This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedanta.
When you're trying to invent a new product or write a screenplay, or come up with a new way to do something at work, it's fun to focus on the possibilities.
It's enjoyable to have brainstorming sessions throw ideas up on a whiteboard daydream.
Very often, however, these brainstorming sessions dont lead to anything tangible.
Teams fill up walls with sticky notes about creative possibilities and suggestions for improvement, but none of them are actually implemented.
If youve been part of an organization that does this, you might get the sneaking suspicion that you are not engaged in innovation, but in what some researchers call innovation theatre.
This is not to say that ideas are unimportant, but it is to underscore that when it comes to building something new, what really matters is execution.
For the last few weeks, weve been exploring the science of innovation.
Weve examined how successful entrepreneurs are great at something called effectuation.
Weve looked at our attitudes about the role of genius in success and how cultures of genius can undermine our growth.
If you missed those episodes, I strongly recommend you listen to them in this podcast feed.
Today, in the latest installment of our innovation 2.0 series, we explore the science of execution.
How to move from innovation theatre to actual innovation.
This week on Hidden Brain, we all have them, small frustrations that make our lives just a little bit more difficult, like standing in a long line at the grocery store or getting too many emails, not being able to reach a customer service rep when you have a problem.
At Stanford University, psychologist Bob Sutton studies these frustrations, the annoying bureaucracies we encounter when dealing with companies, institutions and organizations.
Bob Sutton, welcome to hidden Bray Shankar.
It's great to be here.
I'm happy to talk to you.
I want to start with a personal story that I think many of our listeners can relate to.