What if the key to innovation isn’t thinking bigger — but slowing down?

In this episode of What is Innovation?, Jared Simmons is joined by Cynthia Kane, founder of the Kane Intentional Communication Institute and author of The Pause Principle. Cynthia brings a deeply personal and practical perspective to innovation, drawing from her experience teaching over 70,000 people how to communicate with clarity, compassion, and calm.

The conversation explores how communication—with ourselves and others—is a practice that shapes not only our relationships but also our ability to navigate change, uncertainty, and complexity. Cynthia shares her journey from loss to discovery, illustrating how curiosity, mindfulness, and self-awareness can transform the way we lead, build, and collaborate.

Whether you’re leading a company or navigating a tough conversation, this episode offers a grounding approach to innovation that begins within.

Guest Bio:
Cynthia Kane is the founder of the Kane Intentional Communication Institute and the author of four books, including The Pause Principle: How to Keep Your Cool in Tough Situations. A certified meditation and mindfulness instructor and breathing coach, Cynthia has helped over 70,000 people improve the way they communicate through her bestselling courses and training programs. Her work blends principles of Right Speech, mindfulness, and intentional action to create sustainable change in communication and leadership.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why innovation isn’t always about doing something new — but doing it differently

• How communication becomes a practice of clarity, curiosity, and connection

• The link between mindfulness and effective leadership

• How to speak to yourself with kindness (and why it matters for innovation)

• Why responding is more powerful than reacting in high-stakes situations

• The difference between making things easy and making them simple

Highlighted Insight:
“Innovation is a flowing river, not a series of hurdles. It moves. It breathes. It responds.”

Quote to Remember:
“Go where it’s easy. Innovation doesn’t have to be hard. It just has to be yours.”

Resources & Links:

• CynthiaKane.com

• The Pause Principle (Book)

• Cynthia on Instagram @cykane1

• Free 30-Day Pause Challenge available on her website

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

What if the true barrier to innovation isn't a lack of ideas, but how we manage them?

In this episode of What is Innovation?, Jared Simmons sits down with Steve Hinch — award-winning author, high-tech executive, and innovation consultant — to uncover the overlooked mechanics of corporate and startup innovation. Drawing on decades of leadership experience at Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies, and startup ventures, Steve breaks down innovation into four clear categories, reframes failure as a learning opportunity, and explains why managing innovation demands a radically different mindset.

Whether you’re in a Fortune 500 boardroom or an early-stage startup, this conversation delivers insight on how to build repeatable innovation processes, manage risk with purpose, and make sure your great ideas don’t die at the delivery stage.

Guest Bio:
Steve Hinch is the author of Winning Through Innovation: Lessons from the Front Lines of Business, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award. With a long career spanning senior R&D, marketing, and general management roles at Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies, Steve has also served as CEO of TeamLogic IT. He now consults with senior leaders across industries to design innovation strategies and processes that work, from product launches to corporate transformations.

What You’ll Learn:

• A simple 4-part framework for classifying innovation: product/process + incremental/disruptive

• Why innovation in large corporations fails — and how to fix it

• How to manage innovation differently from traditional projects

• Why failure is critical to innovation (and how venture capitalists accept it)

• How to protect innovation from corporate reporting cycles and quarterly pressure

• What support really looks like in a thriving corporate innovation culture

Highlighted Insight:
“Innovation is not just about seeing opportunity — it’s about delivering it profitably. Without delivery, even the best idea is useless.”

Quote to Remember:
“In the startup world, 80% of ventures fail. But that 20% that succeed? That’s where the real return is — and failure is part of the learning.”

Resources & Links:

• Winning Through Innovation – Book by Steve Hinch

• Steve Hinch on LinkedIn

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

What does it mean to build something enduring in a world obsessed with fast growth and quick exits?

In this episode of What is Innovation?, Jared Simmons sits down with Shawn Nelson, CEO and founder of Lovesac, to explore the deeper layers of innovation in business, leadership, and life. From making beanbags in his parents’ basement to running a public company approaching a billion in revenue, Shawn shares how clarity of purpose and long-term thinking can turn small product decisions into disruptive innovation.

The conversation dives into how leaders can define their own innovation “domain,” why originality isn’t a requirement for progress, and how the tension between ambition and patience can shape entire organizations. Shawn also unpacks the real cost of growth — from taking outside capital to making tough calls on talent and timing.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure to “do something new,” this episode offers a grounding and practical lens for building, inventing, and innovating — one step (and one season) at a time.

Guest Bio:
Shawn Nelson is the founder and CEO of Lovesac, a public company known for its patented, high-performance modular furniture. A product designer, entrepreneur, and TV personality, Shawn holds a master’s in Strategic Design and Management and teaches at Parsons, The New School for Design. His recent book and podcast, Let Me Save You 25 Years, distills lessons from his two-decade journey scaling Lovesac from startup to publicly traded brand.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why innovation can be organizationally specific — and why that matters

• How to balance quarterly demands with long-term vision as a public company

• Why originality is overrated, and domain clarity is crucial

• What “patient ambition” looks like in real leadership

• How to use purpose to attract talent and guide product innovation

Highlighted Insight:“Innovation doesn’t have to be original. It just has to be new to you, your team, or your company. And it has to move you forward.”

Quote to Remember:“Maintain top ambition with infinite patience. That’s the hardest part and the secret to building something real.”

Resources & Links:

• Let Me Save You 25 Years (book + podcast)

• Lovesac – Modular furniture with a mission

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

When most people think about innovation, law firms don’t usually come to mind; Zack Oliva is working to change that. In this episode, Jared Simmons talks with Zack, Managing Partner at Oliva Gibbs and founder of Oliva Partners Management, about how innovation in professional services isn’t always about new technology or radical inventions. Sometimes, it starts with running things a little differently.

Zack shares how treating his law firm like a business--with a clear strategy, leadership team, defined culture, and coaching-based development--has positioned it as a forward-thinking force in the energy sector. He also offers a candid look at the promise and pitfalls of AI in the legal field, what spreadsheets and digital courthouses have done for the oil and gas industry, and why innovation starts with a willingness to embrace uncertainty without fear.

The episode also explores deeper themes: the emotional intelligence required for entrepreneurial leadership, the fine line between risk and danger, and how reframing tough decisions can make innovation more accessible. If you’ve ever wrestled with fear-based decision-making or wondered what innovation looks like outside of tech startups, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Introduction to Zack Oliva

• 01:19 — Redefining innovation: invention vs. improvement

• 02:45 — Running a law firm like a business

• 04:28 — AI in law: ethics, risks, and opportunities

• 06:26 — Operational innovation in legal services

• 09:28 — Innovation in oil and gas data & drilling

• 13:31 — Why the energy sector demands constant innovation

• 14:24 — Avoiding bureaucracy and staying nimble

• 15:37 — Innovation ≠ decisions made in fear

• 17:47 — Reframing risk: uncertainty vs. danger

• 20:50 — The “go get the bread” metaphor for risk-taking

• 22:06 — Balancing risk with reputation in law

• 24:25 — Managing ego and team-based decision-making

• 25:34 — Advice for innovators: trust your gut and your people

About the Guest:
Zack Oliva is the Managing Partner of Oliva Gibbs LLP, a firm known for its deep expertise in the energy sector. He also leads Oliva Partners Management, a long-only value investment fund for high-net-worth families. With a reputation for bridging legal strategy and business operations, Zack brings a unique perspective to innovation in both professional services and capital markets. He is also a passionate mentor and lifelong learner (and Jiu Jitsu practitioner).

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

Innovation isn’t just new. It’s radical — and when we treat it like a minor update or a clever tweak, we undermine its potential. In this episode, Jared Simmons speaks with Stefan F. Dieffenbacher, founder of Digital Leadership AG and author of How to Create Innovation, to challenge the status quo around innovation strategy and execution.

With experience leading major transformation projects for companies like Amazon, BMW, and Google, Stefan outlines how most organizations fail by mislabeling incremental improvements as innovation — and by applying the same tools and processes across all types of change. He explains why innovation requires its own distinct mindset, resource model, and methodology, and how most companies neglect the “accelerator” side of innovation, leading to promising ideas being crushed by their own systems.

This episode explores topics like the Three Horizons of Growth, how to structure incubators and accelerators, and how applying engineering principles to innovation can drastically reduce the failure rate. Stefan also shares insights from his global community of 60+ contributors, whose work has culminated in the most comprehensive innovation framework currently available.

If you’re looking to better understand what makes innovation succeed — and why so many companies get it wrong — this conversation offers clear, actionable insights rooted in years of hands-on experience and research.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Introduction to Stefan F. Dieffenbacher

• 01:00 — Innovation, transformation, and radical change

• 02:13 — Why “new to us” is not innovation

• 04:13 — Aligning methods with the type of innovation

• 06:45 — Incubators vs. accelerators

• 09:59 — The danger of putting $1M ideas in $1B portfolios

• 11:28 — When a business is ready to integrate innovation

• 12:29 — What happens when we mislabel change as innovation

• 13:22 — Why most innovations fail — and how to change that

• 16:10 — Innovation as an engineering discipline

• 18:49 — Underinvestment and innovation’s ROI potential

• 22:05 — Integration > excellence in individual domains

• 25:14 — Is innovation an industry or a project type?

• 27:04 — Focus innovation where you differentiate

• 29:54 — Why finance probably isn’t the place to innovate

• 31:45 — Advice for innovators and free access to tools

Resources Mentioned:
➤ How to Create Innovation (book + open source toolkit)

About the Guest:
Stefan F. Dieffenbacher is the founder of Digital Leadership AG and lead author of How to Create Innovation. With more than 20 large-scale innovation and transformation projects under his belt, Stefan helps global organizations mature their innovation capabilities and drive strategic growth. His open-source innovation platform has reached over 100,000 users worldwide.

About the Host:
Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

Title: Innovation is delivering something exceptional (with Jeremy Kourdi)

Description:
What separates innovation from imitation? In this episode, Jared Simmons talks with business author, coach, and entrepreneur Jeremy Kourdi about how innovation creates both impact and long-term value, and why originality and authenticity matter more than ever.

Jeremy shares lessons from NASA, Amazon, and even sport, while unpacking his view that innovation requires both visionary thinking and the discipline to follow through.

About Jeremy Kourdi:
Jeremy Kourdi is an executive coach, business writer, and co-founder of Expert Leader, an AI-powered leadership development platform. A former SVP at The Economist and Managing Director with Duke Corporate Education, Jeremy has written or co-authored 29 books translated into 17 languages. His latest title, 50 Ideas That Changed the World of Work, is out now from Pegasus Books.

About Jared Simmons

Jared Simmons is the Founder and Principal of OUTLAST Consulting, a boutique firm helping organizations unlock innovation through intentional action. With leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and Coca-Cola, Jared blends corporate strategy with entrepreneurial thinking to help clients innovate on their own terms.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Introduction to Jeremy Kourdi

• 01:26 — What is innovation? Jeremy’s definition

• 04:35 — The difference between value and impact

• 07:35 — Innovation in sport: originality vs. reapplication

• 09:59 — Authenticity and creativity in innovation

• 12:00 — Innovation as a moment of achievement

• 15:07 — Innovation requires vision and execution

• 18:45 — Bezos, long-term thinking, and value

• 19:56 — How innovation shaped Jeremy’s career

• 23:15 — The Gary Flandro/NASA story

• 25:00 — Predicting vs. creating the future

• 28:29 — Advice for innovators: vision, priorities, ethnography

• 32:55 — Innovation starts with asking the right questions

What if innovation isn't about having the best idea — but about letting go of the need to be right?

In this episode, Jared Simmons talks with entrepreneurial coach, author, and facilitator David Greer about the power of thinking differently and acting differently. They explore the critical role belief systems, fear of success, and perfectionism play in holding back innovation — and why real innovators treat life like an ongoing experiment.

If you're an entrepreneur, executive, or innovator stuck between ideas and action, this conversation offers simple, powerful ways to move forward.

About David Greer:
David Greer is an entrepreneurial coach, author of Wind In Your Sails, and a catalyst for business transformation. He specializes in working with entrepreneurs facing challenges — offering coaching rooted in action, growth, and personal transformation.

Episode Guide:

• 00:00 — Introduction: Meet David Greer

• 01:10 — Innovation is any new way of thinking or doing

• 03:19 — Innovating through business processes

• 07:42 — Show, don’t tell: Why demonstrations matter

• 10:55 — The hidden beliefs that block innovation

• 13:00 — Why failure is part of real innovation

• 15:15 — Getting unattached to the outcome

• 18:21 — Efficiency culture vs. creativity culture

• 21:32 — How environment fuels or stifles innovation

• 23:44 — Learning from different industries

• 24:41 — Finding simple solutions to complex problems

• 26:38 — Advice for innovators: Take one step this week

• 28:40 — How to connect with David Greer

• More about David

  David J. Greer is an entrepreneurial coach, author, andfacilitator. He is the catalyst who gets you to fully live your dreams now. Spend one hour reading his book Wind In Your Sails, attend a one hour talk with him, or get one hour of 1-to-1 coaching and you will have 3 concrete action items that will shift and accelerate your business within 90 days. David specializes in working with entrepreneurs challenged with alcoholism or addiction. He and his wife Karalee are committed to each other and their three children, spending time supporting them in the many and varied activities they are involved with. They live in Vancouver, Canada.

  About the Host:
  Jared Simmons is the founder of OUTLAST Consulting and the host of What is Innovation? After building a career at Procter & Gamble, McKinsey & Company, and The Coca-Cola Company, Jared now helps organizations and individuals unlock their potential through innovation and intentional action. He’s passionate about making innovation practical, personal, and accessible — whatever that means for you.

Join us on "What is Innovation?" as we explore the true meaning of innovation with Kris Forrest, Co-Founder and CEO of C&D Tools USA. From his background in the intelligence community to leading an American manufacturing company, Kris shares insights on how innovation can be about improving existing ideas rather than just creating new ones.

Discover how his unique journey shapes his vision of innovation.

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Episode Guide:

0:00 - Intro

1:05 - What is Innovation

1:40 - Improvement over Newness

3:39 - Behind C&D Tools

5:11 - Design Choices and Engineering Challenges

8:14 - Supply Chain Innovation

10:!9 - Balancing Cost and Quality and Innovation

13: 43 - Overcoming Industry Skepticism

21:19 - Advice for Innovators

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Kris spent nearly 16 years working for Uncle Sam, four as a young Marine and the rest in various capacities, including the intelligence community and as a Diplomat with the State Department. He has thwarted warlords and worked on critical issues across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

Kris is the Co-Founder and CEO of C&D Tools USA, an American manufacturing company, where he leads go-to-market strategy and focuses on developing client and partner relationships.

More about our guest:

• LinkedIn: Kris Forrest
• Company: C&D Tools USA

OUTLAST Consulting offers professional development and strategic advisory services in the areas of innovation and diversity management

#americanmanufacturing #entrepreneurship #supplychain #WIIP