Bruce Vojak — The Hourglass Model of Breakthrough Innovation
The Innovation Show
Early Empathy and Design Thinking
Bruce explains that serial innovators practiced customer empathy and proto-design-thinking before those terms existed.
Most companies think innovation is a straight line. Bruce Vojak spent years studying the people who prove otherwise.
Bruce Vojak is co-author of Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms (Oxford University Press). In this bonus episode of The Innovation Show, he joins Aidan McCullen for a focused look at the Hourglass Innovation Model — the descriptive framework that maps how serial innovators actually move from an interesting problem to a flawless product launch.
In this conversation, Bruce reveals:
- Why the Hourglass Model is descriptive, not prescriptive — and why that matters
- How serial innovators often redefine the problem before they solve it
- The Tom Osborne story — how reframing a feminine hygiene brief from diaper to garment changed everything
- Why serial innovators can appear completely unproductive for months — and why that is actually the work
- How they were practising customer empathy and design thinking before those ideas had names
- Why Execute — the stage most firms obsess over — is just one of five tasks
- How to use the model as an honest self-diagnostic: am I doing these things, or is it really the organisation?
Chapter topics
00:00 Hourglass Model Intro
00:31 Stage Gate vs Hourglass
01:15 Redefining the Problem
04:16 Pragmatism and Empathy
06:27 Deep Dive Understanding
07:49 Experiment and Iterate
08:39 Nonlinear Flow Explained
10:02 Org Maturity and Politics
11:47 Normalize and Self Assess
12:53 Wrap Up and Sponsor
About The Innovation Show The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Conversations with world-class authors, scientists, and practitioners on disruption, innovation, leadership, and the ideas shaping tomorrow.
About Bruce Vojak Bruce is co-author of Serial Innovators and Innovation Code, founder of Breakthrough Innovation Advisors, and former Associate Dean for Administration at the University of Illinois College of Engineering. He advises executive teams and boards on how to find, support and unleash serial innovators inside mature firms. Website: https://breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/
Book: Serial Innovators: How Individuals Create and Deliver Breakthrough Innovations in Mature Firms https://amzn.to/4f7Y85q
This episode is brought to you by Kyndryl, who run and reimagine the technology systems that drive advantage for the world's leading businesses. Learn more at https://www.kyndryl.com.
Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of Serial Innovators, with thanks to Kyndryl: https://thethursdaythought.substack.com
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