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Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney

De: Phil McKinney
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Step into the world of relentless creativity with the Killer Innovations Podcast, hosted by Phil McKinney. Since 2005, it has carved its niche in history as the longest-running podcast. Join the community of innovators, designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who are constantly pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo. Discover the power of thinking differently and taking risks to achieve success. The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including innovation, technology, business, leadership, creativity, design, and more. Every episode is not just talk; it's about taking action and implementing strategies that can help you become a successful innovator. Each episode provides practical tips, real-life examples, and thought-provoking insights that will challenge your thinking and inspire you to unleash your creativity. The podcast archive: KillerInnovations.com About Phil McKinney: Phil McKinney, CTO of HP (ret) and CEO of CableLabs, has been credited with forming and leading multiple teams that FastCompany and BusinessWeek list as one of the “50 Most Innovative”. His recognition includes Vanity Fair naming him “The Innovation Guru,” MSNBC and Fox Business calling him "The Gadget Guy," and the San Jose Mercury News dubbing him the "chief seer."See http://philmckinney.com Economía
Episodios
  • How to Build Innovation Skills Through Daily Journaling

    How to Build Innovation Skills Through Daily Journaling
    Sep 30 2025
    Most innovation leaders are performing someone else's version of innovation thinking. I've spent decades in this field. Worked with Fortune 100 companies. And here's what I see happening everywhere. Brilliant leaders following external frameworks. Copying methodologies from people they admire. Shifting their approach based on whatever's trendy. But they never develop their own innovation thinking skills. Today, I'd like to share a simple practice that has transformed my life. And I'll show you exactly how I do it. The Problem Here's what I see in corporate America. Leaders are reacting to innovation trends instead of thinking for themselves. They chase metrics without questioning if those metrics matter. They abandon promising ideas when obstacles appear because they don't have internal principles to guide them. I watched a $300 million innovation initiative collapse. Not because the market wasn't ready. Not because the technology was wrong. But because the leader had no personal framework for making innovation decisions under pressure. This is the hidden cost of borrowed thinking. You can't innovate authentically when you're following someone else's playbook. After four decades, I've come to realize something that most people miss. We teach innovation methods. But we never teach people how to think as innovators. There's a massive difference. And that difference is everything. When you develop your own innovation thinking skills, you stop being reactive. You start operating from internal principles instead of external pressures. You ask better questions. Not just "How can we solve this?" but "Should we solve this?" That's what authentic innovation thinking looks like. The Solution So what's the answer? Innovation journaling. Now, before you roll your eyes, this isn't keeping a diary. This is a systematic development of your innovation thinking skills through targeted questions. My mentor taught me this practice early in my career. It became a 40-year obsession because it works. The process is simple. Choose a question. Write until the thought feels complete. Close the journal. Start your day. However, what makes this powerful is... The questions force you to examine your core beliefs about innovation. They help you develop principles that guide decisions when external pressures try to pull you in different directions. Most people operate from borrowed frameworks. Market demands. Best practices. Organizational expectations. Their approach shifts based on context. Innovation journaling builds something different. An internal compass. Your own thinking skills provide consistency across various challenges. Let me show you exactly how I do this. Sample Prompt/Demonstration Let me give you a question that consistently surprises people. Here's the prompt: "What innovation challenges do you consistently avoid, and what does that tell you about your beliefs?" Most people want to talk about what they pursue. But what you avoid reveals just as much about your innovation thinking. I've watched executives discover they avoid innovations that require long-term thinking because they're addicted to quick wins. Others realize they dodge anything that might make them look foolish, which kills breakthrough potential. One leader discovered she avoided innovations that required extensive collaboration. Not because she didn't like people. But because her core belief was that innovation required individual genius. That insight changed how she approached team projects. The question isn't comfortable. That's the point. Innovation journaling works because it bypasses your intellectual defenses. It accesses thinking you normally suppress or ignore. When you write "I consistently avoid innovations that..." you're forced to be honest. And that honesty reveals your actual innovation philosophy. Try this question yourself. Don't overthink it. Just write whatever comes up. You'll be surprised by what you discover. The Benefits Here's what changes when you develop your innovation thinking skills this way. You stop being reactive to whatever methodology is trendy. You have principles that guide you through uncertainty. You make decisions faster because they align with your authentic beliefs. Your team dynamics improve. People respond differently when you lead from consistent principles instead of borrowed frameworks. You create psychological safety because you're comfortable with not knowing. You ask ‌better questions. Instead of rushing to solutions, you examine whether problems deserve solving. You integrate your values with your innovation work. Most importantly, you stop performing someone else's version of innovation. You start thinking like the innovator you actually are. I've been doing this practice for 40 years. It's the foundation of every breakthrough innovation I've created. Not because it gave me ideas. But because it taught me how to think. Your innovation thinking skills are like a muscle. They get stronger with ...
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    22 m
  • The WSJ Got Quarterly Reporting Wrong

    The WSJ Got Quarterly Reporting Wrong
    Sep 23 2025
    Michael Dell and his investors spent twenty-five billion dollars to buy back Dell Technologies. But they weren't really buying a company. They were buying freedom from quarterly earnings pressure. I'm Phil McKinney, former CTO of Hewlett-Packard, and I witnessed how this pressure shaped decisions for years. Today, we are exploring why the WSJ's recent defense of quarterly reporting misses what actually happens inside corporate boardrooms. The Reality of Quarterly Pressure I want to show you what quarterly reporting actually looks like from the inside. Let me paint you a picture. It's week seven of the quarter, and you're in a conference room with your executive team. On the screen are two critical numbers - your revenue projection and Wall Street's expectations. They don't align. During my time as CTO at HP, I found myself in these situations repeatedly. R&D projects worth billions in the future would get paused. Innovation initiatives that could transform the company would get delayed. Not because they lacked value. But because we had weeks to hit the quarterly numbers. What struck me was how predictable this became. Quarter-end approaches? Cut the long-term stuff. Meet short-term targets. Rinse and repeat. When your stock price swings ten percent over missing earnings by three cents per share, you optimize for quarterly performance, even when it destroys long-term competitiveness. Now, this is where it gets interesting. One CEO escaped this system entirely. The Dell Example: Twenty-Five Billion Dollar Proof Here's the proof that this system is broken. Michael Dell and Silver Lake paid $ 24.9 billion for one thing: freedom from quarterly earnings pressure, killing Dell's long-term potential. Dell's explicit goal: "No more pulling R&D and growth investments to make in-quarter numbers." What happened next was remarkable. R&D spending jumped from just over one billion to over four billion dollars. That's a 400 percent increase. Dell transformed from a declining PC manufacturer to an enterprise solutions leader. The return on investment by 2023? Seventy billion dollars. What Dell did wasn't just a corporate restructuring. It was a twenty-five billion dollar bet that quarterly reporting destroys long-term value. And they were proven spectacularly right. If you've experienced similar pressure at your company, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Why the WSJ Analysis Falls Apart So with examples like Dell showing the impact, why does the WSJ still support quarterly reporting? The WSJ points to the UK's optional move from quarterly to semi-annual reporting and notes that companies didn't dramatically change behavior. Their conclusion: quarterly reporting isn't the real problem. That reasoning ignores a fundamental truth. We've trained an entire generation to think in ninety-day cycles. Business schools teach earnings management. Compensation rewards quarterly performance. Analysts' careers depend on short-term predictions. Journalists need something to write about, like quarterly results. You don't undo decades of this quarterly mindset simply by making reporting optional. The UK comparison is meaningless without addressing the ecosystem that reinforces short-term thinking. The Big Tech Illusion The WSJ claims Big Tech's AI investments prove quarterly reporting doesn't hinder long-term thinking. The argument misses the point completely. Google, Microsoft, and Meta can hide enormous R&D in their massive profit margins. When you're generating margins of twenty to thirty percent on hundreds of billions in revenue? You can invest billions in moonshots while still beating quarterly expectations. But what about manufacturing companies with five percent margins? Healthcare companies fighting regulations? Emerging tech businesses that can't disguise innovation investments? The current system creates a two-tiered economy. Only the most profitable companies can think long term. Everyone else gets trapped in quarterly optimization cycles. And that's precisely why this threatens America's competitive future. What's Really at Stake America's competitive advantage came from patient, long-term investments in breakthrough technologies. Semiconductors, the internet, biotechnology - all required decades of sustained investment. Today's quarterly regime systematically discourages ‌”patient innovation”. I call it the "fifty-year overnight success" - transformative innovations need sustained investment over decades. Try explaining that to analysts who want to know why margins dropped two percent. While we optimize for quarters, competitors in China make decade-long investments in critical technologies. We're giving away our innovation advantage. Three Real Solutions Switching to semi-annual reporting solves nothing. Six months isn't different from three months for long-term thinking. Three reforms could actually move the needle: First - eliminate forward-looking earnings guidance. This forces public commitments ...
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    10 m
  • How to Get Smarter by Arguing with People who Disagree with You

    How to Get Smarter by Arguing with People who Disagree with You
    Sep 16 2025
    What if I told you that the people who disagree with you are actually your secret weapon for better thinking? Just last month, my wife and I had a heated argument about studio changes I wanted to make here on the ranch. Her immediate reaction was about cost. Mine was about productivity and creativity. We were talking past each other completely. But when I applied what I'm about to teach you, we discovered we were both right—and found a solution that addressed both concerns without compromising either. What started as an argument became a session where each of us was heard and understood. Sounds crazy, right? By the end of this video, you'll not only believe it—you'll have experienced it yourself. Think of someone you disagree with about something important. Got them in mind? Good. In 25 minutes, you'll see that person as your thinking partner. You know that sinking feeling when a simple conversation with someone turns into a heated argument? You walk away thinking, "How did that go so wrong?" The problem isn't the disagreement itself—it's that most people never learned how to use disagreement to think better. We encounter difficult disagreements almost daily. Your spouse questions your spending. Your boss pushes back on your proposal. Your friend challenges your weekend plans. Each disagreement is an opportunity for your thinking to become sharper. When you approach it right, others often think more clearly too. Your Brain Gets Smarter Under Pressure During solo thinking, you operate in your thinking "comfort zone". Familiar patterns feel safe. Trusted sources get your attention. Comfortable assumptions go unchallenged. It's efficient, but it also limits intellectual growth. In our Critical Thinking Skills episode—our most popular video—we taught you to question assumptions, check evidence, apply logic, ask good questions. If you haven't watched that episode, pause this and watch that first—it's the foundation for what comes next. What we didn't tell you in that video is that intelligent opposition makes these skills far more powerful than solo practice ever could. Let me show you what I mean. Take any belief you hold strongly. Now imagine defending it to someone smart who disagrees with you. Notice what happens in your mind: You suddenly need better evidence than "I read somewhere..."Your own assumptions come under sharper scrutinyLogic becomes more rigorous under pressureQuestions get sharper to understand their position That mental shift happened because I introduced opposition. Your brain got more demanding of itself. And when you engage thoughtfully, something interesting happens—the other person thinks more carefully too. Think of it like physical exercise. Muscles strengthen through resistance, not relaxation. Your thinking muscles work the same way. Intellectual resistance—smart disagreement—strengthens your reasoning, your evidence gathering is more thorough, and your conclusions are more robust. This is where things fall apart for most people. The Critical Mistake That Kills Thinking Most people will never learn this because they're too busy being right. They miss the thinking benefits because they fail at disagreement basics. They get defensive. They shut down. Conversations become battles. Someone challenges their ideas, fight-or-flight kicks in. Instead of seeing an opportunity for better thinking, they see a threat. Imagine your boss questioning your budget request in a meeting. Your heart rate spikes. Your face flushes. You start defending instead of listening. Twenty minutes later, you've missed valuable insights about organizational priorities, they've tuned out your reasoning, and maybe both of you damaged a key relationship. Look, this makes total sense. Your brain can't tell the difference between a saber-toothed tiger and someone attacking your political views. The same threat response kicks in. When you get defensive, it often triggers defensiveness in others because they interpret your reaction as confirmation that this is a fight, not a discussion. Once this happens, thinking improvement stops immediately. Your emotional brain takes over. Pure survival mode. No learning happens. No growth occurs. The chance for better thinking vanishes. The solution? Learn how to keep disagreements constructive instead of destructive. How To Make Disagreements Constructive The difference between a constructive disagreement and a destructive argument isn't the topic—it's how you handle the interpersonal dynamics. These four skills transform how you approach disagreement and create conditions where others are more likely to think clearly, too. When you use these skills, something remarkable happens: you stay open and curious instead of defensive and closed. When others see you thinking clearly under pressure, they're more likely to follow suit. Think of these as the basic requirements for constructive disagreement. Miss any one of them, and even the best critical thinking ...
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    39 m
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