The Mindful Innovator: Learn How to Slow Down to Move Faster & More Purposeful

The Mindful Innovator

The Mindful Innovator

Learn How to Slow Down, to Move Faster and More Purposefully

Matt Mueller

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2023 Matt Mueller

All rights reserved.

The Mindful Innovator

Learn How to Slow Down, to Move Faster and More Purposefully

ISBN

979-8-88926-400-2 Paperback

979-8-88926-402-6 Hardcover

979-8-88926-401-9 Ebook

To those who desire to change the world

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Part I. The Problem

Chapter 1. Clearing the Cluttered Path

chapter 2. The Seat Belt Moment

Chapter 3. Removing Bias

Chapter 4. Identifying the Real Problem

Part II. Change That Improves

Chapter 5. Everyone Is Creative

Chapter 6. Collaboration

Chapter 7. Inception

Chapter 8. Diverge to Converge

Chapter 9. Measure and Iteration

Part III. Acceptance

Chapter 10. Communication

Chapter 11. Game Board of Stakeholders

Chapter 12. Eating Dumbo

Chapter 13. Momentum

Chapter 14. Change Management

Chapter 15. Walk the Mindful Path

Acknowledgments

Appendix

What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Fail. Try again. Change the world.

—Simon Sinek

Foreword

by Martin Lindstrom, New York Times best-selling author

When you see something and say, Why didn’t I think of that? Matt Mueller is the kind of guy that comes up with that idea. I would never have said that when I first met Matt seven years ago. He was the person sitting there astutely at the horseshoe-formed tables of a hotel conference room. Feet flat on the floor and arms on the table, he waited for his instructions while everyone else was still bantering around him at the juice and coffee table against the wall. He was quiet, reserved, and wouldn’t say much unless you tried to pull it out of him. But you could tell he was soaking it all in.

I have had the pleasure of sharing my knowledge on transformation with brands, organizations, cultures, and people in more than one hundred counties. The work has shown me every dimension of people. A kidnapping experience in Venezuela, acting as a host on Swiss International Airlines—seeking to understand customer service—working on oil platforms outside Aberdeen, or living on mud, in a small cabin somewhere in Nigeria are all experiences I have had or undertaken in service of the mission to identify small data.

Along the way, I’ve had the chance to meet amazing people and help them solve their problems and reach toward transformation. Matt was one such person, and I bumped into him, sitting in a conference room waiting for the meeting to begin.

Matt is truly passionate about customer insight. As I spent time with Matt, I would hear him always ask those big broad questions. You could tell he was seeking to understand the deeper meanings of things, why people behave the way they do, and what it takes to navigate organizations. What I didn’t realize when I first met Matt was that he was new to innovation, which explained a lot about his reserved yet astute demeanor.

When jumping into the blue ocean of innovation, the water is always choppy and disorienting. And it was a storm that Matt was in the middle of weathering. Mixing innovation on top of office politics and culture can sometimes make common sense all but disappear. It takes time to find your bearings. He reminded me of myself early on in my career, a time when I learned some of my most valuable lessons. Like great ideas, seriously amazing concepts can die on a whiteboard because of the intricacies of certain work environments. One such example is how a relationship between a food service buyer and a paper manufacturer killed a groundbreaking concept that could have reinvented eating behaviors for children across the globe. And that the word interesting doesn’t mean whatever a person is talking about is interesting as much as it means the person listening wishes the speaker would shut up.

Like many people I’ve met who are new to the business, Matt soon realized that innovation is a trendy word that has become empty of meaning. A marketing ploy for most. And for others, it’s just all about advancing technology. Like putting TV screens in place of a window on a store beverage cooler blocking the view inside them. Is that really what innovation has come to? Innovation should always start with the customer first. The only issue is—we’ve lost contact with the customer. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t improved that situation. If anything, it’s made it worse. Now we find ourselves stocked behind a big screen, in our home offices, believing we can monitor the consumers via remote control. Graphics, big data, and fancy infographics have come to replace the previous experience of real-people interaction—if not personal experiences—often creating the foundation for a new business idea or concept.

It seems we have become blind to the idea of innovation helping us do better. Instead, we are innovating just for the sake of innovating—innovating aimlessly.

Matt’s approach is to be present, see, hear, and feel each moment, ensuring that everything is moving toward a purpose. Matt’s book The Mindful Innovator is one that takes its readers through that process. It removes the blindfolds from our eyes and halts us from aimlessly innovating. It teaches us to be mindful, get out of our heads, and reclaim the innovation process. He uncovers key innovation principles that are simple yet complicated to master. The case studies in this book highlight the challenges, like a company that made bottled water for dogs. All because the owner thought his problem was everyone else’s problem. Other case studies highlight exemplary behaviors, like how Netflix created monumental change by revamping its culture with more than just values painted on its walls.

The need to hone our skills around Matt’s key principles is imperative for us to correct the frivolous nature of what innovation has become. No matter the industry or your goals, you will glean new insights that will help you walk the mindful path of innovation from this book. No prior meditation experience is required. By the end of the book, you will be scratching your head and asking, Why didn’t I think of that?

I am just glad that Matt hooked on one piece of advice I gave him on our first day working together. Continue to soak it all in, but also write down every big moment you observe in a special book. A book solely just for those moments. Capture those aha moments that would normally pop out of your head faster than they go in. The moments that might not make sense just yet, but you can recognize something in them is important. Just write them down. Those notes are now Matt’s book.

So, you’re welcome!

Martin Lindstrom

Introduction

We are starting an innovation department and would like for you to join the team. When my employer said these words to me, I was stunned. I thought to myself, What do I know about innovation? I never went to school for innovation, nor did I have my MBA, and certainly, I did not feel smart enough. I was just a kid that grew up working in grocery stores, lucky enough to find a corporate gig to get me out of that daily grind. I spent my time in the corporate world supporting grocery store operations—from evaluating the customer experience to understanding trends in sales data. I was not sure how any of that related to innovation.

Though I lacked confidence and felt intimidated, I said, This sounds exciting. Yes!

The nights after accepting the position, my mind ran wild, thinking of all the things we could do to bring our company and our industry into the future. We would definitely need an app, some digital screens, absolutely some robots, and maybe some lasers! I embarrassingly admit I even created a PowerPoint template that had a very futuristic look. It had a black background with a bluish glow that took on a poor man’s look and feel of a Star Wars meets Minority Report vibe. Neon lightsaber-looking elements to highlight titles included. It was awful! I don’t even like Star Wars. Looking back at the beginning of my time in innovation, I realized I had completely missed the mark. I had no clue what innovation really was.

I spent a lot of time during my first couple of years consuming content on all things innovation so I could learn how others do it. I learned many innovation methods like design thinking, six sigma, and stage gate. I became certified in consumer research to perform ethnographic interviews, focus groups, and surveys. And I read countless philosophies from others that have innovated in the past. All while balancing my actual job innovating for the company. It was fast-paced. It’s innovation, after all. All those sayings, Innovate or die, Disrupt or be disrupted, and Fail fast! made me make decisions quickly and aggressively to where my head was spinning. It left me forgetting where one project started and the other one ended. It was like drinking from a fire hose.

It reminded me a lot of when I purchased my first smartphone. The world was now at my fingertips. I could contact anyone by voice, text, or email. The digital content was endless and filled any void of open time that I had. And then the social media notifications that provided the nice rush of dopamine every time it pinged from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, and more. It became overwhelming, consuming my life and leaving me in a place where I could not focus.

To break out of a smartphone delirium and reclaim my time and focus, I used the art of mindfulness. Meditation was hard at first, but once I got the hang of it, I was able to just breathe and be present. I was able to listen to the person that was talking to me without thinking about what my response would be. I was able to observe when my son needed help with something going on in his life. Mindfulness is a practice that changed my life.

So why wasn’t I using it now? There has to be some intersection of mindfulness and innovation. I began to approach my work in the same way that I approached the use of my cell phone. In meetings, I lived in the moment, listened, observed, and made sure I understood before responding. I didn’t worry about what was the new way to innovate. I didn’t worry about having to go fast. I simply thought about what made the most sense for us to meet our objective and set our path in that direction.

Okay. It was a little more complicated than that. Eventually, I stopped worrying about the fifteen ways I could approach innovation and stopped consuming every innovation book on the shelf. Then, I became more mindful and thought about innovation tactically rather than technically. I could see clearly and make decisions more easily. With this newfound clarity, I could see innovation for what it really is. I was able to sit and reflect on the broader questions like how did we innovate in the Stone Age? What was their process? What made them successful? What made them unsuccessful? Sitting in reflection and visualizing some of these broader questions opened my mind to what was important to create successful innovation. It made me realize what’s important for creating positive change in the world.

In the past decade, I have innovated and consulted on innovation for some of the world’s biggest brands. My goals were always to bring insights and strategies to life for products and services of all industries. A by-product of that, most times, was to facilitate the transformation of a company’s culture to be more innovative. I have networked and collaborated with innovators from many organizations to learn about their deepest challenges and biggest insights. I worked together with them to bring some amazing products and services to life. I have learned a lot in my personal innovation experiences, but this book is not just my insights but the insights of many.

In this book, we will break it all down. We will redefine innovation to make it more approachable for anyone who wants to create change. We will uncover a simple formula that is the recipe for success that dates back over 5,000 years. We will slow down and be present together, so we can move faster and more purposefully. In this formula, each variable will have actionable tools we can use to innovate, whether for your own company, your employer, or even your personal life. We are going to uncomplicate the complicated topic. Are you ready?

Part I

The Problem

Chapter 1

Clearing the Cluttered Path

Innovation is cool! It’s a buzzword, and it absolutely demands your attention. It drives hope in employees, increases stock prices for shareholders, and creates excitement for consumers. Innovation is critical in business and our everyday lives.

Impact on Consumers

In 2021, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developer Conference live to the world smack in the middle of the day (Haslam 2022). A total of 6.3 million viewers streamed the event live from their phones and computers to hear about their newest innovations (Elmer-DeWitt 2021). That is double the number of viewers of the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals.

Apple spared no expense and spent fifty million on this event. The news must have been big. They showcased their seventh Apple watch release, called the Series 7. The big innovation of the day was the 45 mm screen size—an increase of 5 mm from their Series 6. Essentially Apple spent ten million dollars per millimeter to announce the update of its watch (Statt 2021).

There were other updates too. The camera technology had changed slightly from the previous model, and there was now another iPad size. Was any of this something that dramatically impacted our lives? Was this groundbreaking? Was it truly innovative? Does the announcement have such an impact on our lives that it is worth the time to stop everything we are doing so that we can listen live? I will leave you to answer that. But I find the Stanley Cup Finals far more entertaining.

Innovation captivates consumers. They want to be active participants. Some consumers want to be in the know, while others want to be the first to buy it. Either way, it is clear they hooked us with innovation.

Impact on Investors

Innovation is undoubtedly a buzzword that attracts the attention of not just customers but also investors. How often do you hear a press release of a company that has developed the greatest innovation for its industry and stock prices soar the next day? With little evidence of any innovation, it quickly impacts investors and key stakeholders.

Capital Markets and Professor Douglas Cummins of York University conducted a research study in 2015 on Market Manipulation and Innovation (Cumming et al. 2020). The study shows that in the account of 5,000 companies, stock prices statistically increase when they make an announcement about introducing innovation or presenting an update on the development of innovation. Why wouldn’t an organization take advantage of this? Especially when they are under extreme pressure to perform every quarter.

Impact on Employees

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (Osman 2016), a utility company in Malaysia, was unsure how much to allocate to innovation when deciding how to budget funds for the next year. They needed to figure out their stance on where innovation fits within their company’s prioritization. They understood that supporting innovation would cost them time and money, but was that time and money worth the effort? Some view innovation as a nice to have, while others deem it as a must-have. Tenaga Nasional Berhad set out on a path to end the debate, so they can properly prioritize their innovation.

They assigned a research team the task of clearly identifying how impactful innovation is for the organization. For the research team, it was pretty clear, off the bat, that innovation would increase the organization’s sales simply by developing new products to sell. They also learned that innovation was also capable of driving more efficient processes and creating higher productivity. However, digging deeper, the research team studied the impact of innovation on employees. They learned through surveying and speaking with them on the topic of innovation and uncovered the unexpected findings that innovation impacts the employee psyche.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad learned that innovation creates hope and increases employee performance within an organization. When their employees heard about company innovation, they engaged. They were motivated and wanted to contribute. Their sense of teamwork was stronger. Innovation provided productivity increases without changing the workflow. Employees also provided greater service levels and were less likely to leave their jobs. Innovation was a superpower for their employees that drove so many benefits, and it was clear to Tenaga Nasional Berhad that innovation was a must-have.

Because of the positive impact of innovation, even if it is just the word, companies like Tenaga Nasional Berhad are investing in innovation departments and assembling strategy teams to take on their complex problems. As these new teams form, there are many philosophies, processes, and countless takes on how to innovate, and the team needs to decide which ones are right for them to use. Innovation is a fairly new topic for organizations, and it can be difficult to figure out what is right when something is so new. But is it really new?

The Innovation Age

In 1975, researchers wrote five scientific books and papers on average per year about innovation management. It wasn’t until 2010 that we hit a trend