108: Are You Solving the Wrong Problem Really Well?" (lessons from Bruce Vojak)
🧠 Erik’s Take
Erik reflects on his wide-ranging conversation with innovation expert Bruce Vojak and explores how innovation really works inside mature companies. While Erik lives and works in the world of startups and early-stage change, Bruce offered a deeply human, grounded perspective on how breakthrough ideas still emerge in the “slow lanes” of legacy organizations.
Bruce’s insights revealed something profound: the best innovations don’t always begin with new technology — they begin with better questions. And specifically, with people willing to ask: Are we solving the right problem?
🎯 Top Insights from the Interview
- Innovation starts with real curiosity: Bruce’s advice? Find a problem you’re actually interested in — and know a little about — and follow it.
- Innovator Exemplars are rare but essential: These are the people who stay obsessed with solving the real customer problem — not just executing their pet solution.
- Companies need to match internal resistance to market resistance: Innovation shouldn’t be harder internally than it is in the real world — but it shouldn’t be easier either.
- The best processes do more than guide: They instruct the newbie, remind the expert, and discipline the executive to decide.
- Innovation is human work: Process helps, but it never replaces the people who notice, reframe, and act.
🧩 The Personal Layer
Erik draws parallels from his own leadership journey — especially the tension between having a great idea and actually getting an organization to adopt it. He’s lived both sides: cultures that champion every idea (even the wrong ones), and cultures that make every new idea feel like heresy. The sweet spot, he argues, is a culture that tests ideas the way the market would — no more, no less.
He also highlights the subtle trap of ego in innovation: when we fall in love with our solution more than the real problem, we lose the thread. Bruce’s insistence on humility — on “submitting to reality” — resonated deeply.
🧰 From Insight to Action
- Leaders: Audit your innovation climate. Do new ideas die on the vine — or do they rise too fast without testing? Neither extreme works.
- Spot the innovators in your org: Do you have an exemplar quietly solving real problems in unconventional ways? Make room for them.
- Evaluate your processes: Are they guiding the novice, nudging the expert, and triggering real decisions? Or just adding drag?
- Start with the right question: Reframe the problem — don’t just build a better widget.
- Protect the spark, but invite others in: Innovation requires collaboration. Hoarding the idea kills its potential.
🗣️ Notable Quotes
“The best innovators don’t fall in love with their idea — they stay obsessed with solving the customer’s problem.” — Erik Berglund
“Innovation should be no more or less difficult than the market itself.” — Bruce Vojak
“The best process does three things: it instructs the newbie, reminds the expert, and disciplines the executive.” — Bruce Vojak
“The most important innovations often begin with the question: Are we solving the right problem?” — Erik Berglund
“The best way to be interested in something is to be interested in it.” — Bruce’s advice, via a mentor
🔗 Links & Resources
