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Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and co-founder of the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement and the curriculums for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and Hacking for Defense and Diplomacy, he’s changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany and The Startup Owner’s Manual and is the author of his recent article at steveblank.com: Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future.

Leaders may see the future coming, but we aren’t always incentivized to act on it. In this conversation, Steve and I discuss what we can learn from the common patterns of disruption so we don’t miss what’s next.

• In the 1890s, there were approximately 4,000 carriage and wagon makers in the United States. Only one company made the transition to automobiles.
• In each of the three companies that survived, it was the founders, not hired CEOs, that drove the transition.
• Studebaker recognized that it wasn’t in the business of carriages; it was in the business of mobility.
• Clayton Christensen taught us that disruption begins with inferior products that incumbents don’t take seriously.
• The real problem isn’t that companies can’t see the future. It’s that they are structurally disincentivized to act on it.
• Parsing innovation theatre vs. innovation means paying attention to what’s actually shipping. If nothing is and you want to innovate, look elsewhere.
• Bubbles in the market are normal. Timing may be off, but that doesn’t mean disruption isn’t happening.

• Blind to Disruption: The CEOs Who Missed the Future by Steve Blank

• How to Start Seeing Around Corners, with Rita McGrath (episode 430)
• How to Build an Invincible Company, with Alex Osterwalder (episode 470)
• How to Pivot Quickly, with Steve Blank (episode 476)

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Shannon Minifie is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the organization behind the bestselling book The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity increases engagement, trust, and productivity.

Of course, you’ve heard that being curious and coach-like will help in leadership. But sometimes the very thing we think we’re doing well is actually getting in the way. In this conversation, Shannon and I explore the kind of curiosity that leaders often miss.

• 5-6 hours of the average workweek is lost to the fear of making mistakes.
• A strong majority of leaders say employees are expressing a desire for more feedback, and a majority also say that people are unable to receive hard feedback.
• Relationships are the core of these conflicting messages. Without a relationship of trust, helpful feedback often doesn’t land that way.
• Intellectual curiosity helps us learn what we don’t know. Relationship curiosity helps the other person learn what they don’t know.
• Ask yourself: what is my goal in asking this question?
• Rather than asking a question that starts with a “why,” consider asking a question that starts with a “what.”

The 7 Essential Questions:

1. What’s on your mind?
2. And what else?
3. What’s the real challenge here for you?
4. What do you want?
5. How can I help?
6. If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7. What was most useful for you?

• Navigating a Fractured Workplace: How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity.
• Interactive Learning Preview: Invest in the Power of Curiosity
• The Coaching Habit* by Michael Bungay Stanier

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• These Coaching Questions Get Results, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 237)
• How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454)
• The Way to Be More Coach-Like, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 458)

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.