Outthinkers
The Outthinkers podcast is a growth strategy podcast hosted by Kaihan Krippendorff. Each week, Kaihan talks with forward-looking strategists and innovators that are challenging the status quo, leading the future of business, and shaping our world.
Chief strategy officers and executives can learn more and join the Outthinker community at https://outthinkernetwork.com/.
Outthinkers
#126—William Duggan: Navigating the Corporate Labyrinth—A Guide for Internal Innovators
William Duggan is lecturer of strategy and innovation at Columbia Business School, and the author of four books on innovation: Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (2007); Creative Strategy: A Guide for Innovation (2012); and The Seventh Sense: How Flashes of Insight Change Your Life (2015), and his most recent work: Corporate Innovator: A Guide Through the Labyrinth, published in 2024.
In his book, Bill covers employee-driven innovation. Bill dives deep into a dilemma he found resurfacing time and again in his research from interviews he conducted: the seemingly never-ending maze that corporate employees face in trying to bring their ideas to reality.
Here we cover insights from his into how employees can navigate “the corporate labyrinth,” and how employers can lower the obstacles they (usually unwittingly) put in the path of would-be internal innovators.
In this podcast, he shares:
- An explanation in neurological—yet easy to understand terms—of the way in which our minds come up with new ideas
- The way in which organizations often create endless obstacles to people innovating within their roles—hence his apt metaphor of the labyrinth
- Practical techniques for how individuals can navigate and overcome these obstacles to successfully navigate this corporate labyrinth
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Episode Timeline:
00:00—Highlight from today's episode
1:20—Introducing Bill + the topic of today’s episode
3:37—If you really know me, you know that...
4:26—Defining strategy
04:54—Motivation that lead to writing Corporate Innovator
07:17—Research approach for Corporate Innovator
9:36—The corporate labyrinth
11:55—Where innovative ideas come from
13:38—Techniques for generating more ideas
15:24—The idea hierarchy obstacle
18:08—Tunnel vision and the core business
20:15—The Ally Maze: managing up, across, and down
22:41—Tyranny of the team
24:29—Mind games
24:41—Effective language for discussing new ideas with your team
24:38—Handling "bad" ideas constructively
27:10—How can people follow you and continue learning from you?
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Additional Resources:
Faculty page: https://business.columbia.edu/faculty/people/william-duggan
Link to book: Corporate Innovator: A Guide Through the Labyrinth
Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.
Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast
Kaihan Krippendorff: Bill, thank you so much for being here. Glad that we finally got you on the podcast. It's great to have you here.
Bill Duggan: My pleasure.
Kaihan Krippendorff: So I loved your most recent book for a number of reasons, and I'm excited to get into it, particularly because it's about the individual innovator as opposed to the leader enabling innovation and it is also a real blend of your work, a real blend of strategy and innovation. But before we get into that work, there are 2 questions that I ask all of my guests, so I'm gonna ask them a few. The first will have nothing to do necessary with your work. Just for us to get to know you a little bit more personally, could you complete this sentence for me? If you really know me, you know that.
Bill Duggan: I spent 20 years working in in on Africa. I spoke African languages at some point. I've been to more than half the countries of Africa, and I've been overland across Africa, north to south, which should be safe. Pretty rare.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yes. Amazing. What were the what are those African languages?
Bill Duggan: Swahili and Twana and Botswana. What's going on? Oh, excellent.
Kaihan Krippendorff: My mother lived there for a few years in Malawi, and I got to spend a couple of summers there, but nothing as in-depth as you
Bill Duggan: I've been to Malawi.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Oh, you have. Oh, okay. Great. So Second question, we have lots of strategy experts on this podcast, and I never get the same answer from any of them. And you have thought deeply about what strategy is.
So my question for you is what's your definition of strategy?
Bill Duggan: It's actually if you go to the dictionary, it's a very simple definition. It's actions towards the goal. That's a strategy. You know, I have a strategy for dinner tonight, you know, which my goal what are my actions. Very simple.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Right.
Bill Duggan: That's it.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Love it. Alright. Well, let's dig into your work. My understanding of your work that I've read, I followed up until this book has been really around strategy, strategic insights, strategic creativity. That's kind of what you're known for.
And now you have decided to focus that into this book about an internal innovator, a corporate innovator. First of my question is, what got you excited about digging into this topic?
Bill Duggan: So I gave given workshops really around the world to thousands of executives, hundreds of companies, you know, they like it, which is why I keep getting invited back. And then they say, great. Great. I love it. My next problem is that when I get a new idea, people immediately shoot it down.
Now, of course, you know, they don't say much beyond that because it's very, very hard to get people to admit conflict. In any semi public poor, you know, even public forum. But this is just very, very consistent. So I started thinking, okay. Well, some the first step is you get a good idea.
The second step is how do you get it through the system? So it really wasn't that I got really excited about it. It's that I felt their pain. And so I said, okay. Can you know?
Like, I guess, like, a good doctor. I said, can I figure out how to help them? So I researched it thoroughly. I actually have personal experience in big organizations twice with some success and some not has an individual innovator within a big organization. So I then realized that that particular subject of what does the individual do when you get a new idea in really an organization of any size, actually.
What do you do next? That there was no book or large literature on that subject. So I said, okay. Well, there's a niche. So I did my best to fill it.
You know, as you said, you know, there's lots of books on how the company should be innovative. You know, and your own work takes that down 1 level, which is terrific. You know, how does it what does the team do? Right. You know, definitely progress beyond the company.
So I take it 1 step blower, you know, in the sense to the individual. Know, before you even have a team, so to speak. If you have a team, you've made it. You know, what do you do? Get that far, you know?
So that that's my step away.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Great. And what I love about you to tell us a little bit about the research approach, because I love about your work is you have really the hands on experience from interviews of real cases of real people. Did you say many of them don't allow you to give their names or context because of this fear of conflict? And yet you also reach back into ancient knowledge. So just tell us a little bit about how you decided to research this niche.
Bill Duggan: The key to all knowledge is history. The only knowledge we have is what happened before this moment. So, you know, that's all history. Now what happened yesterday's history? What happened a week ago's history?
So, you know, why do you draw the line, you know, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago, a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, a thousand years ago. You know, it's all human experience and human knowledge. People say, no. No. No.
This contemporary, and I say, no. It's not. You're talking about something happened yesterday. That's history.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Great. So you gather history. You document some history that maybe is not documented yet through interviews and
Bill Duggan: Yeah. So the interviews are good. The interviews, even the interviews, even privately. And, you know, again, though, they do know that I'm gonna use it in class and that after using the class, I ask people can I use it in the book? They won't really admit conflict.
They won't describe conflict. Whereas, the problem is conflict. And, again, I don't mean conflict despite. I mean, you immediately encounter obstacles in this form of people who just don't wanna do your idea. You know?
Kaihan Krippendorff: Whether that's your boss or your CFO or your colleagues or whatever.
Bill Duggan: You know? And that people won't name names. I guess that's what it is. And they won't even describe Like you're saying, they won't say my CFO. You know, they won't even say somebody.
They'll say, well, you know, people. Whereas, that isn't how you experience it as an innovator. You experience people 1 by 1 by 1. And so how do you deal with people 1 by 1 by 1 is the is the answer? And so, you know, I did my best to answer that question.
And for that and your and for that, you know, you really are in all of you in history because no matter what people wanna do anywhere, anytime, big organization or no, you encounter obstacles in the form of other you for allies to you know, your goal is to turn obstacles into allies.
Kaihan Krippendorff: And I'd love to use the word obstacles. I had always been using the word barriers, but obstacles invite you to untangle them and overcome them. Maybe just I wanna go into starting with your first chat, chapter, where do these ideas come from, and then through some of the obstacles But first, I'd like to just maybe describe why you chose the labyrinth because the labyrinth kind of represents an obstacle.
Bill Duggan: So I don't know. I'm not even sure how it came to me, but what came to me was that the pyramid of an organization, the classic structure, which is fantastically successful. It's the most successful structure in the history of the world that these people report to that person, and these people report to that person. A fair bit. When you get your new idea, the route might not be up the pyramid.
You know? And actually, it's held in Israel. It you know, you have to wind your way or to find your way through looking for allies, you know, next to you, below you, above you, you know, and that it's really a labyrinth made up of people. So that was the image that that came to me. And, you know, in in the I then bring it back to the to the pyramids, you know, the pyramid the original pyramids in Egypt, you know, they have these little labyrinth within that to lead to the treasure.
Right? Yep. To boil a great Roberts. Right? So that's what it is.
You know, there's this little path somewhere within the pyramid that leads you to the treasure. And then, of course, you know, I found in Greek pathology. I found the labyrinth story, and that was a good 1 too, because the hero who goes in the labyrinth gets an ally in the fore his name is ECS. He gets an ally. Ariadny, who's the daughter of the king who built a labyrinth, and she gives him a threat.
It helps him find his way out of the labyrinth. So, you know, the book is Ariad. Yes. He's trying to help people Find your way to elaborate.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. Yeah. When I read that story, I didn't IIII thought about the metaphor of the thread, but the ally, you're right. I that that's such an important part of that is a thread that weaves through the entire book.
Bill Duggan: Yeah. So this so an optional title. The first title of the book was gonna be Ariana's threat, but everybody said, no. That's too obscure.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Right. Right. I see. I think that is a niche of a niche. So I wanna get through the obstacles However, I think that we would be remiss if we didn't at least talk a little bit about the first beginning, where it's innovation begins with innovative thinking, and you talk about the default mode, and you have spent decades looking into where do innovative ideas come out of someone's head.
So maybe you just give us a little brief primer on where the idea come from comes from.
Bill Duggan: So in 19 94, a neuroscientist started a journal called learning a member, and this really is the new model of the brain. The model is the brain in thinking is an organ that learns and remembers. And all our thoughts come from memory. This is really the big breakthrough in neuroscience, which has been slow to penetrate beyond neuroscience, honestly. So that the idea that creativity comes from thinking of something new, that something you know, strikes me or the in a brainstorming session.
You know, let's be creative. Really, new ideas are come from a recombination of what's in your memory. There's no other source. And the other part of neuro scientist to then describe some of the phases and there's a phase called the default state, which you mentioned where your mind is at rest, basically. And it isn't focused on anything.
It's unfocused. And, really, what it's doing, the brain never turns off. What it's really doing is it's just treating everything equally within your brain service fee. There's no focus. And that the flesh of insight, which people have more often than they think, is where from that to false state, things come off that shelf of memory and form a new solid new combination.
That's how it works.
Kaihan Krippendorff: What can people do if the beginning of the journey of being a corporate innovator is having ideas I know that's that there's some circularity to the whole process. But what are some things that people can do to have more ideas? Like, for example, I'll spend I find I like, on Sundays, I read the New York Times. Live down in Miami, sometimes I'm in my pool, and I'm just reading The New York Times. And ideas are popping in my head, and they have nothing to do with what I'm reading.
I'll read a book about something like historical about country music, and then I come up with just thoughts that have nothing to do with it. So, like, I feel like that that is a way for me to get into a default.
Bill Duggan: Oh, there's a few things. 1, probably, the music is that your mind is relaxed. You know? It's like, you know, cutting along or cooking or just walking. You know, your mind is very relaxed.
So that's sort of achieving that default state where things then come into your mind. Just in the reading of the New York Times, it's probably a combination of that and also, you know, a new input into your memory. In other words, you're seeing, oh, that's what they did. That's what they did. That's what they did.
That makes me think of x. Because the other thing is the gray matter of the brain. They call it now in the association cortex. Meaning, your brain makes associate that's how you think you're making connections association. You're associating this with this.
This is this is related to that. That's related to that. That's what's going on in your mind while you're reading the New York Times. Hey. You know, and what it what's probably happening is it's going, like, a step here, a step here, and a step here, like, 3 different associations.
And by the time you get to the third 1, Yes. You can't remember the relation it had back in this article you were reading.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Right. So it seems random, but there is a
Bill Duggan: It seems really, but it got there through, you know, like, 3 steps of association.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Make that makes a ton of sense. Okay. Okay. So we have some ideas on how we can put ourselves into the default mode, make these connections that we can't see as connections that generates ideas. And then we go into and I might be simplifying this, but this is kind of the way I read the book was After that, there are 5 obstacles that you will face.
You talk about the idea hierarchy. You talk about tunnel vision, the curse of the core. Really interested in talking about that. You talk about the ally maze, false friends, the tier any of the team, mind games, war of the words. I wanna go into maybe 2 of these in more depth, but would you mind just briefly describing those 5 if I got it right?
I know. I thought for you because you because you have been spent you've spent so jazzing, but but, like, what would be the natural language description of those of each of those?
Bill Duggan: Well, I have to get the book. I don't
Kaihan Krippendorff: I'll read the idea hierarchy.
Bill Duggan: The idea hierarchy I guess it's that the idea hierarchy is that the number 1 obstacle the first obstacle you face is that other people have ideas about your idea even if they never thought about it before. The number 1 obstacle is the ideas other is ideas other people that especially if you're moving up, like, if you're, you know, let's say you have a new idea and you talk to your boss, the first react again, I'm just talking about human nature in general. The first reaction is, wait a second. You know, I'm the boss. I'm supposed to have good ideas of this subject.
If I've never thought about it before. You know, my idea in the hierarchy is better than yours. Even I just have the idea in, like, in this 3 seconds since you told me you're a Yeah. This
Kaihan Krippendorff: is my job. They
Bill Duggan: But yeah. Right. You know, and that you're sort of doing my job. My I'm the you know, you're supposed to be executing my job to have ideas. Okay.
So the hierarchy idea hierarchy is, you know, that's right. So right away, that's 1 person whose ideas in the hierarchy. You have to deal with some now if your idea let you know, let's say you're an IT and your ideas has something to do with marketing. Okay. Now you go to a marketing person who's responsible for that area, immediately, they have an idea because in the hierarchy, that's their responsibility.
Not your you're talking about oh, you're talking about marketing. Well, you know, my idea about, you know, digital marketing is x. So right away, you know, so if you plot out so the idea is sort of the tool I offer is that you start plotting this out, and you start seeing whose ideas in the hierarchy are gonna matter. And then and, you know, they don't just say, okay. Well, you know, these people are gonna overrule my end.
Yeah. You then start approaching them 1 by 1 trying to gently get them to basically, drop their idea to him and accept yours. Okay.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Okay. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love the way you framed that.
It's different the way it's often framed. Tunnel vision, you talk about I thought it was really fascinating that, you know, we you have the core, you have the noncore, and people assume that the core is fixed, then everyone knows what the core is. But, you know, you point out that that's not the case, the core of the business, core, business.
Bill Duggan: Oh, here we go back something that's very important that you're doing, which is to I mean, my view of what you're doing is to basically say, look, strategy is always innovation. In other words, the in strategy, you have to do something new if you think strategy, you know, it's that they're the same thing. Right? The future is unknown different from the past. You need something new in the future.
So strategy and innovation are really inseparable. You may have somewhat different methods, but the idea that, you know, strategy is doing something new is really, really important. So what it is that, you know, 1 of the biggest obstacles to doing something new in strategy or innovation, whatever you call it, is people's idea that somehow you're not supposed to violate this core. Now I guarantee if you ask take any big organization, ask, you know, 20 of the top people, what's the core, you're gonna get a different answer. And every single 1 of them will still say though, and it's very important to stick with the core.
If you if you look at the reality, again, the history of companies, their course, change. And if they don't change, they're in big trouble.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Could you give 1 example just to help people visualize?
Bill Duggan: Well, my favorite is that that Nokia started as a timber company. I mean, you can't be better than that. Right.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Right. There you go. Yep. There you go.
Bill Duggan: But, you know, but I deal with this not to criticize, but just don't understand. You know, again, human nature understand people want or seeking that kind of stability. And what you do is very simple, you present your idea, your new idea as consistent with the core. Don't fight the core. You can't win it.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Don't fight the core. Right. Right. That's great. And and the core is malleable.
So Yeah.
Bill Duggan: Exactly. And people's gonna Yeah. People's conception is gets an idea. So people's conception of it is so fluid. Just, oh, this fits our core in the following way.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. Yeah. I like, I love that. Yeah. I think it makes sense.
Like, people say they want new things, but they really want the old thing. So just say, hey. This is the old thing.
Bill Duggan: Yeah. Rich, I'm working. Love it.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Love it. Love it. Align maze up down across. This is about tell us what the tool is here, what the with the obstacles.
Bill Duggan: Yes. So this is where yes. Just that that they're somewhat different. I mean, there's some consistent consistency no matter who you talk to. There's a way to talk to them.
But then there's some specific tool, so to speak, if you're managing up, if you're you know, taking the idea up across or down. And that's where I give, you know, specific tools. 1 1 of my favorite tools for for up is, again, comes from history, comes from patent in world war 2, you know, by far the best allied general, and he did it, you know, by studying history, by, you know, imitating past success. In any event, it comes time the battle of the bulge, he knows exactly what to do because he's all figured out. He even puts his men in motion, you know, to actually solve the problem.
But Eisenhaur convokes him meeting after done ironically, which was the World War 1 was, like, the worst battle. So in Verdun, all the allied generals are there, and Isanawa turns to Patton and says, George, so what what do you suggest? Patton has already figured it out. He's already put his men in motion. He gives Eisenpower 3 options.
In Patton's view, they're basically the same option. You know, do we go through this village? That village? Is it 2 divisions? Is it 1 division?
He doesn't care. Mhmm. But it's brilliant. Yeah. Because But who yeah.
Who who had been signed and what to do at the Battle of the Bulls? I see. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah.
Excellent. 1 1 generally, we had on the on the on the Voci, I think, is his research shows that, yeah, 6 people are good at the at at innovating inside systems, they view the political challenge as part of this problem solving process. And often people fail, it's just a necessary evil that I but it can be fun.
Bill Duggan: Yeah. Well and I I also think that that SNEAR knew who knows you know, he understood who patent was and that he was the best general. So I wonder if it was all if they
Kaihan Krippendorff: yeah. If it was a double Who is who is playing whom?
Bill Duggan: I don't know.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Love it. Love it. Too big. We've got 2 more false friends during any of the team and mind games wore of the words. We only have a few more minutes, but would you mind just sort of describing those 2?
Bill Duggan: So the tiering of the team is that, look, you get a new idea. You're already in a team of some kind executing doing something. The chances that the people in your team are honestly gonna like your new idea are no greater than anyone else liking your new idea. Right? So sometimes often, unfortunately.
So here's here's a very concrete example. I was talking about this with someone. She's she works in France. Very big organization. She's in corporate.
And I said to her, so, you know, somebody gets an idea in the organization. What do they do next? She thinks she says, well, you know, they told us they want ideas to bubble up from from below. I said, okay. That's great.
What exactly do you do when you get a new idea? She says, oh, okay. Well, I guess we bring it to the screw. Now they're organizing themselves as agile, a scrum as you know well, I'm is, you know, once a week, you have to stand up meeting, but it's about execution. And it's quick.
Right? It's what are you doing? Well, okay. We're solving scrumming execution. So It's a team.
It's a wonderful team that's working fast on execution. Imagine bringing a new idea to that scrum that has nothing to do with what you're currently working on. What's the reaction? The reaction is I'm sorry. We only have 5 minutes.
So I know the words not if you're just locked into an existing team structure, it can be just it's gonna screen, you know, as your boss saying it up.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. Because I guess the teams are naturally were formed around existing ideas. That's the structure, and a new idea maybe requires a different
Bill Duggan: Every new idea requires a different set of people supporting it. That's the key.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Alright. And then we'll go to the last 1. Mind games were of the words. I love this because, you know, it's so easy to kill an idea, a new idea about just your reaction to the idea you offer some advice on what words to use, what words not to use. Maybe you can just brief Yeah.
Bill Duggan: So so so 1 thing is from the boss. You're the boss. Someone burst into your office has a new idea. Oh, I have this new idea. First 2 words out of your mail.
Thank you. Last thing you say in that first conversation, I need to think about it. Dominate, you know, in the flow of operations and execution like the scrum, you know, people We gotta move fast. We gotta move fast. We gotta move fast.
Yep. Decide right away. What do you think of my idea? Don't ask that because people were saying they don't like it. So the idea as a boss, you know, is to say, I need to think about it.
And then you honestly think about it. Because what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna respond quickly and then realize later that actually, you know, I should take a minute more seriously. And, again, you you you you don't say things like good idea or, you know, you know, nice idea. Don't say anything. Positive or negative.
Take it serious.
Kaihan Krippendorff: I see. It's neutral.
Bill Duggan: Yeah. But I need to I need to think about it.
Kaihan Krippendorff: When you engage with our chief innovation officer, chief strategy officer, this was a topic that got a lot of interest And I was wondering if you could just share a little bit. You said you you suggested say something like could be you never say this is a bad idea after you think about it. If I'm if I remember it. Right? Do we instead you say yeah.
Bill Duggan: Yeah. So so I'll I'll give you an example. In 1 of my classes, there was a executive MBA class, she was a controller, and she said people always come in to me with just illegal things. Right? And so I'm, you know, I'm arguing, I'm fighting all day.
So I gave her the general advice, which she said, oh, thank you. This totally changes my life. Is don't say no. Say, oh, well, you know, if this this or this changes or, you know, if you can do x, y, and z or if these people would agree or if XYY, and z, you know, come back to me. We'll talk about it.
And it's very honest. You know? It's not a trick. Like, it is true. You know, if the will changes, if the, you know, if something changes, for example, if the law changes, it's true.
If these people agree, you know, if you can find a budget, then come back.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. I love it. You have the you have the person empower the person to do the work, and also you acknowledge that a bad idea today can become a good idea in the future. The economics may change. The structure may change.
Reality may change. Yeah.
Bill Duggan: And if they if they figure out the problems you're solving, Great. You know, some I mean, some of them might be impossible, but, you know, there's only 1 way to find out is throw it back at them and let them try if they have the energy and the and the interest behind their idea.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Great. Thank you. Each of these we could dig dive into and we could have a 30 minute conversation about it. But at least we covered the main things, definitely we encourage people to buy your book and read through it and study it. Well, how else can people get to interact with you?
I know that you do a lot of executive vacation, what are if someone's listening to this and says, oh my gosh. I need to I need to learn this and to master this. What should they do?
Bill Duggan: Well, you know, I definitely read the book. It's called corporate mirror. Let me remind people of that. But, you know, I'm good at email. I'm happy for people to email me.
Beyond that, you know, I'd do speaking. If someone wants me to come and speak somewhere, I do sessions of any length, you know, an hour, 2 hour, 3 hour, 1 day, 2 days.
Kaihan Krippendorff: Yeah. And know you're highly rated as well. So very effective. In that mode as well. Well, Bill, thank you for deciding to take on this very nice challenge that a lot of people face and for looking at it so in such depth and packaging it and giving us practical tools that we can apply.
Very valuable. Thanks for taking the time to share some of it with us here.
Bill Duggan: Great. Thank you for inviting.
