understand what you have at your

disposal is both an amazing kind of

foundational opportunity for thinking

about how you might innovate and what

might happen in the future but when it

comes to applying AI to that data you

have to make sure that it has been

organized and normalized and ingested

into a system that you can then use to

build a model and most companies just

aren't there yet and so that's part of

the reason you know when I describe our

habit of encouraging clients to play

with AI to understand what the

capabilities are but to sort of take a

step back from that um that rush into we

need to build this for ourselves it's

because often they aren't ready and so

if you take the time during the

discovery process and the understanding

process of uh learning about what AI is

and what it can do today that also buys

you time to then understand what the uh

the current state of your data

collection is and then allow you to

start preparing for how to better

utilize that data so that you can

generate bespoke insights build a model

that is you know unique to your company

for example so that you're not starting

from sort of the middle ground of the

same place that everybody else is you

know everybody has access to chat gbt

and to Gemini and to all of the uh the

popular tools today and there is some

measure of training that you can do

within those tools but it is not a

bespoke model that is built around your

company for example right yeah there

were so many times uh as CEO when we'd

be sitting there trying to make a

decision like man if we had this data a

year ago you know and we finally started

sitting down saying hey what data are we

going to ask for a year from now and you

know yeah that's great it's a skill I

don't know that we we we figured it out

all at once but we got better and better

at actually using data not just to show

what happened but actually to look ahead

and plan for what's coming yeah I think

one of the other big problems with data

is you know we've gone through the last

15 plus years years realizing that there

is a ton of value that is hidden in our

data and the result is that companies

have become very good at collecting data

but not very good at then understanding

how to utilize it and so you're looking

at a bunch of companies now that have

huge data Lakes from the last decade and

they have information that could provide

value uh could prove valuable and

insightful to them but there's no way to

really unlock that value because they

haven't gotten to the point where the

data is being fed in and then you know

utilized in a manner that allows you to

kind of query it in really impactful

ways and so I think that as as the world

of AI continues to grow up that's one of

the biggest benefits that we will see is

that companies can start kind of digging

into this huge data set that they've

collected and really making use of it

yeah it's fantastic so Danny there's a

question I like to ask all my guests uh

I'm going to ask the same question of

you here so what would you say is the

biggest secret that you wish wasn't a

secret at all what's that one thing you

wish everybody watching or listening

today knew so I've developed kind of a

personal Mantra out of my experiences

with this and that Mantra is fail

beautifully and to me it is a consistent

reminder that in everything

entrepreneurial and everything that you

do when you're going to try and build a

company a new product Etc you are going

to find moments of failure just full

stop and part of the problem with that

is that we're taught from a young age

that failure is a bad thing and so when

we fail when something doesn't work we

we view it as a problem or as a um you

know as a missed opportunity on our part

when in reality in my mind failure is

just a learning experience it's how we

figure out what works and what doesn't

along the path towards the thing that

we're trying to solve for and so the

more that people can you know to use

another kind of adage fall in love with

the problem and not the solution the

more they will learn to um accept

failure along the path is just part of

the process and so my biggest piece of

advice is learn and grow comfortable

with the fact that you are going to fail

yeah so true so true and so powerful

Danny there's some folks listening and

they're hanging on everywhere that you

said uh they they know their data is a

mess they they uh they're worried about

losing their ability to innovate out on

the edge and they want someone to help

walk them through it how can they find

more out about you and the work you guys

do at Apollo 21 so one of the best

places is our newsletter uh it was

actually just launched recently it is

called innovate disrupt or die and it is

available at innovat disrupt or die.com

and then of course uh best place to

learn about us and the work that we do

and review a bunch of case studies that

dig deeply into what we've done for

clients as well as the outcomes for them

is our website at Apollo

2.io um bunch of good information there

and then of course we're on all of the

requisite social media platforms uh as

Apollo 21 IO

occasionally. Etc so come find us there

but newsletter and the website are

always was the best place to start

brilliant Danny thanks so much for being

on the show just a privilege having you

here and for those of you watching and

listening you know your time and

attention mean the world to us I hope

you got as much out of this conversation

as I know I did and I cannot wait to see

you next time take care

‍