Innovation Lessons I've Learnt From Jonathan Courtney
The worlds' #1 Pierce Brosnan fan has a LOT of wisdom to share!
Jake Knapp (author of SPRINT, NOT Pierce Brosnan) & Jonathan Courtney (Founder & CEO of AJ&Smart)
I’ve been watching and listening to Jonathan’s content for a very long time now. I first discovered AJ&Smart’s YouTube channel when I was learning how to run Design Sprints back in 2016. The Design Sprint changed a lot for me: it was an amazing way to cut out all the busy work that happens in the product development process and actually get stuff done. Good stuff as well! The book was a game changer.
But something which was INVALUABLE for me at the time was AJ&Smart’s videos on how to run them - seeing someone explain how they worked and adaptions they’d made from the book was amazing. Jonathan and his company’s content has since gone deep into workshops and facilitation which has had a huge impact on me and my career.
As I’ve been consuming Jonathan’s content (and courses) for such a long time and gleamed so many nuggets of wisdom from him, it only seems fair that I got around to writing this article as the chances are that anything you’ve found useful here or on LinkedIn has been influenced by Jonathan in some way!
For those of you who don’t know, Jonathan is the CEO of AJ&Smart which is made up of two businesses:
1) His consulting company: Eito Innovation and
2) His facilitation training company, Workshopper.
He started his business from his bedroom in Berlin 14 years ago, since turning it into an 8 figure company that has worked with the likes of American Express, Twitter, Google to name a few…. So it’s fair to say he knows a thing or two about innovation & entrepreneurship!
Below i’ve written some of the nuggets of wisdom i’ve picked up from him over the years. Because i’ve been such an avid consumer of his content, I can’t always remember where I heard him say them either i.e. YouTube, a podcast, one of his courses etc but i’ve added references where possible.
Anyway, let’s jump in!
Action leads to strategy
Source: Jake & Jonathan Podcast
Yes, you read that the right way round: action leads to strategy. When starting out in innovation, you need action first. At first it sounds counterintuitive, but when you think about what’s actually happened with successful products and projects, it seems so obvious. When starting out in innovation, the best thing you can do is trust your team to follow their instincts and utilise their skills, experience and knowledge of the audience and the market to launch successful stuff. Forget strategy for now - that’s mostly a procrastination before you’ve even started an innovation programme. It’s vital you focus on action first to learn as much as possible.
A lot of successful organisations like to do some retrospective interpretations of what actually happened and make out that it was part of a grand masterplan and strategy (with fancy PowerPoint presentations, of course) when in reality it was quite simple: they trusted their team to get stuff done.
I’m not saying strategy is bad, it’s just that you need action to inform your strategy. Strategy is useful when they’re needed i.e. as things get more complex and more focus is needed.
The Importance of Urgency
Source: Master Workshopper Training
Jonathan gave this advice to entrepreneurs and freelancers but it applies to Innovation Leaders as well. Jonathan talks about a self-sabotaging habit he sees often when mentoring people. Even after getting the exact answer mentees need to an important challenge they’ve got, people tend to get distracted and continually say “I’ll get to that in a couple of months….we have a lot going on at the moment” etc. In his experience people who say this & put stuff off NEVER end up doing it and their organisations NEVER reach their potential.
I’ve noticed this with people I’ve talked to over the past 10 years working in fundraising and innovation for both individuals and teams. Some teams you meet seem to be in the same position they were 4 years ago (for individuals in terms of their career but for teams in terms of the kinds of projects they’re working on and the challenges they’ve got).
My takeaway: average talent and skill + urgency will ALWAYS beat talent and skill with zero urgency .
Follow Your Energy
Source: LinkedIn
There is so much out there at the moment about productivity and it’s mostly pretty dumb. If you follow the advice of productivity gurus you’d spend your life ticking off tasks, getting a lot done maybe but not necessarily focusing on the right things and you’re almost certainly going to feel tired, bored and pretty disconnected from your team, work and probably life in general!…..(I realise that sounds dramatic, but work takes up a lot of our lives after all!)
Jonathan does not work like this. Unlike productivity gurus, he recognises that somedays we just don’t feel that inspired to do stuff and don’t feel particularly energetic and motivated about a challenge we’d planned to tackle. His advice is: “build your business around the way your energy ebbs and flows”. Sometimes we get bursts of excitement/inspiration and this is a good time to jump on to that challenge/project. Obvious point: of course you do need to do stuff you don’t want to. But let’s face it, if you lead an innovation team or you’re the only Innovation Manager, the majority of projects and tasks have self imposed deadlines so this advice applies whether you are self-employed or manage an innovation team.
A practical example
I’m writing this article within some time I had blocked out to plan a client workshop. When it came down to it, I felt really inspired to write this article instead. I still have PLENTY of time to plan the client workshop and I could have got it done easily, but the chances are later on in the day I won’t feel as energetic as I know I will after writing this.
I should say that the chances are tomorrow or the following day I’ll feel super passionate and excited about designing this workshop and I’ll still hit the deadline with ease. The result? A much better article and probably a much better workshop plan as well!
That’s another reason why following yours and your teams’ energy is so important: it’s SO important for team motivation, especially in innovation teams where not just failure is common but failure to get stuff done is common as well.
If you lead an innovation team you need to work in a way which works for you and your team, otherwise you and your team will feel miserable. I know Jonathan is a Jason Fried fanboy (like myself) so he won’t mind be quoting Jason’s REWORK in this article!
“The way you build momentum is by getting something done and then moving on to the next thing. No one likes to be stuck on an endless project with no finish line in sight. Being in the trenches for nine months and not having anything to show for it is a real buzzkill. Eventually it just burns you out…..Excitement comes from doing something and then letting customers have it. Planning a menu for a year is boring. Getting the new menu out, serving the food and getting feedback is exciting. So don’t wait too long - you’ll smother your sparks if you do”
Written by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson in REWORK
Execution > Ideas
Source: Medium
There can be a tendency when beginning an innovation programme to focus WAY too much on transformational/disruptive ideas than focusing on the less risky ideas which will actually make money or have an immediate impact but not seen as ‘innovative’. This is much more common in corporate innovation teams than non-profit/charity innovation teams.
One of the books Jonathan recommends reading is Derek Scrivers’ Anything You Want.
He states that “ideas are only multipliers of execution.” A “so-so” idea could be worth a lot if it’s executed well, whereas a “brilliant” idea is worth nothing with bad execution. Here’s a reproduction of how that looks in the book:
These figures don’t represent actual figures, they’re just an example of the principle.
Don’t over-do user research
Source: Medium
Jonathan caused a stir back in the day when he wrote:
“Up-front User Research is a form of Product Procrastination. It’s busy-work, it’s a way to avoid making hard decisions. It delays the need to make something tangible”.
Jonathan Courtney, Medium Article: User Research Is Overrated
Sacrilegious to designers and design thinkers!
My view on this is: in my experience customer research can be super important as it helps big organisations point in the right direction and align on overall territories when you feel like you don’t know the audience well. This can be pointless for things like UX where you don’t need a bit of up front data and you just need to start testing prototypes.
What I love about this piece and though, and really rang true for me was: there really is no substitute in what you can learn with no tangible product vs when you actually launch the thing and get it in customers’ hands (I could use the quote above from Jason Fried here again here!).
Focus on the nuggets of insights from individuals
Source: Unscheduled CEO Podcast
One thing that Jonathan has talked about a few times is how strange it is when you give someone advice to read a book or watch someone’s video and they don’t because they don’t like the person/they find them annoying or they disagreed with something they’ve said. I was so happy when I heard him talk about this as it’s something i’ve noticed as well. The people whose first instinct is to get annoyed by someone rather than listen to what they’re saying are missing out on so much.
There’s a lot of different methodologies and voices in the product and innovation world and ALL sectors whether you work in the rail industry, automobile industry or charity sector etc. A lot of it is conflicting. But the more experience you get and the more you engage, the more you learn what you agree with and what you disagree with. You can pick and choose what bits of advice you want to take on board.
For instance, you might even find my newsletter annoying sometimes or you’ve disagreed with something - maybe this about personas for instance. But who cares? Just focus on the one or two valuable bits you get from it and action them.
Thank you!
That’s all from me! I hope you found this valuable. Do check out Jonathan and his teams’ stuff. You can join AJ&Smart’s free Facilitation community here or watch their free facilitation training here.
If you liked this article, there are a few other things you might like from me too!
Here’s my LinkedIn and my YouTube Channel!
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Substack as well - I post about innovation and tips on how to collaborate to make it happen, weekly!
A trip down memory lane!