The Innovation Show

Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus, we don't like to talk, or even think, about...

The now-classic Metaphors We Live By changed our understanding of metaphor and its role in language and the mind. Metaphor, our guest explains, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide an understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, t...

Today's book is a provocation. Its goal is to help you to increase your CQ and your organization's CQ. It encourages you to integrate both wonder and rigour into your daily life in order to produce new and novel products, services, and experiences that deliver greater value to your community and your organization. To this end, you'll gain three major tools from this book: Catalyzing inquiry Integr...

Our guest today is a learner who courageously took on challenging turnaround roles in industries where he had no prior experience. He used his rigorous French education and elite training as a McKinsey consultant to lead five companies as CEO, culminating in the transformation of Best Buy. During these years, he went through a personal transformation, from seeking to be the smartest person at the...

Today's book is an almost anthropological examination of the nature of corporate scandal: Why do values go awry? What happens when the wrong person gets a big job? Why is it so tempting to post false profits instead of telling the truth? How distorting is the prospect of stock market riches? In retrospect, Enron did not conceal their dubious transactions from the investing public, but Enron's bras...

Today's book presents a different approach to enterprise strategy and leadership. A complementary approach the author calls: pioneering leadership. Rather than simply work within existing parameters of operational excellence pioneering leadership sees you embarking upon quests. Such quests allow us to systematically explore complex and uncertain futures. We don't set goals in the hopes that a part...

Incremental improvement is no longer sufficient in helping organizations navigate the complexity, uncertainty, and volatility of today's world.  Our guest today explores how to create non-linear, dramatic change in organizations. He explores the emerging science of change that teaches us about how to build organizations – from businesses to governments – that change and adapt rapidly.   It is grea...

Today's guest is widely recognized as the world's leading expert on personal and organizational productivity. Time Magazine called today's book, "the definitive business self-help book of the decade." We welcome the international best-selling author of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity", David Allen

Digital Goddess is a book for entrepreneurial women at any stage of life who want to know what it actually takes to build a business, in a world that's not always fair, predictable, or politically correct. It is one woman's story—by no means universal, but common enough to be instructive. It's about how our guest has dealt with the way things are, not the way I hoped things would be or the way I t...

We are living through a crisis of distraction. Plans get sidetracked, friends are ignored, work never seems to get done. Why does it feel like we're distracting our lives away? In "Indistractable", behavioural designer Nir Eyal reveals the hidden psychology driving you to distraction. Empowering and optimistic, this is the book that will help you design your time, realise your ambitions, and live...

What makes your favourite nonfiction books so compelling, understandable, or enjoyable to read? Those works connect with you, as a reader. When you recognize what's happening, you can apply those same methods to your own writing. Whether you're an expert trying to communicate with a mainstream audience or a nonfiction writer hoping to reach more people, our guest offers us the insight we need to r...

You've got one shot to sell your ideas...but you're busy. So you leverage what's available: slides, data, charts, facts… and you end up with scrambled messages and no clear call to action—this is what our guest calls the Frankendeck.

 Today's book teaches us to organize our ideas, data, and insights to help our audience quickly understand what they need to know and do with the information. It arm...

In the past few decades, strategy has become increasingly sophisticated. If you work for a sizeable organisation, chances are your company has: a marketing strategy a corporate strategy a global strategy an innovation strategy an intellectual property strategy a digital strategy a social strategy and a talent strategy And in each of these domains, talented people work on long lists of urgent initi...

Corporations have changed the world radically in so many areas: medicine, consumer goods, transport, finance, agriculture, entertainment, communications. And they've done so by combining organizational abilities with the unique human capacity to imagine: the ability to see and create things that had never existed. Imagination is needed now more than ever. Since competitive advantage is increasingl...

Artificial intelligence, big data, modern science, and the internet are all revealing a fundamental truth: The world is vastly more complex and unpredictable than we've allowed ourselves to see. Now that technology is enabling us to take advantage of all the chaos it's revealing, our understanding of how things happen is changing--and with it our deepest strategies for predicting, preparing for, a...

In the previous book in this series, our guest observed the experiences of leaders on a rollercoaster ride through their professional and personal lives. Now, he follows them down the rabbit hole into the unknown, where, like Lewis Carroll's Alice, they find a dystopian Wonderland in which everyone seems to have gone mad and life functions according to its own crazy logic, throwing up all kinds of...

Today's book brings to bear on some of the most powerful and helpful macrotrends rippling through society today. The book teaches readers how to harness their outrage and capitalize on global trends to instigate and encourage change across the world. The author identifies five global undercurrents with outsized importance that are shaping our world. The book's lessons are supported throughout by s...

59% of U.S. workers say that communication is their team's biggest obstacle to success, followed by accountability at 29% Today's book explains a simple, powerful tool that helps team leaders and members align and get clarity on exactly who is responsible for each part of the team's most important activities and projects. With the guidance of today's book, you can be better prepared as a team lead...

Today's guest offers us a fascinating glimpse into a near-future where careers last 100 years, and education lasts a lifetime.  Our guest makes the case that learners of the future are going to repeatedly seek out educational opportunities throughout the course of their working lives — which will no longer have a beginning, middle, and end.  Her book focuses on the disruptive and burgeoning innova...

This is a book about why people want what they want. It's based on the notion that, in the end, we will either be masters or slaves of our desires and that we can choose the outcome. True freedom, our guest argues, is the freedom to want what is best for ourselves and for others—and that those need not be different things. The ability to desire in a healthy way is not something we're born with, bu...

Creating true change is never easy. Most startups don't survive. Most community groups never get beyond small local actions. Even when a spark catches fire and protesters swarm the streets, it often seems to fizzle out almost as fast as it started. The status quo is, almost by definition, well-entrenched and never gives up without a fight. To truly change the world or even just your little corner...

Marshalling unique insights from archaeogenetics, an emerging new discipline that allows us to read our ancestors' DNA like journals chronicling personal stories of migration, our guest charts two millennia of adaption, movement and survival, culminating in the triumph of Homo Sapiens as we swept through Europe and beyond in successive waves of migration - developing everything from language, the...

In our world of incessant change, we are all threatened by VUCA volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity—at the individual and organizational levels.  Today's book offers you a new lens through which to consider change as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.  You'll be inspired to consider the big questions of today:  What does the future hold? What does the exponential growth of tech...

Have you ever wanted to disagree with your boss? Speak up about your company's lack of diversity or unequal pay practices? Make a tough decision you knew would be unpopular? We all have opportunities to be courageous at work. But since courage requires risk—to our reputations, our social standing, and, in some cases, our jobs—we often fail to act, which leaves us feeling powerless and regretful fo...

If you're a shaper, you put your stamp on your work.   You earn your stripes. You sync with a rhythm of life that lights you up.   At times, work may be a frightening obstacle (and obsession), but shapers move through adversity with temperament and tenacity.   A determination to continually improve and evolve.   A willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes.   To create on the fly. To work f...