TEI 029: Reflections on Being a Serial Innovator in a Large Organization

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you episode
029 of... The Everyday Innovator with host Chad
McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved
in developing and managing products become more successful, grow
their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. Our Guest: Steve
Pierz is a serial innovator at Caterpillar. A serial innovator
is often on the cutting-edge if not the bleeding-edge, in mature
organizations. They are the problem-solvers that substantially
contribute to their company’s financial value. Highlights from the
discussion include… Innovation is looking at things differently and
questioning traditional wisdom.Innovators can be irritating to
experts in the organization who do not welcome having the way
things work being questioned.Serial innovators’ reputations for
discarding old ideas and promoting new ideas can create
uncomfortable first meetings. Steve often receives an “Oh, I have
heard about you” when meeting people in the organization for the
first time.Innovators fail – just don’t fail spectacularly. Quickly
run experiments and learn.Steve started a weekly webinar for anyone
at Caterpillar to learn more about innovation, called Friday
Morning Coffee and Disruptive Technologies. Each week attendance
has dramatically grown. Participants are from a wide variety of
functions, not just engineering. Frequently, external experts join
the webinar to present ideas and processes.