Fostering an Innovator’s Mindset – Lightspeed P&T Division May 2024

Fostering an Innovator’s Mindset is an engaging and interactive workshop designed to help teams thrive in an environment of rapid, exponential change.

Participants explore four essential levers of innovation:
1. Humility — recognizing the limits of our predictions and focusing on future-proof skills;
2. Letting go of old paradigms — challenging beliefs and habits that keep us trapped;
3. Building community — aligning around purpose, shared values and rules of engagement;
4. Practicing empathy — strengthening relationships, understanding diverse perspectives and improving problem-solving.

Through hands-on exercises and guided reflection, participants identify their key skills for the future, challenge limiting beliefs, define team alignment tools, and craft a personal empathy plan. The workshop equips teams with mindsets and behaviors that enable creativity, resilience and high-impact collaboration.

Workshop prepared for an internal Ligthspeed summit called "Unleash the Dragon".

Transcript

1. Fostering an Innovator’s Mindset JEAN-MARC DE JONGHE VP DIGITAL PRODUCT AND STRATEGY LA PRESSE
2. Ice breaker What's one item you still prefer in its analog version (books, vinyls, notebooks, board games, watches, etc.)? 1 Download your worksheet (link in the chat)
3. 3 A radical transformation
4. 4 Impermanence The market Our great products, systems, expertise and business models
5. Disruption The market Us (Still running)
6. Large volume of decisions to take Bottleneck Added value delivered
7. Be humble Let go of old paradigms Build a community Practice empathy 01 02 03 04 4 keys for fostering an innovator’s mindset 7
8. 01 Key #1: Be humble
9. 9 We tend to overestimate what we can do in the near future and grossly underestimate what can be done in the distant future. This is because the human imagination extrapolates in a straight line, while real world events develop exponentially like compound interest. Arthur C Clarke
10. 10 Speed of change is exponential
11. 11 Fostering an innovator’s mindset means to be humble in our capacity to predict the future and therefore to focus on our future-proof skills.
12. 5 min Exercise #1: the brick castle Brick castle: a set of skills that is future-proof 12
13. 13 Lorem ipsum Exercice #1 (worksheet) “If you had to build a team of 10 people today who would help you create a product in 5 years' time (you wouldn't have the $ before then), what skills would be most relevant today to guarantee you a high-performance, competent team in 2029?” List the most important skills. The brick castle
14. 14 Let us know in the chat… What is one skill on your list?
17. 02Key #2: Let go of old paradigms
18. 18 The great danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence itself but to act with yesterday’s logic. Peter Drucker
19. 19 Winning concepts and recipes that have brought us this far Winning concepts and recipes we'll need to succeed in tomorrow's world
20. 20 Tools Toolset Skills Skillset Mind Mindset
21. 03 Why do we hold on to things that keep us trapped? Because the banana has become so important to us!
22. 22 Fostering an innovator’s mindset means to know when to let go of old paradigms to open up to new possibilities.
23. 5 min Exercise #2: the banana Banana: a belief (a statement that you hold as true) 23
24. 24 Lorem ipsum Exercice #2 (worksheet) Step 1: Identify 3 beliefs you have about your role Examples: - I need to have a perfect product before presenting it to users for feedback - There is no other team that understands my product better - I have been hired for my technical expertise - I know exactly what my customers want - If everybody thought like me… it would be so easy - A leader needs to have all the answers The banana
25. 25 Lorem ipsum Exercice #2 (worksheet) Step 2: For each belief, ask yourself this question “Is this belief holding me back?” The banana
26. 26 Let us know in the chat… What “banana” is holding you back?
27. 03Key #3: Build a community
28. For value creation and innovation, we must drive decisions downward 5%: top management 15%: middle management 80% value creators Teams close to customers and operations Products and services builders
29. Key success factors 5%: top management 15%: middle management 80% value creators Teams close to customers and operations Products and services builders Sense of community Alignment Empathy and trust
30. 30 Purpose Why we exist Rules of engagement How we interact with one another and deal with problems Shared values Why we agree is important Sense of community
31. Understanding and articulating the deeper purpose behind actions and decisions drives team success. "People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe."
32. 32 ➔ Is this decision the best for our current and future customers? ➔ Is this decision based on data and customer-proof evidence? ➔ Does this decision make it possible to harmonize and simplify our systems (CX) and mitigate the number of variations? ➔ Do we use the best practices of tomorrow? Examples of rules of engagement ➔ Does this decision take into account the impact on achieving our business targets and objectives? ➔ Have we carried out tests, experiments, POCs to validate our hypotheses? ➔ Does this decision allows us to be flexible, sustainable and resilient? ➔ Are we taking this decision in an agile way?
33. To build the “good stuff”, first you must determine what is the “good stuff” and then share what is the “good stuff”. • Why? • For whom? • What is the problem we are trying to solve? • How will we know we are progressing? 33 Alignment means shared understanding
34. 34 Fostering an innovator’s mindset means – to participate – to build a team founded on a sense of community (purpose, shared values and rules of engagement), alignment and empathy & trust.
35. 5 min Exercise #3: the team chart Team chart: a navigation system used by teams to build and work as a community 35
36. 36 Lorem ipsum Exercice #3 (worksheet) Section 1: Think about your team Purpose What is our job as a team? How do we know when we’ve done our job? What benefit are we bringing to the customer, other teams and the company? The team chart
37. 37 Lorem ipsum Exercice #3 (worksheet) Section 2: Think about your team Rules of engagement How do we interact with one another and think, deal and address new problems? How do we interact with other teams when we have a problem? How do our values translate in the way we work together? The team chart
38. 38 Lorem ipsum Exercice #3 (worksheet) Section 3: Think about your team Shared values What do we agree is important? What values drive our actions? The team chart
39. 39 Let us know in the chat… What are some of the keywords of your team’s purpose?
40. Team cohesion is like a puzzle. You have to assemble the pieces that fit together and support each other, like a pyramid. When the puzzle is complete, the team is at the top. They work in perfect harmony, creatively and efficiently. To nurture trust, you need to meet with people, have real conversations and practice empathy and active listening. The 5 winning conditions
41. 04Key #4: Practice empathy
42. 42 The craft of programming begins with empathy, not formatting or languages or tools or algorithms or data structures. Kent Beck
43. 43 Fostering an innovator’s mindset means to practice empathy in a 360 way… towards yourself, your team members, your leaders and your customers.
44. 44 Building the empathy muscle is a great investment Increase in the quality of designs and solutions Increase in relationships Diversity of thoughts and POV Very broad perspective, future-proof designs and solutions Understanding the business Influence, growth and opportunity
45. 45 Start by asking questions Are you free for a 30 minutes conversation? I would like to understand your vertical better? Why are you passionate about what you do? What are some of your goals and motivations? What do I need to do to make your life easier? What is the number one reason you reject a request / design / solution? What is the number one issue you have to troubleshoot?
46. 5 min Exercise #4: the empathy plan Plan: a series of actions to achieve a goal 46
47. 47 Lorem ipsum Exercice #4 (worksheet) Think about someone outside of your vertical that you could create a connection with and understand better. Now, make a plan to meet with them! Who? Why? What? When? The empathy plan
48. Titre de sous-section Lorem ipsum dolor sit Final words and SPNS* (smallest possible next step)
49. Are you cutting stones or building a cathedral?
50. 50 Let us know in the chat… What is your smallest possible next step to foster your innovator’s mindset?
51. Questions?