Chris McCarthy

In July 2021, the fog cleared. After nearly five years at Hopelab, my mission was near completion –  baking in a more transparent approach to innovation, launching an in-house design group, and tackling challenges facing queer teens. The intensity of the pandemic and the clarity of racial injustice sharpened by George Floyd’s murder, set up a deeper, personal reflection and ultimately led me to make a change. 

I paid deep attention to the “great resignation,” admiring the many who leaped – for discontent, in protest, a “mission accomplished,” or for the sheer joy of a new adventure. Safety in numbers made joining this movement easier. I wrapped up my time on January 1 with two goals: wandering for a bit and wondering for a bit more.

The wander period melted my brain in the best way.  I overemphasized physical work and deemphasized brain work.  Day after day, week after week, my mind began to shift and drift – unburdened by calendars, deadlines, and updates. The shifting was to a calmer and more focused attention.  The drifting was into sparks of creativity and old-fashioned daydreaming, creating a bridge to more and more wondering. 

Wonder is less of a period and more of a state.  Curiosity has intensified. Connection with others is more exciting and meaningful. And I have a new sense of control. Perhaps that is what a good sabbatical, holiday, or vacation should invoke. So here I am just a year after that fog with new sparks and flickers of what might be next.

Summing up the fifteen years of an organization is impossible, as impossible as knowing the ILN is coming to an end. But it is some of our first lessons (way back in 2005) that fuels our elegant, future-forward ending.  The concepts of the innovation lifecycle and creative destruction have taken center stage.  The innovation lifecycle is a simple framework that helps one map which phase the “work” is in: birth, growth, maturity, decline, or death. Creative destruction, on the other hand, is intentional destruction to create more fertile space for new ideas to take hold.  Bringing these two concepts together shifts thinking from “what can I do to prevent decline?” to “what can I clear away to make new space?”. And this is the phase and intention that the ILN has boldly stepped into.  

Before we go deeper into destruction, there are two places I want to take you: Mars and a kelp forest. I am enthralled with everything Mars.  There is just something mysterious and alluring about our red neighbor, and the innovation it takes to understand and visit is astounding. So when the Mars Rovers began transmitting the first images from Mars in 2004,  I was riveted.  Remarkably, those little rovers were designed for a 90-day life, but year after year they just kept going.  Over time, when people asked about the ILN, I would tell them it was like the Mars Rover. You see, the ILN was supposed to be a one-year-long learning collaborative powered by a grant.  Instead, it went on year after year fueled by the passion of its members.   Perhaps I should have realized that when the final Rover conked out in its fifteen-year that it was a bad omen for us.  Nevertheless, the job of this 90-day robot continuing on for fifteen years is simply wonderful.  Goodnight Rover.

A few weeks ago, I watched a heartbreaking and gorgeous documentary called “My Octopus Teacher”. It traces in parallel the videographer’s mental health and his unlikely relationship with an octopus.  At first unsure and tenuous, the two create a bond as the videographer visits the same kelp forest every day for a year. The joy of this friendship, filled with discovery and trust, reminded me of the ILN journey.  At first, everyone was scared to share, but through dinners, wine, and laughter, there was a shift from leary to curious and then on to the joy of discovery. Something I learned from the film: the common octopus lifespan is one year. Day after day, as this octopus and videographer reach out for one another, the bittersweet realization sets in that this too is fleeting and so very precious. Goodnight Octopus.

And so, in the lifecycle of innovation, the ILN now finds itself in the Death Phase.  It would be easy to shy away from the signals of the past four years and simply blame the Pandemic.  Yes, the Pandemic played a significant role, but its most powerful role was offering clarity on the ILN’s end.  The ILN began with committing ourselves to friendship in service of our missions, to sharing freely our know-how in service of innovating faster, and to thriving on the fringe unafraid of being uncomfortable.  Even at the end of year one when the ILN was supposed to end, I could have declared Mission Accomplished. But the universe decided that 14 more years were needed. As the ILN ends in its fifteenth year, space is being made in the most fertile of innovative soils. Goodnight ILN.

The Innovation Learning Network
2005 – 2020

Last week (Sept 26) I was part of a Denver StartUp Week panel featuring the collaboration of Hopelab and Grit Digital Health. Expecting 50 attendees, the afternoon sizzled with over five times that. Many questions illuminated a fascination that a startup and a foundation would find common ground to partner. Below is a quasi-recap and additional pondering on this fascination:

(finish reading at Hopelab.org)

Innovation often has a focus on tools, techniques and approaches. And while these are important building blocks, there are more nuanced ones that accelerate the path to impact. One of these is the innovation mindset.  While we all have a “natural” mindset that is ours and ours alone, while it may be perfect for some parts of the innovation cycle,  it can be detrimental to others.

For example, let’s assume your natural mindset is “operational” – one that is all about rapidly solving problems, optimizing your system, and putting out fires.  Your team is in the earliest phases of an innovation project –  trying to more deeply understand the challenge.  An operational mindset will reduce the divergent and intentional wandering that the team must do in this phase. You, the leader, would be in unintentional conflict because of your natural mindset.

What to do?  With focus and energy, we can temporarily change mindsets to match the phase of work. This is not natural and requires intention. But the leader only needs to hold the unnatural mindset for short periods of time – just long enough to be in sync with the team. One technique I’ve been using is an innovation meditation.  It is designed to be used with a sponsor group, board or other advising body, and can be easily applied at the personal level as well.

It could feel risky to conduct a group meditation to the start of a leadership meeting.  However, what is the risk of having a super-smart group of advisors who are unintentionally advising with the wrong state of mind?

And so, below is the meditation.  As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, or even better, how it went adding in to your leadership practice.

The Innovation Leader’s Mindset Meditation
by Chris McCarthy

Take one deep breath and get comfortable in your meditative pose.  Eyes open or shut, whatever you are most comfortable with. (pause 10 seconds)

Take two more deep, cleansing breaths. (pause 10 seconds)

Breathe naturally, except for the cleansing breaths when indicated…or whenever you feel like.

The Four Leadership Mindsets for Innovation are the strategic, the explorative, the generative and the operational. Each mindset powerful in its own way.

The Strategic – the blue sky, the big picture, seeing beyond the horizon. Take a breath and ponder the sophisticated Strategic mindset. (pause 15 seconds)

The Explorative – the curious, the deepening, the pushing past boundaries, wandering and wondering. Take another breath and ponder the ever inquisitive Explorative mindset. (pause 15 seconds)

The Generative – the crayons, the paper, the scissors and glue. It’s the “what if”s and the “Aha!”s. The desire for alternatives. Take another breath and ponder the playful Generative mindset. (pause 15 seconds)

Ahhh… And finally, the Operational – perhaps the most common and most maligned of the mindsets.  The Devil’s Advocate, the realist, the analyst, the value-maker. Take another breath and ponder the brass-tack Operational Mindset. (pause 15 seconds)

The four mindsets: equal in need, equal in value, but rarely equal in expression.

Consider for a moment what is your natural mindset? (pause 5 seconds)

What mindset do you bring to this moment? (pause 5 seconds)

What mindset should you move to for today’s work? (pause 5 seconds)

Two more deep breaths. (pause 5 seconds)

We will each check-in with: “My mindset today is <fill in the blank>. And I am here and present.”

Open your eyes.

Who wants to go first?

Originally published on the UK Improvement Alliance blog

What would an “innovation learning network” for healthcare look like?  Coming off of two successful years of co-launching an internal innovation group at Kaiser Permanente in 2005, it was time to build and connect to a larger community, and it was clear that to be successful, the network had to be different and valuable. The “value” piece emerged quickly in two of the three Innovation Learning Network pillars:  1) Share innovations across systems and 2) Teach innovation and design technique. These were important, valuable and obvious.

Read more here = > http://www.ukimprovement.co.uk/blog/threepillars