Superpowers, innovation & tech...
Lessons from William Harvey
November 2022
Will Harvey has had a stellar career both agency and brand side. Talking with the Head of Global Digital Innovation for Diageo was always going to be interesting for me, especially as we constantly strive to help our clients innovate through their digital transformation journey. There were lots of great takeaways from this episode and below are some of my thoughts and musings.?
Understanding and harnessing your superpower?
William shared about having dyslexia and the challenges that caused him in earlier life. However, he spoke about how he harnessed this early in his school years and has taken the way he thinks and operates into his career. The rest they say is history! Being in an innovation role, thinking differently and utilising the way he thinks and communicates has been in his words his ‘superpower’.?
It’s easy to hide the things we think our different, or we think people won’t accept or value, but listening to Will talk openly about dyslexia and how it’s helped his career reminded me afresh to embrace all the things about myself and leadership, not just my strengths, and maybe even the things I see as a flaw or weakness, could be a superpower!?
Think big, start small?
Innovation is a big and highly nuanced topic, so we were really keen to deepdive with Will about his insight, experience and interpretation of innovation. During our discussion, Will made a comment about ‘think big, start small’ when looking at innovation, and it really struck home. So many businesses we have worked with have the ‘think big’ part - the ‘we’re going to change the world’ mindset but don’t start small. They don’t start with getting the business fundamentals right. The reality for most businesses is that it’s getting the small things right that move a business forward, and enable growth and not the ‘moonshot’ plays. The quote below from the great artist Vincent Van Gogh sums this up nicely:?
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
The mantra of ‘think big, start small’ is so helpful for most businesses, and putting the processes and systems in place to make the small things happen is often a large factor to long term success. Without sounding like a complete bore if you want to talk more about processes and systems then drop me a note and let’s chat!?
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Innovation is not just about technology?
From an agency perspective this was an interesting statement. We develop & integrate websites, CRMs, bespoke platforms and new technologies on a daily basis for clients, which empowers teams to do their jobs more effectively, reach new audiences and become more efficient (amongst many other things) so technology is integral in our innovation process. What I loved about Will’s approach to innovation was the thinking and creative aspect of innovation. I always say technology is a great enabler, but most technology in itself is not the sole thing that drives innovation. Will says that innovation is simply doing something differently, or thinking differently about a problem. Sometimes slamming two existing things together can enable innovation. This is deployed in the flavour innovation process at Diageo for example, when creating new flavours, and has nothing to do with technology.?
When developing new technologies or programmes for clients, we start with an in-depth Discovery Phase. Almost without exception one thing that comes out of this Discovery phase is that a lot of the inefficiencies or problems our clients face are to do with barriers in communication, or how they’ve always done things, or ‘human driven’ problems. Technology in itself seldom solves these problems - there needs to be some fresh thinking about how to do things differently.?
So, if you’re thinking about the innovation process or journey in your business or organisation, don’t start with the technology, start with thinking about the problems and why they exist. We regularly workshop this with clients, so if you’re stuck drop me a note and I’ll happily give you some pointers.?
I hope you enjoy listening to this episode and reading these musings, as always please subscribe to the podcast, share and leave a review.?
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Take care?
Dan x
I help growing tech companies to get noticed by prospects and investors with website and brand messaging so captivating that it wouldn’t look out of place on a catwalk.
2 年Loving these Dan ????
?? I work with growth-minded business leaders to deliver financial infrastructure, information and insight for your business. ?? CFO | FD | FC services for startup and scaling SMEs.?? Grow under control.
2 年Agreed. In the finance & accounting industry, there is a lot of talk about 'tech stack' - and yes, there is a lot of stuff out there that helps. But before pressing 'buy' on all those recurring costs, figure out if it helps the proposition or the service. How? Does something else do it better, cheaper, etc.? There are lots of practice management & scheduling tools out there, but I'm still managing using Microsoft Planner - free with my Office subscription - and it's working brilliantly. I did have to think through the 'human' part of the process to get it to work though - as you say. Thanks Dan!