TEI 282: Do you have an innovator’s mindset to succeed as a product manager? – with Chuck Swoboda

The beliefs that enable innovation for product managers Are you an innovator? Not every product manager is, but I think the good ones need to be. Innovation is most frequently described as a process that brings something new into existence, creating value for others, such as customers. Our guest shares that innovation is really about people and those who are good at it have a different mindset. While process is important, innovation needs the right people involved. The discussion covers a lot of ground as Chuck Swoboda, retired Chairman and CEO of Cree and a pioneer in the LED lighting industry, shares his 30 years of experience with us. We discuss the mindset he wrote about in The Innovator’s Spirit that people use to make the seemingly impossible a reality, examples of innovation at Cree, how to find and hire innovators, using Brutal Truths to improve anything, and why Steve Jobs was right when he said customers don’t know what they want. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [4:05] What problem does your book The Innovator’s Spirit solve? Most writing on innovation is about process or recipe. I wrote The Innovator’s Spirit to share the missing piece of people and mindset. My book helps anyone who’s interested in innovation to unlock the mindset that lets us innovate. [4:05] How do you define innovation? Innovation is something new that solves a customer problem and creates real value. [7:42] What is the innovator’s mindset? The innovator’s mindset is the beliefs that enable behaviors that make innovation possible. Our life experiences have created a set of beliefs that get in the way of innovation. The innovator’s mindset flips those beliefs around–risk is good, there’s always a better way, crisis is an opportunity. We need to create experiences to form new beliefs. For example, put yourself in a situation where you’re likely to fail. You’ll realize that the idea that you can’t do something is in your head. You learn resiliency by surviving failure. When you have the innovator’s mindset, you’ll realize that missed opportunity is the biggest risk. [14:20] What’s an example of trying something new with the innovator’s mindset? At Cree, an LED company, we tried to convince lighting companies to make LED lightbulbs, but after several years, none of them had. We decided to make LED lightbulbs ourselves. Five people developed the Cree LED bulb in secret in a year, and we convinced Home Depot to buy it. We got into the consumer products business we had never been in before. We risked losing some R&D dollars, but the bigger risk was not turning on the market for LED lighting. People who like innovation view failure as learning. In innovation, you’re trying to get an answer that may or may not really exist. [17:53] What were the characteristics of the five innovators who developed the LED lightbulb? We picked people who were rule breakers. They were unafraid of failure, yet they were unwilling to fail. They were motivated because their pride as innovators was on the line. [21:22] How did you identify those characteristics? I found out how they deal with uncertainty. I want people who will figure out how to solve problems. I asked them to describe their biggest failure and what they learned. I want people who are unwilling to fail and who empower themselves. I also make sure their title isn’t important to them, because we need people who are flexible enough to tackle whatever problems are in front of them. [24:51] What are the brutal truths and why do we need them? If you’re going to innovate, you have to be focused on the unvarnished facts—the brutal truths. We need to care more more about constructiveness than collegiality,