Thomas Knoll, Head of Innov8rs CoLab: Do you have a corporate failure policy?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Hi! I'm Shannon, Lucas, and I'm 1 of the co-ceos of catalyst constellations which is dedicated to empowering catalysts to create bold, powerful change in the world.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: This is our podcast move, fast, break, shit, burn out where we speak with catalyst executives about ways to successfully lead transformation and innovation in large organizations, and I'm thrilled today to have a time with Tommy Noel. Welcome, Tommy!

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Looking forward to the conversation.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Me, too. Me, too. We have some good themes to pull on. Tommy's the founder and head of the innovator, Collab, a global working group of senior innovation leaders. He's been an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur, a business owner for more than 25 years with international experience across multiple industries, including corporate innovation management and consulting technology, e-commerce, importing and distribution and advanced manufacturing. And Tommy's based right here in Boulder, which is so lovely.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: So let's jump in obviously that's like the super highlight version of your background, and people can check you out on Linkedin as well. But we'd love to hear about your catalytic journey, maybe sharing a few career highlights that you're proud of. So we can see your catalytic nature.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, no, thank you. I appreciate that. I think there's probably 2

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: main catalytic moments in in my career. One I'll call, maybe a major moment and a minor moment. I'll start with the minor moment and kind of just go through through history a bit. But I'd have to say, you know, before you know I became you know a father before we even got married. Honestly.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, I decided to be an entrepreneur, you know, at some point that was where the world was taking me. That's where I wanted to go. And that was a big moment like there was a lot in that moment where?

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: You know, I don't know if people go through this, but my experience was you know, it just became so clear my pathway what I needed to do. I really wanted to be an entrepreneur I wanted to blend really creativity with business. That was the

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: kind of the synthesis that led me to entrepreneurship back. Gosh! 25 years ago, and so that was a big moment. I went off to work in the outdoor industry. For a long time I worked in e-commerce for a little bit, but that really that moment really led me down the rabbit hole into entrepreneurship, which, incidentally or not, led me into entrepreneurship, which was my say, my major

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: catalytic moment in my life, which

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I think for me started during the the great financial crisis. Whatever we want to call that moment in 2,007 and 2,008, I'll just call it the great financial crisis, where it seemed as if the world was

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: at that moment. In the throes of some pretty major change. We may or may not be in that moment again right now, but certainly in that moment. I I felt like it was time to evolve, you know, myself to keep up, and that's where I stumbled upon, you know, innovation as perhaps a an operating model or a philosophy. I didn't know at the time exactly what it was, but I felt like

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: either my career, my work, my business at the time needed to be more dynamic. It was not I was not evolving my business was not evolving and the world was really changing rapidly. And so I was looking for solutions to step into that would help with this, you know, to be more dynamic. And that compelled me into corporate innovation. I didn't even know

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: corporate innovation at the time. I just wanted to be around those folks who were really looking like the artists and the creatives, creatives of big companies. Right? They're leading these big companies. They're doing these amazing things. They have resources. I had been an entrepreneur, and had been in the

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, the world of, you know, scarce resources. And I thought, Wow, you know, innovation and big companies. You know what a what a great tapestry, what a great canvas to to be able to to paint on. So that led me to corporate innovation. And that was about 2,009. And I've been in that space ever since.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How'd you make the jump? What did that look like.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, it was it was a a multi year process for me. As I mentioned, I was in the I had an import and distribution business. I worked with some amazing companies in the outdoor recreation business for a long time, and I knew that for me it wasn't the long term plan right? I knew that you know that that catalytic moment compelled me to think beyond that industry and that role that I was in and and so it began.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Multi year journey to get into corporate innovation. I had to sell my company 1st and foremost. That was a that was a big, a big change, and then step into something new. And during that whole process of selling my company, looking at what I wanted to do.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: You know, the world just opened up, and I actually here in Boulder connected with one of my original business partners at the time. And we were kind of kindred spirits around corporate innovation. And we end up partnering and and working together for several years, but really finding that one person who was a kindred spirit really opened me up to all sorts of new thinking and a network and a business model. And yeah, it was a a multi year process, though.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, I think more more talking about the power of those strong foundational partnerships, like, I'm just so grateful for having Tracy, too. Right? I mean, it's it's hard to be an entrepreneur, and having someone in the trenches with you is super lovely. So given all of that. How do you relate to the concept of being a catalyst.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: If I'm being honest, I struggle with it a little bit. There's good days, and there are bad days. There's kind of 2 sides of the same coin, and you know I I tend to tend to use something called balance sheet thinking, or

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know where there's pros and cons right, and I can easily go off into either one of those you know domains and get really ecstatic and excited, and

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: or I can go in the other direction, and and kind of get you know, depressed or in despair around how challenging it is. And so I I've learned to kind of take this middle of the path approach where you know there's gonna be good days. There's gonna be a bad days, you know. I think that's just the human condition, but certainly within corporate innovation. That's the case. There may or may not be more bad days in corporate innovation. Certainly plenty of challenges, but I think it's

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: from probably most corporate innovators, and I've worked with a fair number of them. There's something kind of

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: in the DNA or in the personality or in the character something that's really kinda deep inside that says I need to. I deem to kind of do this work, and if you don't, I don't think you'll last. I don't think that you'll stick around

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: so that's how I connect with it is something you know. I'm an artist by nature. I'm creative. I love business as well. So it's this. Once again, this kind of synthesis of the 2 and I just try to figure it out.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How do you sort of 2 part question because they're related? But they're different. How do you stay motivated through the bad days, and I appreciate the candor of. There's probably more bad days than good. And how do you keep from burning out.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I don't know if I do. I burn out but and that's once again a continual like learning process for me. But you know, I think self care is gotta be top of the list. You know this is difficult work. It's challenging work. I think that it is different than

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know. I'm an entrepreneur, and I kind of have a small business, but I work with these folks, and I support these folks, and who are in these big companies trying to advance. You know, their innovation and growth agenda, whether it's transformation or technological or whatever and that's different than, let's say, somebody who's a finance in a finance role, or even a sales and marketing role where?

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: not that those roles are inherently more stable.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: or more predictable. But I think they are

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: and so I think self care is really important. So physical, mental, psychological.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, practices to kind of keep you well balanced are are really critical. I encourage all of our members, all my clients to make sure that they're doing that, and they can show up. If they're not like

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: fit, physically and mentally, then you will burn out, and I've gone through plenty of burnout in my life to to learn that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: that. Those practices are the only thing that will kinda

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: serve you in the long term and keep you well.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: what we know is true for catalysts, research says. And this isn't an introvert extrovert thing. What we know is true is that being in community with other catalysts, has this super restorative, recharging effect, and that's a big part of what you do. And so it's such a great pivot. I would love to understand, you know.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: through the years of experience of both supporting and convening innovation leaders, what are some of the biggest challenges that you've seen from that community, and maybe how have they overcome them? And I'll give you the second part to the question, because maybe you want to just flow into it. And what are some of the new trends that maybe don't have answered questions that innovation catalyst leaders are facing right now.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, I think that one of the challenges with just convening folks is just a wide range of.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: for lack of a better term, characters or personalities that are part of it. Right? We'll have everything from.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, running the the spectrum from introvert to extrovert, and everything in between right and I think inherently. People have some blend of both of those, but might

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: tend to lean one way or the other.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: You know. And so

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: we were talking before we got on the call about engagement, and how important that is, for you know, for our line of work. And so

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: attracting or compelling or engaging folks who are more extroverted is really totally different than the introvert. Right? These are just kind of 2 general archetypes of, you know, just people in general, but certainly in our line of work. You could have the the introvert innovator who's maybe more like an engineer, or, you know, a writer or kind of works kind of by themselves. And there's not a right or wrong approach here. This is just how these folks, you know, show up

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: we might see that more in a technological

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: technology based organization. And then with the extrovert right, that they really want to be out there, they're more sales and marketing, or pr oriented, and really want to engage right. And so we have to really

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: figure out how you know what messages, what communications, what tactics work to to compel both of those, let's say archetypes, you know, to show up and engage because they they both are valuable, and they're both part of our community.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: But they they have different needs, right? And so we have to figure out how to. You know how to do that. We're inherently a community. We want people to come together. We want people to share. You know, whether you're an extrovert or introvert. So creating the forums and the formats and the places where it's a digital, whether it's digital or otherwise. You know, we have to continually figure out how to appeal to to both those, both those different archetypes.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'd love to understand. Like as you've been convening the whole spectrum. What are some of the challenges that that community has been experiencing? Like, what are some of the top things that they're bringing to the group? Maybe hoping to solve? And and what were some of the solutions? If any.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, it's interesting, because you know, this

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: person that we support call it the corporate innovator or the entrepreneur. Right? These are folks who are.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, either leading or facilitating change or growth or transformation inside some type of a large organization. Typically, at least, that's the folks that you know that we work with and I think that for a really long time.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, innovation was the thing. Right? Let's be more innovative. It's in the corporate reports but that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: didn't necessarily trickle down or get communicated to you know, to the organization in general.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: and so, therefore, you know, these folks who are leading these efforts, you know. Let's say it's a Vp. Or a director, or even a manager. You know they were kind of left out to kind of figure it out on their own

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: and there's a lot of failure in that right, without clear direction from, let's say, the C-suite or the board

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: or just senior leadership in general. You know, they're left to experiment and figure out what to do. And if that's the case most of the time their efforts fail. I'll be honest. So, having that connection between, like, you know, the C-suite and senior executives around

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: the value of innovation, or corporate innovation, or trains, or transformation, or adaptability. However they describe, it

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: really has to be articulated, and what we call socialized within the organization, and that C-suite or senior leaders really have to own it, and if they don't

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: then they're gonna fall, you know, fall short. And the example I use is like Jeff Bezos, like, you know, that guy's got innovation on his calendar like you look at his calendar and he's gonna have innovative or new projects, probably ruling the day, and might be different now, since he's retired, you know. Same with Musk, you know. You look at his calendar. He's inventing the new stuff he's not dealing with.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, financial reports and reporting to Wall Street. Right? So I'll we support all of our members and making sure that that leadership buy end is there? Because once that there, you can do a lot if you don't have it, you're really not going to go anywhere.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: All right. So I have to ask the question, then what's the solution to the problem? How do the how do the innovation leaders get the C-suite support, especially if they have potentially, like the antithesis of a bezos or a musk, which might not be bad in all cases, but particularly on that topic.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: If it's not.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, I, think it.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Of the leadership team.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, I think it's I think it's really critical to know their perspective. You know, it's really whether it's a philosophy or or a policy

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right? And it can range. It can be like, Hey, you know, innovation is interesting. We should have it.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know. I call that a curiosity and then the other end, it might be, you know, full on policy. We will innovate. We're gonna invest money in this. We're gonna invest resources and people. We're going to, you know. Adopt this as part of our agenda.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Sometimes that can be found in the corporate reports. Sometimes you can

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: sense it in the like communications or messaging from the c-suite right? But

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: in one way, shape or form

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like. It has to be assessed right? You have to really assess. What is the C-suite's buy in on innovation? Is it light, you know, implicit? Or is it like deep explicit right? And you have to start there

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right? So you can build a strategy. You can build an approach

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: from both of those places. But sometimes we'll work with folks, let's say, and you know, they really want to

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: innovate and change and do new things. But

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: leadership doesn't really care, and they'll go off, and they'll do their thing, and then they'll be upset when they don't produce anything.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: so that misalignment happens quite a bit. So really aligning, I guess, is the key thing.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Yeah, it goes back to what you were saying earlier about, like, the challenge of this role is like, you're not the Cfo or the salesperson. And while there may be ambiguity because the world is shifting, and how we engage with our customers, or like what our financial targets may be changing. There's still clarity about what you're delivering for the business, whereas with the innovators and the change, leaders

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: like, if everyone understood it and can do it, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a thing right? And so I think what you're hitting on is really important, which is getting the clarity and alignment of like, what are we? We talk a lot with our customers about? Expectation, alignment, like?

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: How many resources do I have, over what time and with what level of commitment from the rest of the org. Because when you turn those dials, the output is really different, and I think helping people get to that clarity. And then what you know when we work with catalyst. And I'm curious about your thoughts about this is like once you get that clarity. If that's not where you're at, if you're like, I don't want to do more incremental process optimization. Then you have a decision as a catalyst yourself to be like, maybe not the right place right now.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Precisely. And that's where we might describe that person as the entrepreneur. Right? Like they want to. They might be in a Cfl role. They might be in a role that is stable. But they're looking to advance

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: the, you know, the practice right or the function adopt a new technology, adopt a new practice, do something a little bit differently like, you know, everybody can be an entrepreneur within an organization entrepreneur within the organization, and they probably should be

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: to some extent. It doesn't mean they have to be, you know, inventing the new ipod, you know, but they can be advancing, you know, and in this world everybody needs to be

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: thinking about that, if not actually practicing some type of a change, you know, program for themselves. And so yeah, I think you're. You're absolutely right, you know, figuring out the I think there was tolerance right? The tolerance for change, you know, and every organization has a has a change. Tolerance, being being really like keyed in

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: to what that tolerance is can really determine. Okay, well, this is how far I can go with this. This is how much change is possible.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And then yes, if it's misaligned with what you know an individual wants to do with their career work. Then a change has to be made.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: or should be made.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's a great segue, because I got really excited, as I was prepping for our conversation about the article that you wrote about having failure policies for organizations. And so while we work with organizations often to do these big catalyst programs where we're helping them like identify and activate and train their catalyst. We also work with organizations where we're just working across the organization because change is the new normal.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: And we have so many people customers who are like, yeah, we want to fail fast or embrace. You know, failure is a core value, or you know whatever. And when you but when you bring that to the teams, to the body of employees. They're like that sounds good, but I have no idea what that means, and if I don't have any idea. This goes back to the clarity and expectation setting. If I don't know what that means, I'm not likely to lean into that or take on the risk

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: so you have this amazing article. I'll put the link in the show notes. But I'd love for you to talk a little bit more, because I don't think we're talking about that specific thing enough.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, I appreciate you bringing us back up. I had forgotten about that. That article, and I I really liked it. I think that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: inherently with innovation. There's gonna be failure or or call it experimentation doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, innovation related. But you know, in any organization. There's going to be some failure, you know, regardless of what of what happens.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And I think that there's probably a

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I don't know. This is a bit of a a generalization, you know, but there's a lot of fear in most organizations around failure or looking poorly or looking bad. Right? I mean, it's just a human nature to be concerned about. You know your performance. But we're human. And we're gonna fail like that's just it's gonna happen, you know. And just in this particular area of entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, the failure rate is.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: is is high, right, or should be high if you're doing it correctly. And so I think that for you know, that person who is, you know, in the innovation role inside of a big company versus like in a startup. There's a whole different dynamic.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Totally.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Company. Or if you're an entrepreneur, totally different perspective culture, let's say expectations around failure than it is inside of a big company. And I think that you know generally, if you look across the Fortune 500. Of course, the past 20 years or so. These organizations are brittle. They're really rigid

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right, and that can serve them well or not. And so in, you know the innovation, Ralph, the failure rate is really high, and and if that is a fear or a blocker, you're not going to get very far. You're not going to experiment. You're not going to learn. You're not going to advance right. And so, in order to create an environment where

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I hate to say failure is accepted.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: But,

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I don't know the I don't know what the right word to describe it. But let's just call it accepted for now. But, like, you know, you, if you fail, then this is what's gonna happen. You're still gonna have a job, you know. If your department goes away, we're gonna reassign. You.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, things like that would would be part of a failure policy that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: not the failures. Okay. But this is what we're going to do with failure. If it happens, we're gonna learn from it. We're gonna evolve with it. We're gonna pivot like this is what we're gonna do. If something doesn't work out and and know what happens after the failure, so that those people that are doing the work and are failing

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: know what to expect after the failure. Instead of, you know. Sorry. But you're fired.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: So that's where a failure policy, I think, is really important to set expectations around what happens when things don't work out.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You mentioned in the article Spacex, which is super interesting because they did. They're like we are going to fail like we're blazing so far ahead into things that people didn't even think were possible. We're going to crash some rockets that's gonna happen and what we're celebrating like. I remember one that, you know you're listening. Live! And one crashed, and but everyone's still clapping on the video. It's like, Oh, my God! We learned so much stuff.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I'm wondering if you have other companies, and I so I I wanted to contrast that with Boeing.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Sure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Right, because has had failures, but not the kind of failures that were expected, not the kind of failures that were okay. And while I don't sit inside Boeing, and I only know from the outside what everyone else knows. There's an interesting part of like. If we didn't have some safe place

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: to raise our to raise our hand. And I think this goes back to like the Japanese Kaizen almost, which is like, how are we empowering people to call it

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: when they see it, because that sometimes is the scariest thing. That thing's not working guys, not just like I took a risk, but something we're doing isn't working. If you have thoughts about like what the what your advice is for companies moving forward like, not everyone's going to be a Spacex and have a clear like, we're going to try this thing and fail on a huge scale, publicly like, how do they metabolize the failure policies.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, that's a that's a great question. I think it starts with, you know, like an assessment around

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: the the the cultural temperature.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right? What's the temperature of the culture? What is and I'm literally just making that word up as we talk about this. But what's the vibe? What's the cultural temperature of the organization. And I think that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know the Boeing and Spacex Spacex example are, you know, 2 contrasting narratives right? Like Boeing and I grew up around Mcdonnell Douglas. I saw these, you know. I saw a lot of these folks. They were my friends, fathers who.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, built these products early on. And and there's approach. And once again, this is not a right or wrong. This is just a, you know, 2 different scenarios and pick whichever works for you. But with Boeing

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: it was engineer, engineer, engineer, figure everything out ahead of time. And then the experiment is gonna go exactly according to plan right? They really tried to forecast.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: You know, all the different variables before they started to experiment, and that was just an approach

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right. And I think you know, Spacex approaches.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: We're going to get to a point where we can experiment. We're not going to be reckless and unsafe with sending rockets up, you know, but the whole point is, let's get to experimentation as quickly as possible. Experiment experiments. Crash! Some rockets.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: get the data, and Musk knew that right? He would go into these experiments

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: with a learning mindset like like this is about data capture. And they still do that. You know, they're still with every mission capturing all this data. And something goes wrong. Boom! What's let's really 0 in on that. So I will call that like Spacex example of, you know, calling out, the cultural temperature is, you know, a learning experimentation and failure. And that's how you advance. And Boeing had their own. Once again, these are 2 different perspectives.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Kind of 2 ends of the spectrum. But I think the purpose of the learning experiment

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like you just get a lot more data and insights and feedback

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: from the experimentation and learning approach than you do from, let's say, the engineering led.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Approach first.st

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Do you? I mean, obviously I picked extremes for the point of the conversation. I'm wondering if you have examples, and maybe you don't need to name names. But examples of companies that you've worked with that have been able to do this like have a really clear failure. Policy like they might have, like a parental leave. Policy.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Yeah, I think. There's some organizations where there's like a call it a higher tolerance for

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: experimentation, innovation, transformation.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: That maybe is

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: more open and loose than Boeing. But tighter than spacex.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right? There's some more parameters where these experiments are. Gonna be okay, there's here's 1 example. So there's a i'll anonymize it. So it's a it's a large

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like medical medical company. Right medical supply company. And they wanted to experiment with new things. But they have this big. They have this like a important brand.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: It's out there. It's known as being safe

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: right? And so that didn't align with the experimentation approach.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Right? And I think in the spacex example, it's like, Yeah, we're gonna get out there. We're gonna be public about this, but with a medical company when people's lives are on the line, and they're working with doctors and hospitals and

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like that, that their like brand reputation was really important.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And so what they did was they set up a whole unit

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: that was just for experimentation. Not associated with, let's say, the mother brand.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: They created new brands around that that were far enough away that customers and consumers wouldn't know that that is them.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Experiment with that. They call it what's called a sandbox. They put it out there. They experimented with it. They created these

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: semi anonymous or anonymous brands. If it worked, then they knew that they could bring it in, and it was okay, and if it didn't they could kill it. And the the mother brand was protected. So I like that approach where you know it's experimentation. But it's conservative. So I I think that's a that's a good approach.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: That's a that's a great example. And so I'm so in alignment with the innovators dilemma, because it would probably also not just have the challenges potentially brand reputation. But it's like giving enough space, having it, being outside of the mothership, gives it a lot of other advantages. In addition to the fear of failure around life, saving life, threatening life, risking things.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: One of the things that you were sort of touching on earlier with the the Elon musk. But really, I think it all comes down to this is the data. Because the data hopefully, like clarity of data, it's not like we're just gonna go. Is it red or blue, and not have any baseline and not know what we're going for? And so I'm wondering how you help companies think through as they're thinking about failure policies, the role of data, and all of that.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And there's there's so much data out there, I would kind of re categorize data as signal. I think a better. A better word to, you know, is signal, and in that example that I just mentioned, you know, they were looking for certain signals, and they designed the product.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: You know, these were called fake brands. Right? The narratives right. And they were looking for certain signals from the market around. Hey, is this thing gonna work or not like is this viable or not? And then they would create the types of signals that they were looking for, and they engineered and designed

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: feedback mechanisms and feedback loops to get that signal back that indicated to them. You know, this is a go or a No go, you know, ultimately. But there's a lot of different types of signals that you can experiment with. And of course, there's data embedded, you know, within that. So I think the signal from the marketplace is, you know, you can really

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: design approaches. That that really

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: get the signal that you're looking for, right? Like you can design that into the process. You can desire that into the product and the narrative, and you know your social media, or wherever you put this to get that signal back. And so I would say that it's 1 of the most. It's it's a it's a critical, component signal from the C-suite around what? How they approach. You know. Innovation. What is your signal? How do you know

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: that you're getting support? Okay, well, these are the signals I'm looking for.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I love that because one of the conversations that you know as an innovator and corporate leader that I've had forever is like, if you are asking me to go into net new areas. There won't be data about that, like I can look at the whole pie chart of possible tam to, you know, total addressable market. But like for our thing, I'd be making stuff up. So I really like the focus and the clarity of the signal. But using that, actually looking at the signal across all of the different parts of the process.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: If you had one piece of advice for people who are listening to this about how to consider and set up their failure policies. What would you say.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I'd say a hundred percent making sure it's aligned with the cultural

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: temperature, whatever that is right, there's some.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And it's it's it's going to be imperfect, you know, cause there there are going to be pockets of any organization that are inherently going to be more

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, experimental or innovative change, growth mindset than others. And incidentally, as a sidebar, there are some ways. There are some tools and approaches that you know are available for companies to use to actually get at the, you know, at the hierarchical level and across functions as well. You can say.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, you can run an assessment across an entire organization with 50,000 people or 100,000 people, and understand exactly where this cultural temperature lies, and then design these experiments with those people, you know. You call them catalysts, you know. I call them entrepreneurs like these folks.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: But really understanding, you know, that cultural temperature and

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like the tolerance for failure, you know. And I think right now, here in the United States, we have a massive political change that just happened literally hours ago. And we're gonna see, this is a live experiment to see how quickly you know a population of citizens can

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: metabolize, absorb what I would call radical change

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: and so that's no different from an organization where you're gonna have pockets that are resistant or scared or you know.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: really not wanting to change. You're gonna have. Other folks who are like this is fantastic. This is awesome. So really understanding what that landscape looks like before stepping into, you know, experimentation and failure is gonna be really really critical. And then designing strategies and approaches that

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: cater to all those different types of constituents.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You just gave me a huge dose of empathy, because I usually have a pretty positive relationship with change, and I'm struggling to metabolize this one. And so if other people feel about the changes that we're leading in organizations like this, yeah, I get that now. All right. Fun. Last question favorite, catalyst, past or present, that inspires you. And why.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: It's a great. It's a great question. I don't know if I have one.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: You can have more than one. That's okay.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: And and I think it's it's you know it's this is probably not novel or unique or interesting.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I think Einstein is probably, you know, up there.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know his approach. The way he thought his failure like. Look at that guy like he. He was horrible in school. He was rejected. I think Abe Lincoln as well, is probably up there as well. That guy. His failures were legendary, and then he went on, and so I think there's a there's a correlation between the amount of times you fail. And I just posted it this morning about.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, staying in the game, you know, having a positive attitude through failure, through setback.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Right? And it's not easy. It's not simple. I'm not saying it's like that. So that would be my historical examples would be like Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, and just who they were, their failure. But then their ability to rise above I think today it's it's probably Elon Musk.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I mean that guy. You know

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: the past 10 years in Silicon Valley. I think I saw an article yesterday where it's like this is a lost decade. You know, we created some great new food delivery apps, but he's out there making rockets and cars. And

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: so I think that from an innovators perspective, you know, pulling talent together in resources into something that is substantial and

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: like human altering.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I know he's not perfect. Certainly. I don't really know who anybody you know in any of these folks are. But I think that what he has done.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know those 3 people rise to the top for sure.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Amazing. And I love their connection to the failure conversation. They're all great examples of how, again, you.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: I keep using the word metabolize. But I don't have another. It's like how you do that and come out better, stronger, and not just that. But it's like how it's necessary. It's a necessary part of the journey. It's not just like Oh, shit! And I overcame it. It was like I had to do that in order to learn so thank you so much for sharing.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Can I? Can I add a 4.th

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Please go.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Jerry Garcia.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Why?

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I mean that Guy experimented. He created new genres, you know, full disclosure. I'm a huge deadhead, but I love.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: I love his approach. It's experimental, you know. Most of their work is, you know, call it open sources out there. It's not studio. It's in the world, it's.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, concerts. It's, you know, like it's improvisation. It's experimenting on the fly. It's with these 5, 6, 8 other people who are all with them kind of experimenting together. And of course there are psychedelics and other chemicals involved, and that probably played a role. But I love his, you know, approach to experimentation and doing things new and collaborating, and

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, and failing and doing something, you know. You go back and listen to these shows, and you know they'll have a bad night, you know, but it's like you know what that's part of it. That's part of the deal. But over, you know, months and years and decades, you know this thing just evolved, and it continues to evolve, and it's way beyond him now. So just that whole arc to me is

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: it's fascinating. And so I put Jerry Garcia on there as a an honorable mention.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's it's a great one, because, like, we're not going to be perfect every day every time we we step out on stage. But you just keep going, and there's beauty in that magic.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Exactly, exactly. And I think there's a relationship. And I haven't looked at this. But the relationship between the performance

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: of you know, I'm in a studio. I'm here to make it perfect, and I want to go out. And when I'm doing a live performance, I wanna

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: mirror that studio work, you know, versus Garcia, where it's like, you know his stage and being out there, that's where he experimented with things, and I think there's an elevated and I don't know if there's probably a way to describe this or

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know a name for this, but like your performance changes when you're in and when you're in that moment.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: It's a co-created moment, because the vibe of the audience is, there's like a feedback loop and all of that stuff. So I love that. Yeah.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: No.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Tommy. Thank you so much. It was a super fun conversation. We'll have to get together soon in person.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: Indeed, and appreciate your work with catalyst. I think this has been really helpful to better understand. You know the personality types.

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Tommy | Innov8rs CoLab: you know, within an organization. And I know you guys do great work with identifying those people and supporting them. So I just love your approach to to the catalyst.

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: Thank you. That means a lot, thanks

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Shannon Lucas - Catalyst Constellations: to our listening audience. Thanks so much for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about how to create bold, powerful change in the world. Be sure to check out our book, move fast, break, shit, burn out, or go to our website at catalystconstellations.com. If you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, please take 10 seconds to rate it on itunes, spotify stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast and of course. If you have catalysts in your life, hit the share button and send a link their way thanks again.