The Innovation Show

"I don't like J work."
That was Andy — a top serial innovator at SAIC — telling his manager Dennis what he needed to be protected from. J work, in Andy's field of computational electromagnetics, is the imaginary part of a number. To Andy, it meant the imaginary work: staff meetings, budget reviews, formal reporting. Dennis's job was to keep him in real work. Most managers do the opposite.
In part three of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak closes the loop. After two episodes on who serial innovators are and how they navigate the politics, this one is about how organisations find them, develop them — and how managers can stop accidentally driving them out the door.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
• Why mechanistic, CV-screening HR processes — and now AI-powered hiring filters — systematically screen out your future innovators
• The four engagement filters that actually identify a serial innovator: how they engage with problems, projects, business, and people
• The five core traits — systems thinking, above-average (but not extreme) creativity, innate curiosity, deep-expertise intuition, and the intrinsic drive to make things better
• Why π-shaped (pi-shaped) workers — broad across domains AND deep in multiple specialisms — beat T-shaped specialists
• Why innovators spot innovators — and why your best HR move is letting your existing serial innovators sit in on hires
• The career-phase development model: hard problems early, breadth via exposure, apprenticeship over mentorship, and burnout as a real risk if you don't choose your battles
• Golden handcuffs — and the "fur-lined mousetrap" most serial innovators eventually walk into
• The Dennis-and-Andy story at DEMACO/SAIC — and what Dennis did right that almost every other manager gets wrong
• The pheasant hunting in Iowa metaphor — why over-managed budgets leave no nesting ground for the future of your business
• The five things a manager has to do — air cover, patience, running interference, no bureaucratic J work, no daily progress reports
• Why phase-gate control is the slow death of breakthrough innovation
• Where Bruce respectfully diverges from Clay Christensen on whether innovation can survive inside the organisation — or has to be spun out
• The incentive traps that quietly destroy serial innovators — and why "I'm doing what's best for the company and you're giving me crap for it" is the line every serial innovator says to themselves at least once
Chapters:
00:00 Executive Innovator Balance
00:37 Sponsor Message
01:03 Serial Innovators Intro
01:08 HR Screening Problem
03:02 Four Engagement Filters
04:46 Engaging With Problems
05:28 Projects Tenacity
06:29 Business Mindset
07:16 People And Customers
08:33 Research Method War Room
10:46 Five Core Traits
12:12 Innovators Spot Innovators
14:05 Career Phases 0 To 10
17:06 Hard Problems Early
17:58 Apprenticeship Model
18:52 Burnout And Choosing Battles
22:33 Innovator Versus Inventor
24:24 Nurturing Through Exposure
27:05 Budget Barriers Story
29:59 AI Hiring And Hidden Signals
31:44 HR Triads And Policy Limits
33:04 Golden Handcuffs Risk
34:34 Managing For Impact Setup
35:52 Relational Management Style
37:41 Innovation As Dance
38:09 Incentives And Motivation
40:51 Demco SAIC Case Study
44:08 Pheasant Metaphor Budgets
47:12 Avoiding J Work
49:55 Manager Air Cover Tips
52:03 Phase Gates And Control
55:53 Ego And Incentive Traps
59:54 Christensen Inside Vs Spinout
01:03:58 Pi Shaped Innovators
01:08:16 No Excuses Innovation Preview
01:11:33 Wrap Up And Where To Find
About Bruce Vojak
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker, author of Undisruptable — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
About the host
Aidan McCullen is the 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, host of The Innovation Show, and author of Undisruptable (Wiley). Learn more or enquire about booking him for a keynote: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen/
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Follow and listen:
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
About the host: https://theinnovationshow.io/about-aidan-mccullen/
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"I see dead people."
That was Nancy Dawes' answer when Bruce Vojak asked her how she did it. The chemical engineer who took Olay from a dying brand to a billion-dollar product line wasn't being mysterious — she was telling him she saw patterns no-one else did. And the real burden, she realised, wasn't seeing them. It was getting an entire organisation to see them too.
In part two of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak returns to unpack the chapter most innovators learn the hard way: the politics. In over 90% of a mature firm, resources, people and management attention are locked onto today's products. Breakthrough innovation has to fight all of it — for capital, for headcount, for strategic oxygen — and that fight is political by design.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
The Galileo scenario — why a serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else and sees a completely different solution
Why politics loses its negative meaning the moment you realise it is the only way to actually serve the customer
Strategic coherence vs tactical coherence — and the one question to ask before you push any breakthrough idea into your firm
"Crossing the bridge" from the naïve view (invention is sufficient, the manager will recognise it) to political pragmatism
The four elements of trust — competence, reliability, openness, concern — that buy a serial innovator the right to be heard
Why every breakthrough story Bruce found came from an emergent team, not a pre-formed innovation team
The "Stone Soup" model of recruiting allies one favour at a time
The Disneyland queue problem of selling internally — you think you've got buy-in, and then there are ten more people behind the next corner
Soft influence (planting seeds, telling stories, "people tolerate my conclusions but act on their own conclusions") and hard influence (data, prototypes, signed purchase orders, customer pull-through)
"The best marketing research is a signed purchase order" — the line Bruce still uses as a filter today
Buckminster Fuller's outlaw quote, and his trim tab metaphor — how one person, properly placed, can move the whole ship
Chuck House's HP defiance and the line that captures every serial innovator who ever risked their job for the work: "I wasn't trying to be defiant. I just wanted a success for HP. It never occurred to me it might cost me my job."
00:00 Sponsor Message
00:25 Why Breakthroughs Stall
01:15 Meet Bruce Vojak
02:36 Seeing Hidden Patterns
06:14 Innovation Lenses
09:28 Strategic vs Tactical Coherence
10:37 Reframing Politics
11:57 QWERTY Switching Costs
14:27 Owning the Political Work
18:00 Trust and Early Wins
21:14 Crossing the Bridge
30:04 Convincing Many Stakeholders
31:40 Engaging Allies Slowly
33:01 Emergent Teams Not Assigned
38:21 Innovation as Team Sport
39:10 Positioning for Strategy Fit
43:26 Too Many Innovators
44:38 Proof via Purchase Orders
46:25 Outlaw Area and Trim Tab
50:17 Politics Navigation Diagram
53:15 Manager Perspective Teaser
55:46 Wrap Up and Sponsor
About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms
About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — author of Undisruptable, keynote speaker and former pro athlete — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Kyndryl helps leaders harness AI-powered consulting and managed-service capability for smarter decisions, faster innovation and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Follow and listen: Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

Most companies think innovation is a straight line. Bruce Vojak spent years studying the people who prove otherwise.
Bruce Vojak is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Oxford University Press). In this bonus episode of The Innovation Show, he joins Aidan McCullen for a focused look at the Hourglass Innovation Model — the descriptive framework that maps how serial innovators actually move from an interesting problem to a flawless product launch.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
Why the Hourglass Model is descriptive, not prescriptive — and why that matters
How serial innovators often redefine the problem before they solve it
The Tom Osborne story — how reframing a feminine hygiene brief from diaper to garment changed everything
Why serial innovators can appear completely unproductive for months — and why that is actually the work
How they were practising customer empathy and design thinking before those ideas had names
Why Execute — the stage most firms obsess over — is just one of five tasks
How to use the model as an honest self-diagnostic: am I doing these things, or is it really the organisation?
Chapter topics 
00:00 Hourglass Model Intro
00:31 Stage Gate vs Hourglass
01:15 Redefining the Problem
04:16 Pragmatism and Empathy
06:27 Deep Dive Understanding
07:49 Experiment and Iterate
08:39 Nonlinear Flow Explained
10:02 Org Maturity and Politics
11:47 Normalize and Self Assess
12:53 Wrap Up and Sponsor
About The Innovation Show The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners on disruption, innovation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/
Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms
https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q
This episode is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Listen and follow: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"These are the most important people you've never heard of."
After interviewing more than 50 serial innovators inside the world's largest mature companies, Bruce Vojak knows something most boards don't: a tiny minority of people — roughly 1 in 500 inside a large firm — quietly create the breakthrough products that fund everything else. They have no formal mandate. They are often almost fired. And without them, the S-curve flatlines.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and a former engineering executive who has spent over a decade studying how breakthrough innovation actually happens inside big organisations. This is part one of a multi-part series with host Aidan McCullen on Bruce's life's work.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
Why the humble carrot peeler is the clearest example of how innovation redefines the basis of competition
How Tom Osborne at Procter & Gamble almost lost his job twice — before launching the billion-dollar Always Ultra brand
The Tom Osborne quote every product team should hang on the wall: his products were "love letters to his customers"
Why it is not marketing, it is "customering" — and why customer-driven beats market-driven every time
The three roles inside the stage-gate process — inventor, champion, implementer — and why serial innovators play across all three
Why stage-gate is brilliant for incremental innovation and lethal for breakthrough work
The MP5 model: motivation, personality, perspectives, preparation, process and politics — what serial innovators bring vs. what they develop
Why the politics is the work — and why pushing the boulder up the hill is Sisyphean by design
The hiring insight that changes everything: "I want people who want to do the work innovators do, not people who want to be an innovator"
How Iain McGilchrist's master and emissary, Charles Handy's S-curves and Thomas Kuhn's paradigms all converge inside one good innovator
Why early success is a curse — and what to do when your organisation has forgotten how it found its first product
Chapters:
00:00 Why Serial Innovators Matter
00:31 Sponsor and Series Setup
01:11 Meet Bruce Vojak
02:45 Defining Innovation
04:08 Carrot Peeler Breakthroughs
05:54 Market Expansion Examples
07:56 What Is a Serial Innovator
08:44 Hiring and Spotting Innovators
10:32 Curse of Early Success
15:19 Punished for Innovating
17:34 Tom Osborne at P&G
19:53 Digging Deep for Insight
22:18 Bootlegging to Launch Ultra
27:25 When Innovators Check Out
33:17 Incremental vs Breakthrough
36:04 S Curves and Culture Tension
42:03 Stage Gate vs Iteration
43:24 Switch to Video and Diagrams
44:30 Stage Gate Overview
45:09 Stage Gate Basics
46:58 Innovation Roles Explained
48:21 Serial Innovators Across Roles
50:34 Customer Driven Discovery Loop
53:37 Seeing Patterns Metaphors
55:13 Motivation And Role Friction
01:02:50 MP5 Model Origins
01:04:33 Traits Motivation Politics
01:16:07 Innovation Process Diagram 1.7
01:21:57 Wrap Up Sponsor Outro
About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/
Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms
https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q
About The Innovation Show The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — author of Undisruptable, keynote speaker and former pro athlete — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. With a unique blend of AI-powered consulting built on unmatched managed-service capability, Kyndryl helps leaders harness technology for smarter decisions, faster innovation and lasting competitive edge. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
Follow and listen:
Website: https://theinnovationshow.io
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen

"Organisations love innovation, but they hate their innovators."
Jeff and Staney DeGraff return to The Innovation Show to close out Aidan McCullen's DeGraff trilogy with their book The Art of Change. Their argument is direct: change rarely fails because of bad strategy or weak execution. It fails because leaders bring the wrong mindset — treating change like a linear project when change is actually a paradox to be held.
In this conversation, Jeff and Staney reveal:
Why the man who saved Operation Warp Speed got passed over for promotion — and what his story tells every innovator about the cost of being right
The Jonas Salk warning every change-maker should hear: they won't notice, then they'll say you're doing it wrong, then they'll call you unprofessional, then they'll take credit for your work
Why apathy and alignment are the deadliest signs in any organisation
The seven core paradoxes of change — and the four-step paradox mindset cycle that breaks the deadlock
Why facts don't change minds (the Harriet Beecher Stowe story Lincoln told to prove it)
How Sears actually invented the digital economy and how mindset cost them the future
Why "deviance first, alignment later" is the funnel every leader gets backwards
The CIO joke that isn't funny: Career Is Over as soon as you take the job
Why the first pancake is never a good pancake — and what FAIL really stands for
Chapters: 00:00 Innovation in the AI era 01:03 Sponsor and book intro 01:40 Why change fails 02:36 Trilogy origins 06:12 Paradox and mindset 07:58 Why organisations punish their innovators 10:28 Luis, Rapid X, and Operation Warp Speed 16:52 Meaning over happiness 18:06 Time, not targets 19:45 The paradox mindset cycle 24:34 Marriage and money paradox 28:15 Conflict fuels change 32:27 Missed futures examples 36:44 Practice beats theatre 38:04 Builders versus bureaucrats 41:05 Skin in the game 42:35 Blocked by superiors 43:45 Leaders spot talent 44:49 Disruptors and failure 48:05 Boundaries create freedom 51:43 Innovation needs hideouts 53:59 Stories build culture 59:45 The seven paradoxes explained 01:07:38 Deviance, then alignment 01:13:10 The paradox mindset cycle 01:18:26 Final takeaways and wrap
About Jeff and Staney DeGraff Jeff DeGraff is the "Dean of Innovation" — Clinical Professor of Management at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, founder of the Innovatrium, and author of multiple bestselling books on creative leadership. Staney DeGraff is co-founder of the Innovatrium and Jeff's longtime collaborator. Together they've worked with half the Fortune 500 on what it actually takes to make change stick.
📘 The Art of Change — https://amzn.to/48mhX54
🌐 https://jeffdegraff.com
About The Innovation Show
The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan sits down with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners to call out the "Emperor is naked" moments and explore disruption, transformation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
Connect 🌐 https://theinnovationshow.io
📨 Substack (and a chance to win a copy of The Creative Mindset): https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
Sponsor
This series is brought to you by Kyndryl. Learn more about Kyndryl and the Kyndryl Institute at https://www.kyndryl.com.
#ParadoxMindset #JeffDeGraff #TheArtOfChange #Innovation #ChangeManagement #Leadership #TheInnovationShow #AidanMcCullen #Thinkers50 #InnovationPodcast #LeadershipPodcast #DisruptionTheory