Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
"I see dead people!"
That was Nancy Dawes' answer when Bruce Vojak asked her how she did it. The chemical engineer who took Olay from a dying brand to a billion-dollar product line wasn't being mysterious — she was telling him she could see things her colleagues couldn't. And the real burden, she realised, wasn't seeing them. It was getting an entire organisation to see them too.
In part two of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak returns to unpack the chapter most innovators learn the hard way: the politics. Over 90% of a mature company's resources, people and management attention are locked onto today's products. Breakthrough innovation has to fight all of it — for capital, for headcount, for strategic oxygen — and that fight is political by design.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
→ The Galileo scenario — why a serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else and sees a completely different solution
→ Why politics loses its negative meaning the moment you realise it is the only way to actually serve the customer
→ Strategic coherence vs tactical coherence — and the one question to ask before you push any breakthrough idea into your firm
→ "Crossing the bridge" from the naïve view (invention is sufficient, the manager will recognise it) to political pragmatism
→ The four elements of trust — competence, reliability, openness, concern — that buy a serial innovator the right to be heard
→ Why every breakthrough story Bruce found came from an emergent team, not a pre-formed innovation team
→ The "Stone Soup" model of recruiting allies one favour at a time
→ The Disneyland queue problem of selling internally — you think you've got buy-in, and then there are ten more people behind the next corner
→ Soft influence — planting seeds, telling stories, "people tolerate my conclusions but act on their own conclusions"
→ Hard influence — data, prototypes, signed purchase orders, customer pull-through
→ "The best marketing research is a signed purchase order" — the line Bruce still uses as a filter today
→ Buckminster Fuller's outlaw quote, and his trim tab metaphor — how one person, properly placed, can turn the whole ship
→ Chuck House's HP defiance and the line that captures every serial innovator who ever risked their job: "I wasn't trying to be defiant. I just wanted a success for HP. It never occurred to me it might cost me my job."
00:00 Growth or Insurance
00:48 Sponsor Message
01:14 Breakthrough Politics Setup
02:04 Meet Bruce Vojak
03:25 Nancy Dawes Patterns
07:03 Lenses and Coherence
10:16 Strategic vs Tactical Coherence
12:05 QWERTY Switching Costs
15:16 Politics as Necessary
18:49 Early Wins and Trust
22:03 Crossing the Bridge
25:09 Motivation and Onboarding
30:36 Disneyland Queue Reality
32:22 Engaging Allies
33:50 Emergent Teams Win
39:10 Innovation Team Sport
39:58 Positioning Breakthroughs
44:17 Too Many Innovators
45:27 Proof With Customers
47:14 Outlaw Area Risks
48:05 Trim Tab Influence
51:06 Politics Diagram Walkthrough
54:04 Manager View Teaser
56:41 Wrap Sponsor Thanks
About Bruce Vojak
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker, author of Undisruptable — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack
Connect:
🌐 theinnovationshow.io
📨 thethursdaythought.substack.com
🎧 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
Watch part 1: youtu.be/H5XxoUNvkj4
Full Serial Innovators playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxiNrgE29RIsK9ObBZDe1M6vylSJ73d7
#SerialInnovators #BruceVojak #Innovation #BreakthroughInnovation #Leadership #InnovationPolitics #NancyDawes #ProcterAndGamble #StoneSoup #BuckminsterFuller #ChuckHouse #TheInnovationShow #AidanMcCullen #Thinkers50 #Podcast #FutureOfWork #ChangeManagement #Strategy
"I see dead people!"
That was Nancy Dawes' answer when Bruce Vojak asked her how she did it. The chemical engineer who took Olay from a dying brand to a billion-dollar product line wasn't being mysterious — she was telling him she could see things her colleagues couldn't. And the real burden, she realised, wasn't seeing them. It was getting an entire organisation to see them too.
In part two of our Serial Innovators series, Bruce Vojak returns to unpack the chapter most innovators learn the hard way: the politics. Over 90% of a mature company's resources, people and management attention are locked onto today's products. Breakthrough innovation has to fight all of it — for capital, for headcount, for strategic oxygen — and that fight is political by design.
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (with Ray Price and Abby Griffin), founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
→ The Galileo scenario — why a serial innovator looks at the same data as everyone else and sees a completely different solution
→ Why politics loses its negative meaning the moment you realise it is the only way to actually serve the customer
→ Strategic coherence vs tactical coherence — and the one question to ask before you push any breakthrough idea into your firm
→ "Crossing the bridge" from the naïve view (invention is sufficient, the manager will recognise it) to political pragmatism
→ The four elements of trust — competence, reliability, openness, concern — that buy a serial innovator the right to be heard
→ Why every breakthrough story Bruce found came from an emergent team, not a pre-formed innovation team
→ The "Stone Soup" model of recruiting allies one favour at a time
→ The Disneyland queue problem of selling internally — you think you've got buy-in, and then there are ten more people behind the next corner
→ Soft influence — planting seeds, telling stories, "people tolerate my conclusions but act on their own conclusions"
→ Hard influence — data, prototypes, signed purchase orders, customer pull-through
→ "The best marketing research is a signed purchase order" — the line Bruce still uses as a filter today
→ Buckminster Fuller's outlaw quote, and his trim tab metaphor — how one person, properly placed, can turn the whole ship
→ Chuck House's HP defiance and the line that captures every serial innovator who ever risked their job: "I wasn't trying to be defiant. I just wanted a success for HP. It never occurred to me it might cost me my job."
00:00 Growth or Insurance
00:48 Sponsor Message
01:14 Breakthrough Politics Setup
02:04 Meet Bruce Vojak
03:25 Nancy Dawes Patterns
07:03 Lenses and Coherence
10:16 Strategic vs Tactical Coherence
12:05 QWERTY Switching Costs
15:16 Politics as Necessary
18:49 Early Wins and Trust
22:03 Crossing the Bridge
25:09 Motivation and Onboarding
30:36 Disneyland Queue Reality
32:22 Engaging Allies
33:50 Emergent Teams Win
39:10 Innovation Team Sport
39:58 Positioning Breakthroughs
44:17 Too Many Innovators
45:27 Proof With Customers
47:14 Outlaw Area Risks
48:05 Trim Tab Influence
51:06 Politics Diagram Walkthrough
54:04 Manager View Teaser
56:41 Wrap Sponsor Thanks
About Bruce Vojak
Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms.
Website: breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com
About The Innovation Show
The Thinkers50-recognised podcast hosted by Aidan McCullen — 2025 Thinkers50 Innovation Award recipient, keynote speaker, author of Undisruptable — where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with the world's leading authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, transformation, leadership, AI, creativity and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack
Connect:
🌐 theinnovationshow.io
📨 thethursdaythought.substack.com
🎧 Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-innovation-show/id1148455669
🎧 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/63nFKf4bsSWo3W72gWtOsK?si=b62d9614237c4450
▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/c/theinnovationshow
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aidanmccullen
Watch part 1: youtu.be/H5XxoUNvkj4
Full Serial Innovators playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxiNrgE29RIsK9ObBZDe1M6vylSJ73d7
#SerialInnovators #BruceVojak #Innovation #BreakthroughInnovation #Leadership #InnovationPolitics #NancyDawes #ProcterAndGamble #StoneSoup #BuckminsterFuller #ChuckHouse #TheInnovationShow #AidanMcCullen #Thinkers50 #Podcast #FutureOfWork #ChangeManagement #Strategy
