Episode 12: Marta Jakab on Why problems matter more than ideas in corporate innovation

If you’re a leader who got excited and enthused to invite everyone in the organization to share ideas about innovation, please hold on, and don't do it. It may feel like the right thing to do, it may give you the excitement that you haven't felt for a while. It may make you feel energized because you are finally permitted to tap into the brilliance and wisdom that is already inside the organization.You may wonder why stop when I just got the permission and the mandate?Because if you collect ideas that don't solve anything, instead of inspiring those internal innovators that you aim to activate, you will disappoint them, erode the trust, damage your own leadership.   Just  calling for ideas is the wrong place to start. My guest today has spent her entire career inside corporate innovation. From very first idea management platforms to more elaborate intrapreneurship programs, which she’s built herself from the ground up. She has designed what she calls a marketplace of problems. And she has seen, firsthand, the difference between organizations that perform innovation and organizations that actually do it.She is Marta Jakab, a software engineer by training and an innovation leader by calling who has helped corporations master implementation of innovation and intrapreneurship programs. Marta says she speaks 8 languages. I say she speaks 10, including innovation and intrapreneurship. But I think her favorite language could be the 11th one. The one of problem solving.I am your host Iliriana Kacaniku, an innovation strategist at heart, and this is the Activate Innovation Lounge, a podcast dedicated to all leaders with or without innovation in their title who want to activate innovators, innovation, and innovation culture in their organization.Let’s welcome Marta Jakab to the conversation.