Podcasts about better business before

Dr. Simone Ahuja is the principal of Blood Orange, a marketing and strategy advisory boutique with digital media capabilities, and special expertise in innovation. Headquartered in Minneapolis with teams in Mumbai, Blood Orange uses an agile and cost efficient content production framework built upon principles learned through extensive work in India. Dr. Ahuja is the author of Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth and the new book Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business—Before the Competition Does.     Podcast Highlights   Who is Simone Ahuja? Simone began in the traditional educational system and was originally in school to become a dentist. After finishing her schooling Simone realized that wasn’t where she wanted to end up and decided to pivot to something else. What she didn’t expect was to be afflicted by a bout of typhoid while travelling in India. By the time she recovered she decided to commit to the things that were calling her instead of just dipping her toes in the water. Simone started exploring film making, theater and comedy, teaching, and writing.   Oddly enough, Simone’s experience in dentistry prepared her quite well to deal with the anxiety of commiting to something like becoming an entrepreneur. Simone didn’t have a lot of support in her decision to walk away from what could have been a profitable career, but it turned out well. In any entrepreneurial endeavor, there will be people who tell you that it can’t be done.   Not having mental barriers and trusting herself to make it happen has been Simone’s super power. Combined with getting sick enough to make her consider her own mortality, Simone had enough motivation to commit to changing her life.   Why Blood Orange and innovation marketing strategy? When you’re stressed or thinking too much with tension, it’s really hard to get into a flow state. Taking up improv theater taught Simone to relax her mind and enter a flow state, and that’s when things get funny. Around this time in her life, she decided to make a film about what’s changing in India and this lead to her becoming a market expert which drew a lot of attention from Fortune 500 companies. She started formulazing her expertise and made a shift from film maker to market expert and started doing consulting work. Until Simone started working on the second TV series for Best Buy, she had still been working as a dentist part time. At that point it still felt very risky to walk away from something so reliable. By taking the leap Simone felt more motivated to create a business that sustained itself and added value. Disrupting Your Business In larger organizations change is very difficult and innovation takes time. Entrepreneurs have a leg up on older businesses because they are more agile, the trick is figuring out how to maintain that agility as your business grows. Even if you’re fairly small, you have to be willing to adjust your business to your client’s needs. Entrepreneurs must have a deep sense of purpose, something that goes beyond a mission statement. The Why of what you are doing helps shape all your decisions. Who is joining you in solving the problem? Don’t make assumptions about what the problem is, bring in the customer to help articulate what the problem actually is. Be willing to make the necessary changes to your business in order to take it farther. If you’re doing something really different, it’s hard to really have an idea what the outcome will be like. Stay connected to what you love so the work doesn’t become work anymore. Why is disrupting ourselves necessary? There are a lot of big problems that need to be solved. It’s not

How can you unleash more of your organization’s own talent and energy to invent the next big win in an innovation-driven economy? What do you need to do to keep your business agile and flexible amidst an everchanging professional environment? In this episode of Leadership Essentials we’re sitting down with best-selling author and renowned innovation expert Dr. Simone Ahuja to get to the bottom of these questions and more. As the founder of the innovation and strategy consulting group Blood Orange, Simone spends her time helping clients in all stages of innovation from ideation to execution. She is a regular columnist for the Harvard Business Review online and the author of the new book Disrupt It Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business Before the Competition Does. Simone speaks regularly to Fortune 1000 companies and has devoted her career to the art of disruptive innovation. Today’s discussion covers the difference between entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and DIY-ers, cultivating a disruptive culture, organizational flexibility and much more. Shake things up and find out how you can build an environment of innovation in this episode of Leadership Essentials, hosted by Skip Lineberg.     Visit HCLeadershipEssentials.com or text the word “Leader” to 474747 for free resources relating to this and other podcasts.   Subscribe and leave a review on iTunes   Learn More Disrupt It Yourself (harpercollinsleadership.com/9781595540492/disrupt-it-yourself/) Blood Orange (blood-orange.com/)

Simone Ahuja, Author of Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does, researches barriers that are preventing large companies from innovating internally. Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside Innovation talks with Simone about these innovation barriers and what managers and leaders can do to support innovators.  Highlights from the discussion: Why is it so hard to innovate? - Lack of alignment - Disconnect between senior leaders and feet on the street. Lack of knowledge in the middle. Innovation is a relatively new discipline. There's a difference in metrics and incentives. Need to establish new metrics at all levels, creating space for innovation. - Innovation is different in companies that are large and older, where culture is deep. Not specific to the industry. - Need to encourage people to put forward innovative ideas (Value-creation innovation). It’s the pathway to innovation, but not everyone has to be an innovator or intrapreneur. Innovation Principles - Who is innovating inside large organizations or as a side hustle? How do we harness that? Engage people so they feel satisfied and want to stay around. Only 14% of college grads want to work in large corporations e.g., Medtronic. - How do you identify those people? Managers seem to know who they are. Action-oriented and risk-taking. Don’t know how to support them. Need to provide “air cover.” Built on trust, autonomy, and space. Assisting people in transitional innovation.  - Managers need to have the Idea of fluid and agility. How do you manage info and change? How do we create flexibility in our organizations? What’s exciting you about this space? - Optimistic that innovation is becoming more of a discipline. - The human side of innovation. Passion and purpose and why to harness it.  To find out more, you can purchase Simon’s book Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does or learn more at www.Blood-orange.com or on Twitter @simoneahuja. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 124 - Amy Radin, Author of The Change Maker's Playbook & FinTech Guru, Ep. 109 - Greg Larkin, Corporate Entrepreneur and Author of “This Might Get Me Fired, and Ep. 78 - Katherine Manuel w/ Thomson Reuters. Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy

Simone Ahuja, Author of Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does and founder of Blood Orange, researches barriers that are preventing large companies from innovating internally. Brian Ardinger, Founder of Inside Outside Innovation talks with Simone about these innovation barriers and what managers and leaders can do to support innovators.  Highlights from the discussion: Why is it so hard to innovate? - Lack of alignment - Disconnect between senior leaders and feet on the street. Lack of knowledge in the middle. Innovation is a relatively new discipline. There's a difference in metrics and incentives. Need to establish new metrics at all levels, creating space for innovation. - Innovation is different in companies that are large and older, where culture is deep. Not specific to the industry. - Need to encourage people to put forward innovative ideas (Value-creation innovation). It’s the pathway to innovation, but not everyone has to be an innovator or intrapreneur. Innovation Principles - Who is innovating inside large organizations or as a side hustle? How do we harness that? Engage people so they feel satisfied and want to stay around. Only 14% of college grads want to work in large corporations e.g., Medtronic. - How do you identify those people? Managers seem to know who they are. Action-oriented and risk-taking. Don’t know how to support them. Need to provide “air cover.” Built on trust, autonomy, and space. Assisting people in transitional innovation.  - Managers need to have the Idea of fluid and agility. How do you manage info and change? How do we create flexibility in our organizations? What’s exciting you about this space? - Optimistic that innovation is becoming more of a discipline. - The human side of innovation. Passion and purpose and why to harness it.  To find out more, you can purchase Simon’s book Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business---Before the Competition Does or learn more at www.Blood-orange.com or on Twitter @simoneahuja. If you enjoyed this podcast, you might also enjoy: Ep. 124 - Amy Radin, Author of The Change Maker's Playbook & FinTech Guru, Ep. 109 - Greg Larkin, Corporate Entrepreneur and Author of “This Might Get Me Fired, and Ep. 78 - Katherine Manuel w/ Thomson Reuters. Find this episode of Inside Outside Innovation at insideoutside.io. You can also listen on Acast, iTunes, Sticher, Spotify, and Google Play FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER Get the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HERE For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy