This week I’ve invited a handful of collaborators I enjoy and admire to write guest posts that fit the scope of this space: “the art & science of creative action.” This post comes from my good friend Bill Pacheco, former design leader at Cybex and Keurig Dr Pepper, and currently Senior Innovation and Design Thinking Fellow at Trinity College. He’s also the Founder of Open Until 8, a boutique business consultancy. Bill invites you to connect here.

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A few weeks ago, an amazing opportunity came my way. I had the privilege of participating in a highly immersive, super intense business start-up program inside a large company. To give you a sense of how intense, think in terms of weeks to launch your business (compared to what usually takes years, if ever!). I was fascinated to see how the program accelerates learning, and if a start-up mentality could exist within a traditional company.

Prior to the program launch, each participant had to create a pitch video to share their idea with the cohort. Then, everyone voted on how they would make investments across the portfolio. We unpacked those results in the first hour, and it was clear why some “businesses” were stronger than others. I watched the participants closely and felt compassion for those that had lower votes, and wondered, “How are they going to respond? When do they throw in the towel?”

Over the next five days, participants went through a rigorous gauntlet of exercises to craft their story, identify what was most valuable with their solution, and determine if early customers would actually care enough to purchase their offering (for real — no Monopoly money!).

Their businesses were sliced, diced, and ripped out of their hands each day. Customers, venture capitalists, and even a news reporter offered brutal feedback. Cohort-wide votes and comparisons between highs and lows were deeply discussed. Each participant had challenges and plenty of improvement needed at each stage. Did they give up? No! To my amazement, they embodied an amazing capability — humility — which gave them the resilience to keep moving ahead.

-       Humility allowed them a fresh slate to clearly see areas of weakness.

-       Humility made them better at listening and questioning.

-       Humility enabled them to accept feedback and shed strong tendencies to keep the status quo.

-       Humility provided them an opportunity to rely on the coaches and cohort, and ultimately believe in themselves.

The program accelerated learning by cutting right to the chase: does the concept solve a meaningful problem and offer real value to customers? But the critical enabler was not the program structure, but the founders’ humility.

Founders often have isolated moments when they are the only one who believes in their vision. This requires them to be bold and pursue their dream in the face of resistance. At the same time, the quicker they share the concept, listen and pivot to the right direction, the more successful they will be. Humility is the core capability for that “pivoting mechanism” to work. 

It has been said that King Solomon was the wisest person on the planet. Fortunately for us he captured the wisdom he was trying to impart to his two sons in the book of Proverbs. I love this particular excerpt, “Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2). For innovators, these words hold true today as they did thousands of years ago. Humility is an enduring capability.

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