Episode 10: Beth Comstock - Author, Imagine It Forward and Former Vice Chair GE

04/08/19 • 34 min

Agile Giants: Lessons from Corporate Innovators

For this tenth episode of Agile Giants, we have quite a treat.

I'm joined this week by Beth Comstock. Beth is probably best known as the former Vice Chair of GE, specifically leading innovations. She wrote a really transparent book called Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change, which is a really interesting blend of a reflection on her time at GE, the good and the bad, almost a memoir, as well as a nice set of best practices and observations for corporate leaders responsible for innovation. We use her book as a jumping off point for the discussion, but I can't recommend strongly enough you pick it up yourself if you're interested in digging in further. It's available wherever books are sold.

Show Links:

Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change (Amazon) (Barnes & Nobel)
Beth's Personal Website

For this tenth episode of Agile Giants, we have quite a treat.

Show Links:

Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change (Amazon) (Barnes & Nobel)
Beth's Personal Website

Previous Episode

Episode 9: Peter Steinberg - President, Innovative Thought

Peter Steinberg is rapidly becoming a key partner of ours at the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab.

He is a well know Rugby coach as well as a leader in thinking through executive education. I’m more focused on the later, but the synergy between these is interesting.

The first part of the interview gives you a lens into how Pete approaches exec ed and innovation. Then, the second half of this interview focuses on our collaboration at the Corporate Startup Lab.

Show Links:

Innovative Thought (Peter's Firm)

Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab

Next Episode

Episode 11: Jeff Sutherland Co-Creator of Scrum, Founder & Chairman Scrum, Inc

Jeff's work has really had a profound impact on the way I approach a lot of problems. I remember when one of the companies I ran switched to Scrum (mSpoke) and it was like a light switch went on in the organization.

I can't really talk enough about how positive Scrum's impact was on that organization and a lot of the companies I've worked with since then.

It was really amazing to meet Jeff. He's a brilliant guy and I took away a ton from our conversation.

If you're thinking about how to operationalize Agile philosophies in your organization regardless of the size, I think Scrum is a great technique. And if you're already using Scrum, hopefully, there'll be new things you can learn from our conversation. I know there are a few things I've already changed in terms of how I recommend deploying Scrum based on this conversation.

Show Links:

https://www.scrumatscale.com/

http://iriannual.com/

Detecting Aigle BS: https://media.defense.gov/2018/Oct/09/2002049591/-1/-1/0/DIB_DETECTING_A