Innovation Mindset Development

I remember when “challenger brand” meant scrappy, niche, and slightly dangerous to the big players. Now? It’s the R&D department everyone is quietly watching. In the last 18 months, I’ve seen a major shift across global FMCG. Big players aren’t fighting challengers anymore, they’re studying them. Sometimes acquiring them. Sometimes copying them. Sometimes building their own version in-house with a faster, cleaner P&L. The line has officially blurred. Because the real advantage isn’t packaging or positioning, it’s speed. Challenger brands get from signal to shelf in months. They don’t spend six months aligning on “brand essence.” They listen, test, and move. That’s why they’re teaching heritage companies what modern consumer intimacy actually looks like. The smartest leaders I know aren’t dismissing them. They’re asking: “How can we bring that energy inside our business without breaking what works?” It’s not easy. You can’t graft startup behavior onto a 40-year-old structure without intention. But the ones getting it right are doing three things: 1️⃣ Protecting small-team autonomy. Give an empowered team ownership of one bet. Don’t drown it in governance. 2️⃣ Letting data talk sooner. Weekly readouts, not quarterly post-mortems. 3️⃣ Hiring differently. Bringing in people who’ve built things, not just scaled them. Whether you’re in marketing, RGM, supply, or HR, this shift affects you. It’s changing how brands are built, how decisions are made, and what “consumer-first” actually means in 2025. So maybe the better question isn’t: “How do we compete with challengers?” It’s: “Can we think, move, and connect like one, before someone else does?” #FMCG #CPG #BrandLeadership #GrowthStrategy #Innovation #ConsumerTrends #ChallengerBrands #MarketingStrategy

The difference between career plateaus and breakthrough moments often comes down to how we process setbacks. 76% accurate recovery prediction. 61% reduced recovery time. 82% renewal rate within 90 days. These aren't just hopeful claims. There's research-backed evidence that failure recovery is a learnable skill. We're not in an era where resilience is optional. We're in a time where your bounce-back ability determines your career trajectory. 💡 Elite performers don't just endure failure differently. They transform it systematically into a future advantage. Here's how research shows they do it: 🔹 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - Reframe setbacks within larger success stories rather than as isolated incidents. Stanford University research found this predicted recovery speed with 76% accuracy and improved subsequent performance in 83% of cases. 🔹 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 - Isolate exact failure points through detailed analysis rather than generalizing. Applied Psychology studies show this reduced recovery time by 61% compared to self-criticism approaches. 🔹 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗰 𝗩𝘂𝗹𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 - Share failures with 2-3 carefully selected trusted individuals. Harvard Business School research found this accelerated recovery by 40% and increased learning integration by 57% versus private processing. 🔹 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 - Treat outcomes as data points rather than judgments about your capabilities. MIT Technology Review studies show this approach predicted renewed achievement within 90 days with 82% accuracy. 🔹 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗥𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀 - Develop specific practices that reset mental and emotional states after setbacks. Research found structured rituals reduced rumination by 34% and accelerated return to productivity by 2.7 days. The world doesn't need more perfectionists afraid to fail. It needs resilient innovators who can extract maximum value from inevitable setbacks. That's the mindset we're helping build - for professionals who see failure not as the end, but as the beginning of their next breakthrough. Coaching can help; let's chat. | Joshua Miller 🚀 Download Your Free E-Book:  “𝟮𝟬 𝗦𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘀 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝘀” ↳ https://rb.gy/37y9vi #executivecoaching #mindset #leadership

Everywhere I go lately (Phoenix, Chicago, Tulsa, Boise, Kansas), the same conversation happens once university leadership leaves the room. University IP commercialization isn’t “struggling.” It’s actively taxing innovation. It isn't working. The university commercialization model was built for a world where invention was rare, local, slow, and valuable on its own. None of that is true anymore. What is encouraging is that there are real alternatives and they’re already working in pieces around the world. One path is radical simplification: publicly funded research treated as public infrastructure. Publish it. Make IP open or royalty-free. Push commercialization downstream through founder-led companies, SBIR-style funding, and execution instead of toll booths. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) figured this out decades ago. Another is founder-first ownership. Default IP to founders, cap university equity so it doesn’t block growth, eliminate upfront fees. Massachusetts Institute of Technology quietly moved this direction years ago, and its impact comes from companies formed — not patents licensed. A third is sponsored spinout studios, where universities stop pretending they can judge markets and partner instead with experienced operators who know how to build companies. Imperial College London and ETH Zürich are already doing this, treating professors as inventors and entrepreneurs as builders. There’s also time-bound IP reversion; if licensed research isn’t commercialized within a defined window, rights revert or enter a shared commons. This alone would end the practice of innovation dying in filing cabinets. Non-exclusive-first licensing is another underused lever. It lowers risk, increases experimentation, and speeds diffusion. NIH has shown it works, even if it caps upside for rent-seekers. And then there’s the option no one likes to admit: decoupling universities from commercialization entirely. Let universities focus on research and talent. Let markets, founders, and capital do the rest. Stanford University didn’t win because of its licensing office; it won because its graduates ignored it. The throughline here is simple: you cannot tax something into existence. You cannot committee your way to entrepreneurship. And you cannot confuse activity, demo days, or innovation districts with outcomes. If regions like New Mexico, Bentonville, Arizona, or Houston want to lead in their sectors, the move isn’t more branding or more centralized hubs. It’s stripping friction out of IP, stopping the handicapping of founders, and measuring results instead of attendance. Universities aren’t commercializing innovation. They’re taxing it. The longer we pretend that’s fine, the more valuable research we leave sitting on shelves. If you’re building startups, shaping policy, or working inside a university and know this needs to change...

With disruption accelerating across industries, many believe that greater specialization will be key to professional success—“learn X to get Y.” But is that enough? While deep expertise is valuable, breadth and adaptability are just as critical. In uncertain environments, companies need talent who can connect the dots, synthesize new information, and pivot quickly—not just at the leadership level, but across the entire organization. These reflections brought me back to David Epstein’s Range, which I recently revisited and thoroughly enjoyed. His book makes a compelling case for how diverse experiences and cross-disciplinary thinking help individuals navigate uncertainty and drive innovation in a variety of domains - from sports and music to science and beyond. This is something we see firsthand at IESE Business School. The most effective professionals aren’t just specialists—they are strategic thinkers with a broad perspective. A general management approach equips them to break silos, adapt across industries, and make high-impact decisions. That’s why we emphasize a holistic, general management perspective that encourages business leaders to think beyond functional expertise and consider the broader impact of their decisions. As industries transform, the companies that thrive are those with teams who see the bigger picture, embrace diverse experiences, and navigate complexity with confidence.

Good innovation isn’t about doing more. It’s about changing the right variable 🎯 Across different countries, a surprisingly simple idea has helped reduce road accidents involving animals: Improve night-time visibility 👀✨ • In Finland, herders painted reindeer antlers with reflective paint so drivers could spot them earlier on dark winter roads • In India, local authorities use reflective (radium-style) collars or tapes on stray dogs and cattle near urban roads No AI 🤖 No sensors No massive infrastructure upgrades Just one insight: Earlier visibility → more reaction time → fewer accidents 🚗💡 What makes this powerful isn’t the tactic. It’s the thinking behind it. Notice something important 👇 This solution isn’t deployed everywhere. It’s context-specific. Used near roads and highways. In urban or semi-urban environments. With domesticated or stray animals. It’s not used in wild predator ecosystems 🐅🌲 Why? Because good solutions respect boundaries. Predators don’t hunt using reflected headlights. And serious interventions are designed with ecosystem limits in mind. That’s the real lesson here. In business, we often do the opposite: We overbuild products Add layers of complexity Try to solve the entire system at once But great problem solvers think differently 🧠 They identify the single constraint Fix it cheaply and safely Deploy it only where it makes sense Not every solution should scale everywhere. Not every idea should be universal. Sometimes, the smartest move is knowing where not to apply a solution 🚦 That’s not just innovation. That’s systems thinking. Curious to hear your thoughts 👇 What’s the simplest variable you’ve seen make the biggest impact? #Innovation #SystemsThinking #ProblemSolving #DesignThinking #Leadership

Experience isn’t just about years—it’s about depth, diversity, and impact. In HR (and many other fields), I’ve observed three patterns that often differentiate good careers from great ones: 1️⃣ Length vs Depth: Spending many years doing the same tasks doesn’t automatically make you more capable. Depth comes from tackling challenges that stretch your skills, from handling complexity, and from truly understanding how HR drives business outcomes. 2️⃣ Diversified experience > Domain restriction: Working across industries or multiple HR sub-functions—be it Talent Acquisition, L&D, Compensation & Benefits, or OD—broadens your perspective. Interestingly, solutions from one industry often spark innovation in another. What you learn in retail could transform logistics; what works in IT could enhance healthcare HR practices. Cross-industry insights can be surprisingly powerful, often in ways you wouldn’t expect. 3️⃣ Expanding your role vs switching jobs: It’s tempting to chase titles across companies, but deepening responsibility and stretching your current role often delivers more value. Taking ownership of new initiatives, leading cross-functional projects, or designing strategic interventions within your existing role accelerates growth far more than hopping for the sake of a resume. The takeaway? Your career is a portfolio of experiences—choose breadth, depth, and strategic stretch over mere chronology. Curious to hear from my network: which cross-industry or cross-function insights have transformed your approach to HR?

What’s one domain outside your core expertise that has become a hidden advantage? I’ve been thinking about that idea lately after joining a Davos session hosted by Adam Grant and astrophysicist Priya Natarajan on how scientific breakthroughs often depend less on raw intelligence and more on the ability to see what others overlook. Galileo, for instance, wasn’t the first to see mountains on the moon. But because he was trained in drawing, he had the interpretive skill to understand what he was looking at and the implications. Grant pointed out that Nobel Prize winners are far more likely to have artistic hobbies like music, painting and writing. Those pursuits strengthen pattern recognition and creative insight. Here’s what I took away: - There’s a real advantage to being “dangerous” in more than one domain. Galileo had depth in multiple areas (draftsmanship, engineering, mathematics), which gave him the ability to recognize implications others missed. - Serendipity favors the prepared mind. Breakthroughs aren’t random — they reward those who have built enough context and skill to recognize significance when it appears. - Weak signals matter. Early anomalies and subtle inconsistencies are often dismissed. The ability to pause and examine what doesn’t quite fit is often where insight begins. I’ve always valued cross-disciplinary learning, but this conversation reframed it: in a world that rewards specialization, the edge often belongs to those who can integrate distinct disciplines. Image: Galileo’s sketches of the moon that was published in Sidereus Nuncius in 1610

Most startups don't fail from lack of vision... ⛓️💥 They fail from lack of systems! I've worked with founders across UK, Australia, Europe and Africa who all thought resilience means hiring consultants and building 80-page frameworks. ❌ It doesn't. Resilience is having the right lightweight tools ready before that unexpected pivot happens 🎯 At Mangrove, we've distilled this into 7 templates every early-stage startup should have from day one: → Critical services map (one page that shows what keeps your business alive) → Incident log (track what breaks, when, and why... data patterns reveal everything) → Decision register (because six months later, no one remembers why you chose that vendor, that tech, etc.) → Vendor checklist (the dependencies that can sink you overnight) → Access review (who has keys to your kingdom?) → Simple RACI (who decides, who delivers... clarity beats chaos) → Quarterly sh@t show review (30 minutes of discomfort that can save months of pain) The common mistake? 🐘 Founders rarely build these... and if they do. It's a set and forget situation. These aren't documents. They're living tools. Each takes under an hour to set up. Each takes minutes to maintain. Each becomes critical at different stages, pre-seed through Series A and beyond. No enterprise overhead. No consultant speak. Just practical infrastructure that bends but doesn't break. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗳𝗳. Which template would help your startup most right now? 👇 #buildbetter #scalefaster #failless

Stop selling importance. Start engineering enjoyment. New cross-year, cross-culture research: people stick with resolutions when the doing feels good now (intrinsic), not when it just matters later (extrinsic). Definitions: • Intrinsic = enjoyable/engaging in the moment • Extrinsic = useful/important, pays off later We tend to choose goals for extrinsic reasons. We stick with goals for intrinsic ones. Study 1 (U.S., n=2,000, 12 months): People set extrinsic-heavy New Year’s resolutions but intrinsic motivation predicted success all year. Extrinsic didn’t. Same study, completion odds: Every 1-pt bump in intrinsic motivation ⇒ +60% higher odds of actually completing the resolution. Extrinsic? ~No relationship. Meta blind spot: People underestimate how much present-moment enjoyment drives persistence especially for themselves. Study 2 (China, n=500): Different culture, different goal mix, same punchline: Intrinsic predicted adherence; extrinsic didn’t. Study 3 (objective behavior): Step counters over 14 days (n=439). A 1 SD increase in intrinsic motivation ≈ +0.34 SD steps (~+1,250 steps/day). Extrinsic? Not significant. Study 4 (experiment, n=763): Frame a health app as fun/game-like vs important/informational. The fun frame produced ~25% more usage in 24h (more scans). You can cause stickiness by designing enjoyment. Core insight: Extrinsic picks the goal. Intrinsic sustains the habit. Importance is the map. Enjoyment is the engine. Design for “fun now,” not just “good later”: • Reframe tasks with tasty/engaging labels • Bundle temptations (podcast + workout) • Add tiny games/streaks/guesses • Make it social (buddy, public mini-wins) Reduce friction & savor wins: • 2-minute start rules, preloaded cues • Rotate micro-variations (route/recipe/playlist) to dodge hedonic decline • Celebrate small reps to keep intrinsic fuel topped up Message templates (intrinsic-first): • Movement: “Find the most enjoyable 10-min route + one new song.” • Food: “Cook a tasty 3-ingredient veg in 8 min share your hack.” • Learning: “Chase one delightful fact you want to tell a friend.” Manager/coach scripts: “Let’s design the most enjoyable version you’d do on a good day without willpower. Try 2 variants this week; keep the one you’d happily repeat.” Weekly self-audit (1–5 scale): • How enjoyable was today’s rep? • What’s one tweak to raise enjoyment by +1 next week? One-liners to remember: • Enjoyment is the engine; importance is the map. • Design habits you’d do without willpower.

Before every talk, I try to find an idea that cuts through the noise. I’ve been chasing the single insight marketers—across every category—can take from the challengers rewriting the rules. And I think I’ve found it (or at least one truth). 💡 Always-on brand tracking is their unfair advantage. #Challengerbrands are everywhere right now—and they’re winning. A fragmented media landscape, lower barriers to entry, and accessible creative tools have created the perfect storm for challengers to rise. But taking on legacy players in crowded markets is never easy. The smartest challengers don’t win by outspending. They win by out-choosing. They make deliberate calls about who to reach, where to show up, and what to measure. 📈WHAT Challengers move faster than legacy brands, and their brand data keeps pace. While many established brands still rely on quarterly or annual studies, challengers use always-on tracking to spot shifts in real time. They have dashboards that make brand health—awareness, preference, sentiment—visible every day. They know what messages are sticking and where their positioning is slipping. 📈WHY Challengers stay in constant dialogue with consumers. They turn millions of daily DMs, comments, and micro-interactions into marketing and innovation insights. That’s how they uncover pain points, gaps, and opportunities before others even see them coming. 📈WHO Challengers treat their audience as collaborators, not customers. They invest in community moderation and two-way engagement, creating a brand people build with, not just buy from. 📈WHERE They know exactly where their audience lives online and which platforms they're spending most time on. They don’t rely on intuition alone. They use tools to track where conversations are happening and whether perception matches intention. 📈WHEN While legacy brands often tire of their own campaigns long before consumers do, challengers understand that repetition builds memory. They know that creative consistency, not constant reinvention, is what drives recall and trust. You can see this play out in brands like REFY and BYOMA, both redefining what it means to grow fast, stay close to their communities, and make data beautiful. (Link in comments to a recent Tracksuit webinar with loads of examples of HOW they’re doing it.) 💬 Now it is your turn: Feel free to challenge me, please. What’s one lesson all marketers can learn from challenger brands? I'd love to hear from you in one or two sentences in the comments. ⬇️  #BrandStrategy #marketing #data #partnership