Episode 28 of “What is Innovation?” is live! This week, Jared talks with his brother Brett Simmons, Sr. Consultant at OUTLAST Consulting. Brett shares his point of view on innovation across the entire value chain--with examples from various industries. Listen and subscribe today!
Brett Simmons, Sr. Consultant at OUTLAST Consulting LLC talks on innovation across the entire value chain--with examples from various industries.
More about our guest:
Brett Simmons brings years of experience in warehousing, transportation, and operations in industries such as Mining, Railroad, and Consumer Packaged Goods. Brett uses his unique experience and education to deliver solutions that build on capabilities to offer lasting effects on an organization. Brett further reinforces process excellence and ensures cohesion between planning and structural requirements. You may contact Brett at: brett@outlastllc.com
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Episode Guide:
1:29 - What Is Innovation
2:27 - What Is a Value Chain
3:39 - Innovation vs Day-to-day work
4:20 - Article: The Discovery of Penicillin
7:46 - Incorporating new work as frontline supervisors
8:47 - Understanding failure
12:08 - Rejections at work
12:51 - Chopped: the cooking show and 'baskets'
14:30 - Ron Howard's Apollo 13
16:06 - Innovation is not a job title nor workshop
17:36 - Innovation and constraints
18:54 - Defining Innovation as brothers: from experience and looking back
21:06 - Necessity: Mother of Invention?
22:42 - Learning is about exposure
23:49 - Collaborative environment in learning
25:03 - Fortune 500 companies and Innovation
26:21 - What is not Innovation
30:11 - Advice for innovators
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OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management.
/This transcript was automatically generated using AI; please forgive any inconsistencies. We are working to provide the correct and more concise copy of the transcript. For urgent needs, please send us an email.
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Jared Simmons 00:05
Hello, and welcome to what is innovation. The podcast that explores the reality of a word that is in danger of losing its meaning altogether. This podcast is produced by Outlast consulting, LLC, a boutique consultancy that helps companies use innovation principles to solve their toughest business problems. I'm your host, Jared Simmons, and I'm so excited to have Brett Simmons, Brett graduated from the University of Alabama with his Bachelors of Science in marketing and received a Masters of Science in supply chain and logistics management from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He brings years of experience in warehousing transportation and operations in industries such as mining, railroad and consumer packaged goods. Brett is also currently a senior consultant at Outlast consulting, and my brother or his brother, however you want to look at it. So Brett, welcome to the show, my friend. Hey, thank you.
Brett Simmons 01:00
Glad to be here. Thanks for having me today.
Jared Simmons 01:03
So we'll have one of our one of our more civil conversations. Absolutely, absolutely. Stop talking like brothers in every sense of the word and always party's friends. Just to be keep it entertaining for people.
Brett Simmons 01:23
I think it will be.
Jared Simmons 01:26
So why don't we dive right in? Okay, what is innovation?
Brett Simmons 01:32
To me, innovation is a jump in capability or a deliverable that can be a product or service that meaningfully changes experiences in the value. Jay, I think that there is an art to it. In that art, especially in business application should be conformed to science. And much of that science is the innovation process. And your blob pains and discipline regret innovation word, I think, describe some of that really well.
Jared Simmons 02:12
Well, thank you, brother. I, I wonder about you mentioned a phrase there. I love your definition. About a leap, a jump? And then you mentioned the value chain. So for people who aren't familiar with that phrase, talk about that a little bit? What's the value chain?
Brett Simmons 02:29
Yeah, and I think the difference between the value chain and the supply chain comes down to really, the supply chain is more the when you get into it the logistics, the physical movement of goods and services. When we talk about value chain, I think what we're talking about more is when you're looking downstream at the customer, how in each one of these steps, you're creating value, you're creating value for the customer, or or increasing value to the customer. So I think they're they're very related. But that value chain, I think is more specific, if you do any type of mapping in this. People are familiar with, you know how that value is created for the customer at every step.
Jared Simmons 03:21
Right, right. And so as you sort of zoom out from the supply chain to take the entire value chain into account, it naturally includes other things starting all the way back to, you know, research and development or strategy and things like that. Is that fair?
Brett Simmons 03:35
Yes.
Jared Simmons 03:36
I think that's a very fair. Got it. Got it. And so these leaps and jumps that you talked about in your definition, what do they look like in action? So if you're if you're on the ground, how can you tell innovation from just day to day work?
Brett Simmons 03:51
That is a great question. And I think that there are a lot of organizations that struggle with that. And I think to answer that question, you have to innovation does not necessarily need to be purposeful in the outcome. But it has to be purposeful in the environment that's created for the outcome to be recognized and appreciated. As an innovation. Okay,
Jared Simmons 04:19
okay.
Brett Simmons 04:20
I read an article is called the discovery of penicillin. new insights, after more than 75 years of clinical use, you can find it@nih.gov. And I think it goes into the environment that that needs to be created. And kind of goes a little bit deeper into your question as well. And and I'll just go over it a little bit if you don't want to, please. Yeah. In this article that I read the discovery of penicillin is a great example of a purpose driven environment. Many of us have heard this story. Fleming's intended outcome was not necessarily penicillin. He Discovered mold that could have affected bacteria. What I think could be missed is the discipline and the structure. After he notice the mold could have affected the bacteria, the isolated it, that lab environment, the process is within it is what gave us ultimately, penicillin was change medicine forever, not from an accident. But from his insight. An important part of the story is that he did not bind the mold. And they were injecting people, you know, the next month with penicillin. It took time and a lot of collaboration with other organizations to get penicillin mass produced, right. It is a amazing story of innovation in a great breed and the time of COVID that shows how medicine continues to be one of the most innovative industries. I think that that kind of, I hope goes into the environment that has to be created for innovation to be appreciated and recognized.
Jared Simmons 06:08
Yeah, that's a great example. And it's and I love that you use that example in particular, because it is it is such a popular sort of story of, Oh, this guy opens a drawer and there's mold on it. And now, and now there's penicillin. Yeah. And it underscores two things. I think one is the environment. And the other is just the team nature of it, because you're right, you know, he made the discovery had the insight. But that insight, isn't innovation, right? I mean, he, I'm sure there were countless lab assistants, you know, other other scientists, collaborator, and at some point, someone got involved in how to scale it and distribute it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I think there's innovation along the entire value chain, from invention to to inoculation in this case. And so yeah, I think that's a I think that's a fantastic example, yeah, you have experience from, you know, a lot of different industries. And as you can sort of tell that from the way you think about innovation, and the way you think about the definition of it, a lot of the industries you worked in had an element of what we'll call, you know, frontline supervision involved in it. Absolutely. And as we talked about sort of innovation on the ground, and what it looks like, I wonder if you could think about some of the, you know, some of that the work you've done, be at BNSF or other places, you've been? What, you know, how did frontline supervisors and the folks that are doing the work on the ground? They're sort of the place where innovation meets the day to day work? Can you talk about a time when something new kind of came through the system? And how, how you approach helping people incorporate that into how they work? Yeah, absolutely.
Brett Simmons 07:57
I would say what should be common, even in frontline supervision, is that there should be a sense of fulfillment and excitement in the solution. Because ultimately, you are solving a problem for people, right? That in a lot of cases, you know, make someone's life more enjoyable. I think that is why we enjoy innovative work so much, because that leap is going to really help people. And I think, to ensure this, these innovative efforts have to be aligned with your mission, your vision and your values, your organization's decisions, whether they be tactical or strategic, it's important that there's alignment with your mission, vision and values, understanding that failure may come. But learning and growing from those failures is key, especially in those types of roles. And really, in any role in the organization. And I think that organizational alignment ensures that when you do that root cause analysis of your failure, it will be more successful, and it will improve your outcomes in the future. Right. It helps create and foster the collaborative environment. So if you look at some of those instances where where someone may have to be, you know, innovating is an operational environment, there are things happening and someone has to innovate, really, they're going to do the same thing that bullying did where you're going to in a lot of those cases, I would go over to my peers and you know, ask for their insight into something or would ask my team for their insight into something. But I think that innovation is the framework of it looks very much so the same is that it's going to be rooted in your mission, vision and values and then even an operational or tactical role. You're going to do very similar things, which is use your training and use your the team around you to come up to a solution, sometimes, excuse me come up with a solution, sometimes very quickly or rapidly.
Jared Simmons 10:15
Yeah, that's right. That's right. It is important that it's anchored in who you are as a company and to let everything flow from that. And I think that is probably, you know, the best way to minimize the sort of shock of things right? Early in my career, part of my job was to when corporate came up with something new, I had to go to the plant, and tell them how to make it or tell them how to operate differently. And part of doing that was crafting a story that the folks at the plant working the lines every day could see themselves in. Because a lot of times people would come down and say, Oh, this is what we need to do. So change x, y, and z. And that's what we need you to do. But I think for innovation to really work from a full across the full value chain, as you were saying, not only is it the mission, vision values, but it's also enrolling the frontline in the solution. Because a lot of times it's easy, yes, to think that you know better or you know, different. And it just tried to like, deploy something to someone, roll it out, steamroll them, this is what you need to do, because we said, so what I always tried to do was come in and get their help. Yes, I talked about the intent, here's what we're trying to do. Right? The problem we're trying to solve, this is what we think is the best way to go about it. What do you think? Right.
Brett Simmons 11:38
And I think that approach, you get more working with people than through people. And I think that when you push something on someone in someone that knows their craft, or knows their environment, or knows their job very well, that in a lot of cases, you know, if you're pushing that on that, that only to that person, you're not going to get that very valuable feedback will help you you know, as you roll out whatever effort that you're doing,
Jared Simmons 12:08
right? And I don't think everybody's and I know you are and have seen it, but I don't think everybody's fully aware of what rejection looks like, I think people think, you know, you go you sit in this meeting, and somebody says, No, I'm not doing that. That's what rejection looks. But that's just one form of rejection. The other you know, there are many subtle forms of rejection. And if you don't recognize them, you won't realize that what you thought was gonna happen is not gonna, you know, silence, I'd rather get yelled at in the team meeting than just saying, oh, here's what, here's what, here's what we want to do on this shift.
Brett Simmons 12:51
I'll give you another example. Yeah, chop the cooking show? Are you familiar with it?
Jared Simmons 12:57
Oh, yeah. Generally? Yeah. Yeah, I
Brett Simmons 12:59
think chopped is such a great example. Because you take one of the most creative professions. And you say, Okay, I'm going to give you these ingredients that typically don't mesh very well together. And however, through the chef's training and learning, they are able to create something at times that is very innovative, right, because the show places them in an environment that lets that happen, the baskets, and they get these baskets for a couple of rounds, that the chef's hat, the chef's have to use on the show are like the constraints that are placed on many operating teams. So you're given a certain amount of time whether or not to depart a outgoing shipment in a certain amount of time. Right. And you know, you're given certain resources. And I think that that show, to me is a good example of how in the operating environment, you've got to innovate in a lot of ways. So they're given resources that they didn't get a chance to choose.
Jared Simmons 14:08
And they're given an unreasonable period of time. Exactly like every problem. So you're right. Here's a basket of stuff. And here's what we need, and we need it in an hour. And you will be judged on
14:30
all right.
Brett Simmons 14:30
Yeah. Well, it sounds good. I know you've wides is is Ron Howard's Apollo 13. Right. Yeah. What line Do you particularly remember from that movie?
Jared Simmons 14:41
I mean, the the one that gets all the plays Houston, we've had problem Houston, we have
Brett Simmons 14:45
a problem, right? But one of the most memorable lines to me is when Ed Harris's character says, I suggest you invent a way to put a square peg in a round hole right? Quickly. And it was great, because in this time of urgency, they knew they had to be innovators. What I like to point out is this mission was in, I think, 1970. Before that, in 1961, I believe, was Kennedy speech about safely going to the moon. And I don't have the transcript of that speech. But Kennedy didn't say, get ready to put a square peg in a round hole. He didn't have to say that. That vision enabled the NASA team to create the environment for innovation in a time and resource bound situation, because ultimately, I don't think they put a square peg in a round hole. That was the problem. They use their resources in a time critical situation to invent a solution to that problem. And I think that happens every day.
Jared Simmons 15:58
Yeah, that's a that's a great point. And a great example, to kind of make real what happens every single day at work. You know, people have innovation departments, they have chief innovation officers, they have teams in charge of innovation and budget teams that meet in conference rooms, and decide all these innovative things and go off and have these workshops. But innovation is not a it's not a job title. It's not a it's not a workshop. It's none of those things. It's not a tool, it is a way of thinking, yes. And some of the most innovative people I've ever worked with are line operators. Absolutely. And the people that supervise and manage the work on a day to day basis. And you're right, people are putting square pegs in round holes across America, and making it look like business as usual, which is a form of genius. I think that I mean, there are so many things that could go wrong, especially with the the strain that's put on our supply chain right now. And the way the implications that has on everything, people are coming up with innovative solutions in the moment, across America every day.
Brett Simmons 17:05
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that many times innovation does benefit from a sense of urgency, right? I mean, you look at the example I use with chalk, and then talking about Ron Howard's Apollo 13, there was a sense of urgency. I don't think that means that your innovative process needs an expiration date. But I do believe it needs some sense of urgency, because ultimately, there is a problem to be solved. Right?
Jared Simmons 17:34
Right. Yeah, constraints. I always say creativity and innovation crave constraints, because that's what you bounce off of, you know, you're exactly right. And this sense of urgency is another form of a constraint, in that, when you time bound something, it really puts me anyway, in a different mode, to have, you know, figuring it out. And I think it also forces you into a place of prioritization and streamlining. That's a great point. And you know, without that specific constraint of being time bounded, it's very easy to try to do everything and know everything, and get stuck in divergent thinking and not pushed into convergent thinking, where you need to be to get things done.
Brett Simmons 18:21
That is a great point. Yeah, especially the do and know everything. Especially we talked about frontline supervision, that that is a challenge for a lot of people, especially new frontline supervisors that you know, you're not going to know everything, and you're not going to be able to do everything. But typically, you've got a group of people and within that group, you're going to be able to accomplish your goals if you work with in that just through simple. It's great point.
Jared Simmons 18:51
Now, well said Well said. So one thing I you know, the unique part of this specific episode is that you and I have known each other for a long time. We've known the same group of people, I've known a similar group of people for a long time. But one of the things that comes to mind is, you know, you and I work for a lot of big companies and done things, you know, you live all over America and everything. A lot of what I applied to innovation problems on a day to day basis came from what I learned in enterprise, Alabama, from, from our parents, from our grandparents, great grandparents, you know, people at church. And I wonder, you know, do you find yourself thinking back to those lessons as well or is it just me?
Brett Simmons 19:40
Now, I think I've talked about southeast Alabama with all of my teams, all of my leadership with all of my peers, because I think, and I don't think this necessarily is unique to Southeast Alabama, right. But I think what we were able to see was a group of people who innovated because it wasn't the Right. Yeah. And so I think that going back to Apollo 13, right, the necessity was, hey, we've got to because Kennedy's vision, right, was that they return safely. We've got to return these great American safe leader, right? Yep. And so I think that we had a front row seat to people who had to innovate based on necessity. And I think that in a place now, right, where there's so much there's so much abundance, is that we can sometimes lose that that urgency to innovate. I think that that is really one of the lessons that I learned from my childhood growing up in southeast Alabama is the necessity is going to push a lot of innovations, and how you create that necessity in your, your teams or your groups, you know, that may look different within the vision. Yep, the mission and the values.
Jared Simmons 21:04
Yeah, that's a good point. They say Necessity is the mother of invention, it's, it's also the mother of innovation, I think, in a lot of ways. And we did see people, you know, making a way out of no way as they would say, in, in church, but the things people were able to accomplish, and create and deliver in that environment, with scarce resources, and not always any type of, you know, formal education. It just reminds you that, you know, necessity, I think, is a key component of it, what it reminds me of, is that there are a lot of different ways to learn things. Because I don't know a lot of folks that I would say, are smarter or more capable of problem solving, or innovative thinking than our grandmother. Absolutely. Or, you know, I don't know, many better coaches than our great grandmother, right. So I think the key is, you know, separating learning and education, and being able to see capability and enroll people from all of our backgrounds, and from all different types of training in the process of innovation, right. Great point, because you do not know where that next brilliant ideas coming from. And it's not necessarily the Harvard MBA, that is going to be the best at solving the problem. Because, you know, a lot of times it's the person with the necessity to solve it that gets the most creative. Absolutely. Yeah, I think we were in a great environment for the work we were doing today. And, you know, stopped by some other places to learn a few other things. But I think we left enterprise probably with a lot of a lot of the foundational principles that we use today.
Brett Simmons 22:38
Yeah, and I think, you know, it is the city of progress. And I think that learning is about exposure. So if you if you take a person, you know, we have a certain number of years and experience and Outlast, right, yeah. But if you take Outlast, or if you take any organization, and you are effective in working with other people, then you're going to look at a problem through all those different artists, and you're getting more experience, and you're getting more exposure, and you're getting more knowledge that that ultimately, the collaborative environment just continues to expand on those things. Right. I think our grandparents were very good at taking their experiences, and communicating them to us. And then we're going to communicate those experiences on something like, like this podcast, yeah, we're gonna communicate those experiences, and we're gonna pass them on to other people. And hopefully, they're going to use those to help solve a problem that's going to make somebody's life easier or more enjoyable.
Jared Simmons 23:48
Right? Yeah, well said, and that the collaborative environment is a great call out because if you don't have that collaborative environment, you can't fully leverage the different points of view and the different perspectives that exist, even if you bring them into the room, if the incentives aren't aligned the right way, or if you know, there's territorialism or siloed thinking, you're still not going to get the full value of it if you haven't created that environment of collaboration. And it also seems to me that there's a natural tendency in the innovation world, you know, where it's been labeled. These are the innovation folks to break away to sequester or, you know, kind of, oh, let's take these people and separate them from everybody else so that they can focus on this problem. When if you look back across history, it's been the exact opposite that has led to real real innovation. At the peak of the space programs. You mentioned the space program, there were 350,000 people in America working on the space program through contract directly on NASA. It wasn't let's find the 20 smartest people
25:01
Yeah, it's,
Jared Simmons 25:02
it's really, it's really fascinating how that kind of became the move is let's, let's take some people we think can solve this problem and separate them from everyone else. It's never been the past to impact through innovation. You have things like the Motorola razor in the development of that, or the Ford wanted to create the new Mustang, where they sent people off, separated them to work on it. And, you know, they came back with the razor was arguably one of the most impactful phones in the history of the industry. So you know, iPhone level. You know, the razor, people forget about the Motorola razor it was before the BlackBerry before the iPhone, the razor was those things. Google it, young people Razr. But the, but those sorts of things, you know, you talk about him now, that Mustang has been updated since since that big rethink, and the razor doesn't exist anymore. Right? Right. So it's great to create something breakthrough and to create something, you know, take people aside and give them something to work on. And they will come back with something great, but will they come back with something enduring? And something that solves a lasting problem? It's hard to say because it's it's such a siloed process?
Brett Simmons 26:21
I think one one way of looking at that, too, is is to look at what innovation is not right. Is that to me, innovation is not continuous improvement. Right? I think continuous improvement is foundational. But it is not innovation is not a podcast or continuous improvement. Right? That may be a different Bye, guys. Right? Yeah, that's a different let me continue to improve it. It can be more incremental, or progressive elaboration. Only have that mindset, I think you can miss the leap necessary to innovate. So I think the challenge for today's organizations is clearly defining the difference in these efforts. Kind of like what you know what you what you were just saying, you can identify right innovation departments or teams, however you need to identify them. But without putting these efforts in a silo. Putting them in a silo, you can you can create a situation where they lose sight of what they are actually trying to solve for. Right. And I'll give you a great example of a company that does both of these efforts exceptionally well is a Toyota Prius. Toyota is known across the world for their continuous improvement efforts. But they are also great innovators. Many companies in the last few years have introduced their their hybrid or electric vehicles, but I don't think many people realize they unveiled the the Prius in 1997.
Jared Simmons 28:09
Really? Right. Wow. 1997 97
Brett Simmons 28:16
was exceptional in the execution was equally as exception. Yeah.
Jared Simmons 28:21
Yes. And no all the time, you know, developing, executing, implementing rolling out on the pre is there, they're still delivering high quality camrys, high quality to comas and all the other things. And I think that's your right, there's not not a lot of organizations that can do both? Well, I think sometimes we get a little overzealous about how to protect, you know, innovation from continuous improvement thinking. And I think, like you said, it's important to separate the work. I don't think it's important to separate the people who write, and I think that's where they go wrong is you can have a portfolio of 25 projects, and 10 of them are innovative projects. 10 of them are things that keep the lights on and five of them are you know, if he moonshot kind of things. What has happened in last 20 years is people have started splitting those up, okay, we're gonna have a team that does these and the team that does these and team that does those. But I think it's really just the thinking that has to be separated, it doesn't have to be the people and keeping the people together, gives you the opportunity to, to have more diversity of thought applied to these issues.
Brett Simmons 29:29
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that is a really good point about separating siloing you know, is that you can you can identify these groups because, you know, I think it's important, but you you would great collaborators, on with, with this group, this group that you've identified, they need to be able to, to work, you know, again, with people in that through that because that way, you're To get the maximum amount of exposure to the problem.
Jared Simmons 30:04
Yeah, no, that's that's exactly right. We've talked about innovation what it is, we've talked about what it is in Britain. Do you have any advice for innovators out there? For me,
Brett Simmons 30:16
innovation has helped me be very people driven. And, again, highly collaborative. I don't have all the answers. But the people that make create, deliver, or use the products do collaborative, I'd say there's no one size fits all solutions. And the people of the organization are essential in building or developing anything. I also think service innovation is under appreciated wait times and delays for instance, we all waited somewhere at a baseball game, on a call with the cable company. Yeah, and this expense to a company can be really hard to quantify, which makes it hard to measure goodness. And Henry Ford is quoted as saying, and I think you know, the quote, from time ways, there can be no salvage, it is easiest of all ways in the hardest to correct because it does not litter the floor. The velocity of goods and services is a extremely important area of focus for organizations. So I'd say that and also to never stop, be determined and act with purpose. Never stop learning, because that is the seat of innovation. We talked about that. Yep. It enables the insight. Going back to Fleming think about the training, he had to be able to recognize, isolate and test. The mold was the door. He through learning had the key to unlock his potential. Right.
Jared Simmons 31:58
Yeah. Well, brother, thank you for agreeing to record one of our many conversations. Appreciate it, no problem. And
Brett Simmons 32:10
I will I will say one last final advice. Do anyone no matter the role? Yeah, you have an organization is to imagine if every problem we face we approached like the square peg in Ron Howard, Apollo 13. Yeah. So you know, imagine if someone says to you, this area needs food, and we cannot consistently deliver food to this food desert. And your reply was, well, I think we can been a way to deliver food to this food desert consistently. And we've talked about medicine, sports, cars, space, but the commonality is innovation is everywhere. And if you approach problems with this mindset, I think you you will achieve great things. That's fantastic. Thank
Jared Simmons 32:55
you, Brett for that anytime I get to talk to you, is a pleasure. And they talk often, but but it's always great. And thank you for your partnership and collaboration in helping to build and grow Outlast your supply chain expertise, and just your expertise and knowledge in the corporate space on how things work and how things get done has been a huge boost to how we how we do work, and I just enjoy working with you. So thank you for for that and looking forward to continue to serve clients together and, and you know, maybe hang out a little bit too insane to you.
Brett Simmons 33:37
Thank you. Very happy to be alright,
Jared Simmons 33:40
take care brother.
Jared Simmons 33:46
We'd love to hear your thoughts about this week's show. You can drop us a line on Twitter at OUTLAST LLC, or follow us on LinkedIn where we're OUTLAST Consulting. Until next time, keep innovating. Whatever that means.