Entuitive Ennovation - Part 2 with guest Stephen Cohos

This week on #ForWhatItsWorthwithBlakeMelnick, part of our Many Faces of Innovation series with my guest, Stephen Cohos from #EntuitiveEngineering in Calgary, Alberta. 

In part one of our interview, Stephen and I discussed Entuitive's innovation ecosystem, their goals and objectives for trying to create a culture of innovation in their workplace.

In this episode, Stephen and I zero in on some of the success stories, the things that have worked really well, the "ah ha" moments that have happened as a result of this drive to create an employee led culture of innovation at the Company... For What it's Worth.

Link to Episode Blog Post

The music for this episode, "High Water"  is written and performed by our current artist in residence, #DouglasCameron. You can find out more about Douglas by visiting our show blog and by listening to our episode, #TheOldGuitar

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Transcript

Entuitive Ennovation – Part 2 with Stephen Cohos

[00:00:00] Blake Melnick: I'm your host, Blake Melnick, and welcome to this week's episode of For What It's Worth, part of our Many Faces of Innovation series with my guest, Stephen Cohos from Entuitive Engineering in Calgary, Alberta. In part one of our interview, Stephen and I discussed Entuitive's innovation ecosystem, their goals and objectives for trying to create a culture of innovation in their workplace.

[00:00:53] In this episode, Steven and I zero in on some of the success stories, the things that have worked really well, the [00:01:00] aha moments that have happened as a result of this drive to create an employee led culture of innovation in the workplace for what it's worth.

[00:01:09] Okay, Steve, you've talked, about a number of things that you and your team have accomplished throughout your innovation journey with Entuitive, but I also know you headed up the creation and implementation of Ennovation U, which really is innovation in the HR talent management recruitment space.

[00:01:24] So I want to talk about that. So what was the motivation behind this initiative? what problem or issue were you trying to address? 

[00:01:31] Steve: It was an idea that came out of one of our big idea challenges, the impact challenge. And it was one of those things where, you're just talking things over with a colleague and, training junior staff and bringing in junior staff and getting them up to, a level at which they can really perform their job.

[00:01:50] Really quickly. I think lots of, companies have various kinds of training programs and such, , to bring people into the firm and understand how we work. And that was the genesis [00:02:00] of, the Entuitive U program how do we get, young, engineers.

[00:02:05] Into the firm and functioning at a high level really quickly. It sort of spurred this idea of, can we get. , students early on , in their educational journey, interested in the kind of work that we do, and therefore, providing them learning opportunities outside of what they usually get in their curriculum at school, and ultimately attracting them to come work for us and then training them and getting them into the workforce quite quickly.

[00:02:34] The Entuitive U idea sparked from the way that NCAA and professional sports recruit athletes into their programs. That was the connection that I made. Cuz I said if we're gonna try to hire the best and the brightest that are out there in universities all across Canada, , how are we gonna find them and how are they gonna find us?

[00:02:56] Right? And the best example I could think of [00:03:00] was professional sports teams, right? Mostly in the United States, they have these massive, sports programs, ASU , Michigan, all these, these great schools.

[00:03:09] They have scouts that go and find. Players at the high school level and try to convince them to come to their university or their college. And then the professional sports teams, the NFL, the NHL, um, NBA they're doing the same thing, but if we look at professional sports teams, these are billion dollar companies. Mm-hmm. . And so obviously their recruitment process is very well developed and well funded, but how do we take that same nugget of an idea and try. Find the best and the brightest engineering students and try to attract them to Entuitive? 

[00:03:44] Blake Melnick: So then, using that analogy, how does the approach that you've adopted differentiate from other firms that would have the same idea, we need to go to the campus, we need to recruit, how does that change the whole paradigm of hiring in the field?

[00:03:57] Steve: So using that recruitment [00:04:00] approach that sports. Did with a much smaller budget. We figured what can we do to try to attract and educate people about Entuitive and the cool work that we do and get 'em to, to put us on their list of places that they want to go work.

[00:04:14] What I wanted to do with the program is develop some real life scenarios projects that we did at Entuitive and create. An interesting or compelling way to showcase those projects and, the actual work that is done on those projects to try to help students connect.

[00:04:34] Okay, so I learned how to design a beam out of a textbook in a very simple situation. I can do the math. , but how does that translate into real life? And how can we illustrate that in a unique way? And so we took a 360 camera.

[00:04:48] I went to a construction site that was perfect for this. It was it was a small fire station. in Calgary. That had been shut down and it, was being turned into something else. It was like a hundred year old [00:05:00] building. And they completely stripped it. And they wanted to turn it into, a restaurant or a cafe, something.

[00:05:05] And so it was the perfect small enough project. I showed up with a 360 camera. I digitized through photos. every single aspect of the building. It's only two floors. And then I used a program called Matterport, which is a, a software that you can purchase that ties all of those 360 cameras together.

[00:05:25] And it basically created what they call a dollhouse. And I don't know, maybe your listeners would have seen this before if they've looked at real estate. In the last three or four years you can go tour a house. Well, we did the same thing, but you can go tour a construction site and it's very much like Google Maps where you can click and move around.

[00:05:43] And so it gives the opportunity for the students To virtually stand on a real construction site. And what was great is the entire structure was exposed. So you could see the beams, you could see the columns, you could see the joists the foundations were even exposed, which was really unique.

[00:05:59] And [00:06:00] then to. Help with, creating a learning opportunity. I was able to put nodes of information. So as you're spinning around the site you see a little white dot and you can click on that node. There's a little bit of a write up explanation and some photos that go with it, and it says, Hey, here's a problem that we found while we.

[00:06:20] Actually working on this project. And here's a little background information on it. So that gave, that gives the students an opportunity to see real life problems. And then we create , an educational. Game for them. As we say. So how would you solve this problem?

[00:06:36] Right. And it gives the student the opportunity to start thinking about how would I actually deal with this problem knowing the knowledge that I've learned in school? 

[00:06:44] Blake Melnick: Very cool. And so students can actually provide feedback and you get a chance to meet virtually these prospective hires get a sense of their thinking, how they think, how they approach problems.

[00:06:55] Problem solving skills and that kind of thing. , are you getting that kind of feedback from them? . 

[00:06:59] Steve: [00:07:00] Yeah, exactly. Right now we've got five activities and we're constantly making them as time allows us to. But as part of our hiring process, we've added on this Entuitive U submission.

[00:07:13] And so the theory there was, every student. Looks generally the same on paper. They all went to school for four years. They all have a resume where they worked, a couple summers for an engineering company or a construction company. And they all generally learned the same information in school.

[00:07:30] So we know that, at face value. Their capabilities should be the same, right? But it's really difficult to take, 50 applications and find the best five, like , how are you gonna make that decision? And we wanted to use the Entuitive U program to help with that.

[00:07:44] So, along with this fire hall activity you download, a question sheet, and there's about 15 problems on there. And the answers are either written form or we actually get them to sketch something. So can Oh, interesting. Can they [00:08:00] express what they're thinking in a sketch version, right?

[00:08:03] Because often that's one of the best communication tools that we have in engineering. Can you sketch it on paper and explain it to an architect or a client, what you're trying to achieve. It's a bit of a test in a way but it's very open format.

[00:08:15] And the hope is that we can really get a better sense of how the students approach problem solving and what their skills are like in a real life scenario. and that helps us narrow the field and highlight the students that we think, rise above the rest. And those are the ones that we want to interview and ultimately bring into the firm.

[00:08:33] Blake Melnick: So it really streamlines the hiring process because as you say on paper, engineers coming out of engineering school will look the same. This is a way to see how they can apply theory to practice in a real world context. Yeah. And I guess for them it's also.

[00:08:48] Try before you buy kind of scenario where they get to experience what it might be like working with Entuitive. So tell me, what kind of feedback have you had from prospective hires about this whole experience? Has it been positive[00:09:00] ?

[00:09:00] Steve: Yeah, generally it's been positive. I think positive in a couple of ways. It's a little bit tough to tell you, ask a student, Hey, did you like doing the intuitive U activity in an interview? Very rarely are they gonna say, actually, I hated doing that, but I get it anyway. Right. So it's a little tough to know, how candid the feedback is.

[00:09:16] But what we did before we rolled out the program officially, is I did a three month test, so we put together the website, we put together four activities. And then I went on a bit of a university tour and I did presentations to five or six universities , in Canada, and I just said, Hey, this is something we're trying but I didn't want to come across and say, we're doing this so that we can hire better. Right. Because that is part of what we're doing. Right. But for me, putting together the program, it was really a reflection of when I was a student, I didn't actually know. What was really out there in terms of the work that I could do.

[00:09:54] Do I wanna work in construction or consulting? Right. Okay. I wanna work in consulting, well, there's 50 [00:10:00] avenues of consulting. But I, don't really get to see all of those. And so what I've tried to do with Entuitive U is not only, give us, an advantage on finding better hires, but also just expose students to the industry that , I love to be a part of and I wish that I had the exposure when I was at their stage in their careers.

[00:10:19] When I gave these presentations to the students across the universities of Canada, I said, so we're trying this program, our mandate is to try to find best hires, but we'd also like to, give opportunities to students where they're not currently getting them in school.

[00:10:34] And so I've put together these four activities that I think are interest. But my ask to you is go try out , this program, see what you think about it. Give us some feedback on the level of difficulty for the activities, but also tell us what you wanna learn about because.

[00:10:53] it's my goal to teach you what you wanna learn about. Cuz that ultimately just helps Entuitive be that much better [00:11:00] of a brand or a firm that is gonna attract top talent. Sure. So we did a three month trial where I think I had 25 or 30 students actually sign up and, I put in some prizes and stuff to try to encourage them to be part of the initial test.

[00:11:16] We've been rolled out for almost three years now. , there is a location on the Entuitive U website where it is an open forum that comes directly to me and it says if you're a student and you're interested in learning something and you don't know enough about it, tell me about it, and we will do our best to create something.

[00:11:35] for you. And we've gotten lots of great feedback and requests for different kinds of activities and it's actually been a really good way for us to just connect with students out there and try to get a sense of what they're interested in learning about to help better the program that we've developed.

[00:11:50] Yeah. 

[00:11:51] Blake Melnick: It sounds like a real win-win. And as you know, at WINCan, we've been advocating this classroom as the workplace model for some time the best education is when you can translate [00:12:00] theory to practice immediately. That's how you know that you've learned something of value.

[00:12:04] And, with so many challenges facing our world and young people these days, the opportunity to actually participate in real world experiences. Making what you're learning more focused and more real to you is really important. We think. Have the universities been supportive?

[00:12:20] Steve: Generally they have been. I would say that we haven't quite broken through when we started putting this together, I thought that, we would get teachers latching onto this idea mm-hmm. to be like, whoa, okay. This is a really interesting and new way to share the ideas I'm trying to teach students, in a format that's, a little closer to what people have today in terms of visualization, right? You're not teaching stuff out of a textbook. Here's a virtual construction site. I thought when teachers saw this, they would just be like, okay, sign me up. How do I help? Right. Or how do I use this in my curriculum? [00:13:00] Mm-hmm. and. Totally. And we haven't quite had that, shift yet.

[00:13:04] Right. And then the other piece of feedback, I recently spoke with our hiring Group at Entuitive and said, what is the feedback that you're getting from the co-op programs? Because a lot of universities now, have a co-op program Yeah. Where the students sign up to, and then they'll help them find a job in the industry and it turns out that a lot of the co-op I forget, they're called the co-op organizers or something like that.

[00:13:25] A lot of them are turning to us and saying, so why do our students have to do this extra bit of effort other than a resume and a cover letter. Like we're not sure that they're willing to put in that extra amount of time and. I feel like that's a bit of a loss. I would expect , that the universities would look at something like this and say, wow, this company really cares about the students that are coming through the programs and that they wanna bring into the industry. And there actually has been some pushback on it. 

[00:13:53] Blake Melnick: Any kind of new initiative or innovation, there's always some downside, there's always some pushback, because we're [00:14:00] talking about a cultural change, you've mentioned it for university professors, but what about with Entuitive itself?

[00:14:05] Have you had any issues internally with the rollout of this as what's the feedback been from your own people or other departments within the Company? . 

[00:14:14] Steve: It's similar in a sense to what we've seen at the universities. Obviously, like you said, any change management is always difficult.

[00:14:20] . As we were developing the program, we brought in the marketing team to make sure that it looked, as good as it could look. We also brought in the HR team to try to get their feedback what's your hiring process? How do we fit, Entuitive U into that hiring process?

[00:14:33] It's been, generally good. But like with anything in change management, it is an added step to the hiring process, right? There's one more thing that, the hiring manager needs to review. It's one more document that HR has to, collect and file and all that kind of thing.

[00:14:48] And so there hasn't been a ton of push. But it has slowed the process a little bit and, there's lots of questions being asked and you know what, they're all really good questions, is this bringing us the value we thought it was going to?

[00:14:59] Right? And I think [00:15:00] that's always important to constantly ask whenever you're trying to innovate is always bring it back to the value proposition. So we set out to do this. This is the feedback we're getting, are we still creating value? Because ultimately value is the most important piece for anything like this.

[00:15:15] Sure. 

[00:15:16] Blake Melnick: When you're talking about this initiative, and I'm thinking about back when I was a student, I would've just loved this, right? Because again, it's a chance for me to actually experience something that's going on in the real world and looking at the theory and saying yeah, this.

[00:15:28] Theory and it's great, but how does that actually apply in the real world? And you're giving students that sort of window to the workshop, which I think is fabulous. And I do think it's a win-win. I can understand the pushback and as you say, any kind of change to the culture. The way things are done at the company, the organization whether that be a university or a private enterprise like Entuitive, is always going to be perceived as.

[00:15:53] And add on extra work. It means I'm gonna have to do more. And it's a challenge for any organization that's trying to [00:16:00] build a culture of innovation is that, they have to think about, okay, if we're going to do it this way what are we going to eliminate? Or what do we no longer need to do as a result of doing it this way?

[00:16:09] Because it seems to me that at least for an HR department, for example, that this is a way to streamline the hiring process. Remove some of the onerous task of going through thousands of resumes and just trying to make a judgment based on paper, which as you mentioned earlier, it all kind of looks the same.

[00:16:28] Now you've actually got a way to call the list by identifying the best candidates. Those that have shown initiative, demonstrated the desired skills, problem solving, collaboration, communication, et cetera. So it should actually serve to streamline the hiring process, making it more efficient and effective.

[00:16:44] Steve: I wanted to bring up something else that was interesting that kind of bubbled up through, us putting the program into place, which I didn't think about at the beginning. So in Entuitive we have, a very good DNI program, diversity and inclusion.

[00:16:59] One of the [00:17:00] groups which we call the gender pillar came to me and said, , there's lots of bias hiring that occurs. And we would like to try to use the Entuitive U program to reverse any initial biases that hiring. Right. Um, good point Managers might have.

[00:17:18] And the idea being that, so let's say you whittle the candidate pool down to, five to 10 potential hires. You actually use the submissions from Entuitive U without any, information about who the person is. And then you have them review the purely the work that they've submitted.

[00:17:37] And based on the work that they've submitted, those are potentially the people that you bring in. To have an interview without knowing, what the person's name is, what their gender is, all that kind of stuff. And it really breaks down that initial bias that might occur.

[00:17:51] Blake Melnick: That's a brilliant idea. Basically you're judging potential hires based on the quality of their ideas and the way they're approaching [00:18:00] problems, not on anything else.

[00:18:01] It's a leveler for sure. I think that's a great idea. 

[00:18:04] You're really looking at their ideas first and saying, these are really good ideas. I don't need to know what the gender of the person is. I don't need to know what their race is. I just need to focus on these ideas and the way they're expressing themselves. So that's a really cool idea. I like that a lot.

[00:18:18] So five years in, if you did it again, would you do anything differently? And if so,what? . 

[00:18:24] Steve: Yeah, I've been thinking about this one. And the answer's no, . 

[00:18:30] Blake Melnick: Good answer. 

[00:18:32] Steve: the answer's no because it's about the process.

[00:18:37] So if you look back and you say, well, if I knew all the things I know now, would I change it? And again, I think it's no. . The process of trying something, failing, trying something else like that is a muscle. That's your innovation capability muscle.

[00:18:52] Right. And, without, working out that muscle and learning, to be okay with failure. And, , [00:19:00] brush it off. Let's try again. Let's do something else. , you wouldn't be where you are. And you wouldn't have the skills that you have. . So I think it was really important for us to go through a lot of different changes, change the strategy that didn't work, let's change it again.

[00:19:16] Right? Feedback is bad from employees about this. Okay, let's take that feedback and let's update it. Sure. Yeah. And I think we've built a core group of support individuals that have , a good skill set in innovation and they're then able to teach that and share the knowledge with others and really just be a support system for people that are new to the firm or new to, innovation or just curious.

[00:19:42] Blake Melnick: I really love what you said there, Steven. What you're describing are the attributes of innovators not being afraid to try, not being afraid to make mistakes. I won't call 'em failures or fear of failure because I don't really believe in failure, innovating is hyper learning and mistakes or miscalculations are really only outcomes that you didn't [00:20:00] anticipate when you began.

[00:20:01] There are learning outcomes that you can then use to change direction, to adapt or try something new. And I think it's really important to frame innovation and innovating as a journey or a process rather than an output or a defined outcome. The journey takes time. They'll be setbacks along the way, but these setbacks and miscalculations, et cetera, are opportunities to become better at innovating by developing the skills associated with innovation, ideation, reflection, problem solving. Rapid prototyping, knowledge building, purpose-driven collaboration, and building the business case. You know, it's this process or journey which results in an increase in your organization's innovation capability.

[00:20:42] . So what advice would you give other firms that want to embark on a similar innovation journey that may want to create a culture of innovation within their workplace? What advice would you give them based on what you've learned? 

[00:20:54] Steve: There's a few things. The processes that we've found success with the [00:21:00] tools, right? Like the idea hopper or the various challenges that we create, if there was other companies that said, Hey, we don't have anything and we wanna do something, 

[00:21:09] from the experience that we have. That we would share here are the things that we found success. , what's really important is take these, go try them. And find out what works for you, right? Because what works for us at Entuitive, based on lots of things, who's in the company, the culture of the company, , the type of work that we do, it's all gonna be very different to whatever, your firm or your company does.

[00:21:35] There's lots of great resources to learn from and to start researching. But the most important thing, To do is to try it and, find out what works for your company, so that's part one. And part two is, back to what we said at the beginning where, companies say we want an innovation space and it's gonna be this group of people or whatever.

[00:21:57] I would say that the biggest. [00:22:00] Mistake you could make is to try to contain innovation in, a small, group of people. , if you were gonna try to make innovation, part of the mandate of your company, , you have to, try to make , every single person at the organization believe in what you're doing and try to take on the mindset of an innovator.

[00:22:23] Blake Melnick: I really liked your point that there is no one size fits all solution. Each approach really has to reflect the culture of the organization for which it's being applied.

[00:22:31] And that brings us nicely into the next section of our discussion, which is really around quality of work and. Employee-led innovation, which is certainly what you're doing at Entuitive, 

[00:22:41] and I think that's really important because I think people often look for easy answers. Give me that presentation. Give me the tool kit, give me the list and we'll just do the same thing at our firm and it rarely works that way. So I think that's a great point. We've been talking about innovation, we've been talking about trying new things, to try to advance and to understand and to learn.

[00:22:58]  So let's talk about our project. 

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] For our listeners, Steven is joining, , me and a number of other colleagues from around the world who are studying, employee led innovation. Specifically because the world has changed, , and certainly in the pandemic, the burning platform has changed the way we work and the way we think about work.

[00:23:14] And so firms are going to have to adapt to that, which will require a certain amount of innovation in order for them to adjust the way that they are designed or the way they've operated for many years to accommodate this new way of thinking about work. So our listeners understand Stephen and Entuitive a case study in this research that we're doing.

[00:23:33] It's a knowledge synthesis of exemplary practices adopted by both higher education institutions and workplaces. Largely from the European context cuz the Europeans are much further along in this than we are. They've been doing it a lot longer. 

[00:23:45] We want to take what they do really well and apply it to a Canadian context to see what works and what doesn't work, what could be adapted, for the Canadian context to ensure success. And I wanted to give our listeners a bit [00:24:00] of a context.

[00:24:01] Project that we're working on with Steven, a number of other companies and organizations is that workplace innovation is the social process of creating lasting value by mobilizing new ideas in the workplace. Employee led innovation in the workplace. We believe, and this is what we're trying to prove in this work, is it will improve both organizational performance and the quality of work life for employees.

[00:24:23] Our workplace and academic partners will collaborate on a shared challenge, which is really. Preparing Canada and Canada's workforce for the future of work. So let's talk about quality of work. When I say quality of work, Steve, what does that mean to you? 

[00:24:37] Steve: Quality of work to me is, part of what I talked about earlier in terms of what's the thing that gets you outta bed in the morning and excited to do your job

[00:24:48] It's extremely important for every company out there. If you want engaged employees, in your workforce, then[00:25:00] they have to enjoy what they're doing. They have to be, excited by it. They have to be engaged by it. They have to be challenged by it. And so how do you create an environment where all of those things exist?

[00:25:13] And people are excited to be part of your organization, 

[00:25:16] Blake Melnick: I think what we're doing that's different in this research from other research that has been done and other than the context of the world and how it's changed in the last two years is that we're redefining, innovation and trying to make it more accessible.

[00:25:28] But we're also trying to say that innovation is not a top down, mandate. Rather a bottom up mandate. So in other words, as organizations grow, this is a typical scenario. As organizations get bigger and more distributed, the executives, the founders of the organization are further and further removed from the shop floor, so to speak, and day-to-day op.

[00:25:48] Operations of the organization. So a lot of the innovations that are going to occur are going to occur by those working at the front lines. With those that are seeing the problems on a day-to-day basis, and I think [00:26:00] what you're doing at Entuitive is creating a context for people to say, okay, there's a problem.

[00:26:04] I see it. The CEO doesn't see it and I don't talk to the ceo, but you've created the ability for that person to say, you know what? We can fix this just by making a slight change and it's gonna take no money and it's going to increase our efficiency or effectiveness by X quotient but I don't need to get permission to do this cuz it's only gonna take me a day to figure it out and to implement it.

[00:26:27] And so I think that's really important in driving the whole idea of employee led innovation but I think we also came down to, one of the challenges that you face as a company is engagement. Getting people to feel comfortable, stepping outside of their training or perhaps their past experiences and actually making that move and actually doing it rather than saying, well, you know, it's not part of my job description.

[00:26:51] I'm not sure how my manager might react if I did this, as opposed to, the work that I'm supposed to do or my job task list, these are [00:27:00] complex problems. And so what we're going to be working on is this whole notion of exploring motivations to innovate.

[00:27:05] And we have some great tools that have been developed elsewhere around the world and applied very successfully to try to understand what it is that motivates. People to innovate because of course, across an organization, the motivations are going to be different from understanding, how or what motivates people to be innovative.

[00:27:22] We can try to replicate or create opportunities within a respective firm, so that these opportunities happen more often, so that they'll appeal or bring in people, that have very different motivations or different ways of operating.

[00:27:36] So it's more inclusive, 

[00:27:37] so how do you think your participation in that, of Entuitive, in this research will help you advance, what you're doing around employee led innovation? 

[00:27:45] Steve: We're really excited to dive into it. I think one of the things. That we see the benefit of this partnership?

[00:27:51] Is the background that you guys have and the case studies that you have, that have, as you said, have worked in other places around the world? We want to be able [00:28:00] to see those and then apply them. Mm-hmm. , front a test in Entuitive and see what happens.

[00:28:05] Kinda like what we talked about before, things that work over there might not work over here, but there's gonna be nuggets of things, right? That we're gonna pick up from all these various, success stories. And our hope or our expectation is that we're gonna be able to, change the way that we're doing things at Entuitive and find our new path forward 

[00:28:23] One of the pieces, that we , have been talking about it in our discussions a capability to innovate. 

[00:28:30] Blake Melnick: There are certain capabilities that, actually lead to innovation more frequently and, there are catalysts for 

[00:28:35] Steve: innovations.

[00:28:36] Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we run a lot of innovation challenges. You mentioned impact. Mm-hmm. , that's one of the big ones that we do. And one of the things that we want to be able to study is, let's find out what their innovation capability is at the beginning and then let's run them through a three month innovation. Journey. In terms of testing and prototyping, a big idea that they have.

[00:28:57] And then let's test it again at the end. , our goal [00:29:00] is that through that, 90 day sprint of an idea that they do, that they learn a whole bunch of different skills along the way and one get motivated by, what they've done and their abilities.

[00:29:12] They get confidence in it. They get the skills to be able to apply innovation in their daily work. And. Finally that they can then go to their peers and share the knowledge that they have. And then we have a workforce that is teaching each other and collaborating, right?

[00:29:29] And they're all, innovating 

[00:29:30] Blake Melnick: And I think the importance around this research is giving you or giving Entuitive a baseline of your current capabilities around innovation, your current practice, and then see how we can improve that and measure that.

[00:29:40] And see what kind of, advancement we can get over time, . And I also think for your employees, it demonstrates that you're walking the walk.

[00:29:47] That , innovation is serious, right? . That you're encouraging people to come and look for ways to improve, to do things that get them jazzed, to get them to want to get up in the morning and go to work, [00:30:00] that recognize their skills.

[00:30:02] Competencies and experience that they bring to the table when they join your firm. , oftentimes, people join a company and they bring a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with them, and the organization doesn't really spend any time.

[00:30:16] Looking at the knowledge that they're bringing in. And so the person says, I'm hearing these problems and I could fix it, but nobody's bothering to ask me, or, it's not in my particular department , or area, but I've worked in that department in the past. I know what the answer is. , but nobody's asking me.

[00:30:32] So creating those opportunities for dialogue, discourse collaboration, between your employees is fantastic. I think there's no doubt that will lead to a more innovative culture and higher performance for the organization as a whole across all of those, , buckets that you pointed out

[00:30:47] so I'm excited to see. , all transpires within your company? This is bringing us to the end of the session, but I always like to give my guests the final word. Is there some things that you'd like to talk about that we have not, addressed?

[00:30:58] Steve: Yeah, there's one [00:31:00] last thought I think is worth sharing. The innovation journey that Entuitive's gone through is that, a couple times a year, we host innovation challenges, right? Some of them are big, some of them are small. , there's many opportunities for people to get involved in.

[00:31:17] Things that are outside their normal workspace. Right. And, over the past couple of years, some of them are really easy to get people involved cuz for whatever reason. Whether it's an interesting idea or people are feeling comfortable with it or that lots of people connect with it.

[00:31:31] And then some of the challenges are a lot harder to get people involved. And it's always part of my role to, walk around the offices or call people and say like, Hey, I think , this challenge, fits in your wheelhouse. Would you like to get involved?

[00:31:42] But sometimes, the feedback that we get is, , I'm not really sure, how I can contribute or why I should contribute. And the piece that I always try to, sell them with is that the purpose of us, throwing out these [00:32:00] challenges for people that ultimately we're trying to drive and motivate, yourself and your skillset to go out and design the job that you want to have, right? Yes. Mm-hmm. And I think that's really important one for us. , as a firm to, bring up people's skillset in designing, and innovating, but also, in the quality of work conversation.

[00:32:22] someone. Designs the job that they're doing. , which means that they created the process, they came up with the solutions, they're happy about it, or maybe they're not happy about it, but they're still working on it. Right? Right. Like they're still, and they're able , to create the workflow that they like to work in.

[00:32:40] Then all of a sudden you have. An incredible person or group of people doing something really great, they have ownership of it, right? And so they're extremely happy with what they're doing, and that usually leads to us doing a great job, delivering great value, and, usually making a little bit more [00:33:00] money because people are really excited about what they're doing. Once I get that across to people that hey, this is your opportunity to write your own story, design your own future, it really gets people excited that's probably the funnest part of my 

[00:33:13] Blake Melnick: job.

[00:33:13] What you just touched on is called job crafting, and there's a lot of research being done on this around quality of work and allowing people to basically craft their own job. 

[00:33:23] I don't think a lot of organizations or HR departments have done a particularly good job with this understanding and harnessing the knowledge and experience of existing employees as well as new hires coming into the firm. You know, if you understand the passions, aspiration goals of these folks and include them in the collective knowledge base of the organization, you're able to design or craft your workplace structures, particularly performance appraisals, professional developments, succession planning, et cetera, to support these.

[00:33:51] For example, if you. What drives your people, what their passions are, what they want to achieve in their careers. Then you can say, well, you know, you're [00:34:00] knowledgeable and passionate about this, and so here's an opportunity for you to apply that in an innovation challenge of the kind. You've just touched on an impact challenge.

[00:34:08] The hypothesis we're testing is if we allow people to craft their job, does it mean that they're going to be more productive?

[00:34:14] Does it mean they're gonna be more engaged? Does that up the quality of work? Because they , have some autonomy over the work that they're doing. It's a really interesting bit of research as to say, if we do this, will we have Better engagement.

[00:34:28] Will we reduce our turnover rates? Will we have higher levels of employee satisfaction? And all of these things, translating again into, as you say, , more profitability, greater performance, better effectiveness in how we work.

[00:34:41] Steve: Totally. I mean, I can't see how it would. A negative outcome. 

[00:34:48] Blake Melnick: Neither can I actually. No. 

[00:34:50] Steve: If you have people doing what they like to do and having ownership over it and , like you said, like being more productive, , and just being [00:35:00] engaged. . To me, there's no downside.

[00:35:02] Blake Melnick: The challenge for organizations, and maybe not as much of a challenge for yours, but a lot of employees that I've interviewed over the years, they say, well, we hear all this stuff from the executive management team that we're going to do this. We're going to have more autonomy in our job. We're going to have the ability to make a greater impact.

[00:35:19] But from what I hear, what often happens is they have an idea, they go to their manager and they say this is what we want to do. Their manager responds. But no, you can't. You've got other stuff you've gotta do. And this is not a negative against middle management, but oftentimes the performance metrics for middle management don't allow or accommodate for the innovation or the innovation behavior that employees want to engage in.

[00:35:43] And so we go back to the discussion about the importance of alignment, aligning structures that exist within your organization to support and produce the outcomes you're looking. And this is a tricky piece because it means going to all your functional areas, modifying your processes with [00:36:00] this in mind, and be prepared to adjust these processes to support the goal of increasing employee-led innovation.

[00:36:08] Steve: It comes back to that age old idea of bureaucracy versus humanaucracy right, which is the opposite of bureaucracy, right? Like where the organization is saying, go in this direction and that's usually led by a few people at the top, right?

[00:36:24] Mm-hmm. . And then the many, that are on the front line are saying, well, actually we should be going in this direction because we're the ones doing it. And it is my personal belief that. That the many on the front line probably have a better idea of what the direction that the company should be going and the company should be changing based on what the employees are doing.

[00:36:46] The employees should not be changing based on what the company thinks it should be doing. 

[00:36:50] But again, a company is made of, of individuals that have different ideas and different perspectives. And not everybody's gonna agree, but you have to be able to design your organization and those various structures [00:37:00] so that even.

[00:37:01] I don't agree with direction. The company is going. I'm still gonna support it because we're trying to create, a more autonomous workforce that's flatter where people are able to make decisions when they see a problem and fix it without having to go through, all the procedures and meetings and getting approvals and stuff just to do something that's quite simple.

[00:37:20] Blake Melnick: But it's difficult and particularly, Engineering firm, you're very procedural based and you need to be, there's lots of standard operating procedures. So it makes it more of a challenge when you have those kinds of constraints. Although many innovators will say it's actually. Constraints that drive innovation , 

[00:37:36] Going back to our earlier discussion around creating an environment where people feel excited about going to work, there's lots of research that says an employee's positive experience is usually based on three things, purpose, impact, and autonomy. 

[00:37:52] If you have those three things in your job, you're generally speaking pretty satisfied and of course money. But once money is no longer the [00:38:00] major driving force, it's those three things that most employees are looking for in their job experience. They go to school to train to become really good at something, and so if they see a problem that.

[00:38:09] They know they can solve. They wanna solve it. And I get it because I'm that way too. 

[00:38:14] Listen Steven, thank you so much for coming on the show. We're gonna have you back again of course, cuz we want to see how well you do over the next few months when we apply some of these research methodologies, some of the tools from other workplaces and other organizations around the globe to see if they have an impact on Entuitive's innovation capability and I think they will.

[00:38:34] So thanks again and good luck and we'll have you back on the show soon.

[00:38:38] Awesome. Thanks Blake. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. 

[00:38:40] Yeah, you too.

[00:38:42] This concludes my two-part interview with Steven, Cohos from Entuitive Engineering in Calgary, Alberta called Entuitive Ennovation. Innovation takes many forms. Sometimes it involves creating something new to the world, and at other times it's about recreating [00:39:00] something that was lost, then reintroducing it with a brand new twist.

[00:39:05] On our next episode of the Many Faces of Innovation, we'll be profiling innovation in sound. All you musicians and podcasters out there are gonna want to check this one out. We have a really amazing guest coming on the show to talk about entrainment and the power of sound for what it's worth.