What is the reminder for you to be motivated, to continue to still innovate knowing that wall might not move, knowing that you have that small effort of change, being that catalyst toward pushing the company forward?
Beth: If the wall never moves, maybe you’ve hit yourself silly. Maybe you need to ask yourself, “Am I being effective?” Hopefully, even if it's small, little, tiny, millimeter change, that's what you get excited about. You have to feel some kind of progress. And maybe it's just a small band of people who suddenly go, “I see you. I am encouraged by you. I want to contribute. I want to be like you.”
Sometimes the fights we have would be because maybe the business unit didn't do it that way that innovation team said to do that. Those are stupid fights. Movement was happening. Call it whatever you wanna call it. They're doing it. And so we fought often the wrong fights. So count movement where it's out there.
And also be clear about how you define your metrics and your measurements. Often, when people say we brought you here to do that, they don't even know the right metrics to ask. It can help you to bring some different measurements. Maybe it's a throughput of ideas. How many ideas did we test and what period of time? How many ideas can we test with the least amount of money? How many people can I engage to ask these questions in a different way? How fast can we get to go from concept to test? So perhaps you just need to also bring them a new way of funding, testing, and measuring what they do. And if they're still doing it the old way, then you're probably not going to move that wall very far. I think it's finding a few of those merry band of innovators who go, I believe you, and they're gonna go seed it in their way. And you just kind of create a little movement. To me, that's what's most important.
