Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JVf-53lveeo
The Wheel of Innovation is Carla Johnson’s five-step process for creating ideas that are new, great and reliable — and anyone can learn it. In this anniversary-edition episode of The Innovation Show, the author of RE:Think Innovation joins Aidan McCullen to explain why innovation is a discipline, not a gift, and why she’s on a mission to teach one million people to think this way.
Because so few organisations agree on what innovation even means, Carla starts with a definition. Ask 100 people and you’ll get 200 answers — none of which tell an employee what to actually do next. Her version is clear: innovation means consistently coming up with new, great and reliable ideas. New doesn’t mean never done before. When Great Ormond Street Hospital brought in Ferrari’s Formula 1 pit crew to redesign surgical handovers, nothing about the pit stop process was new — but it was new to paediatric surgery, and it cut a 30% error rate dramatically.
What is the Wheel of Innovation?
The Wheel of Innovation has five steps: observe, distill, relate, generate and pitch. Formerly the Perpetual Innovation Process, Carla renamed it because the wheel captures something important — once it starts turning, it builds its own momentum.
First, observe the world around you, neutrally and without judgment, ideally in a notebook you carry everywhere. Next, distill those observations into patterns, because four dots don’t make a constellation. Then relate those patterns to your own brand — the step that makes or breaks an idea. After that, generate ideas in volume; research shows genuine creativity only appears after the first 200. Finally, pitch the idea as a journey rather than a sales ask.
Brand detachment disorder — and the brand transplant cure
Carla coined the term brand detachment disorder for the reflex that says “that would never work here.” She’s done it herself, sitting in a Zappos customer experience talk while working with a boron mining company. However, the cure is what she calls a brand transplant.
Kerry Smith’s High Volume Low Speed Fan Company became Big Ass Fans after customers kept asking for “those big ass fans.” More importantly, Smith transplanted the obsessive quality and care he experienced at Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor into how he built his fan business. Similarly, the CDC transplanted zombie-apocalypse energy from The Walking Dead into disaster preparedness. The resulting blog post drew 60,000 hits in an hour, crashed the CDC’s server, and earned Dr. Ali Khan an invitation to Comic-Con.
Constraints, objective statements and a router love story
Great ideas come from working inside the box, not outside it. Carla’s objective statement makes constraints explicit: “We need new ideas to… so we can… with these constraints.” In her experience, almost every team struggles with the “so we can” part — which is exactly why outcomes so often miss expectations.
Tim Washer at Cisco proves the point. Armed with a clear objective and a background in comedy writing, he launched the ASR 9000 router as a Valentine’s Day love story. As a result, salespeople opened meetings with the video, tension dropped, and Cisco won two customers it had chased for years.
Pitch the journey, then give feedback that builds
Bad pitches kill great ideas. Instead of leading with data and justification, Carla recommends walking your audience through the journey: here’s what I observed, here’s the pattern, here’s how it relates to our problem, and here are the ideas it generated. The language matters too — Min Basadur’s research at P&G showed that asking “how might we?” keeps the brain from slamming on the brakes the way “how should we?” does.
Finally, feedback decides whether people ever bring you ideas again. Recognise the courage it takes to share one, name what’s good specifically, and replace criticism with “what I wish this idea had…” That way, both sides leave with clarity and alignment.
About the guest — Carla Johnson
Carla Johnson is a keynote speaker, innovation strategist and author of RE:Think Innovation. She is on a mission to teach one million people to consistently create new, great and reliable ideas. Find her at carlajohnson.co, where you can take her innovation archetype assessment and sign up for her fortnightly newsletter on building innovation skills, mindset and the culture of original thinkers.
About the host — Aidan McCullen
Aidan McCullen is the host of The Innovation Show, a Thinkers50-recognised podcast, and the author of Undisruptable. A former professional rugby player turned change and innovation specialist, Aidan works as a keynote speaker on change, innovation and transformation for organisations in Ireland and worldwide, and runs workshops that help leadership teams reinvent before they have to. Connect with him on LinkedIn or at theinnovationshow.io.
About The Innovation Show
The Innovation Show is the Thinkers50-recognised podcast where square pegs find their place in a world of round holes. Each week, Aidan McCullen hosts world-class authors, scientists and practitioners on disruption, innovation, change, transformation, leadership and creativity. This series 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 kyndryl.com. Subscribe to the Thursday Thought on Substack for a chance to win a copy of RE:Think Innovation, with thanks to Kyndryl.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the Wheel of Innovation?
The Wheel of Innovation is Carla Johnson’s five-step innovation process: observe, distill, relate, generate and pitch. It turns innovation from a talent into a repeatable discipline that anyone, at any level of an organisation, can learn — and once the wheel starts turning, it builds its own momentum.
What does “new, great and reliable” mean in innovation?
Carla Johnson defines innovation as consistently coming up with ideas that are new (at least to your industry, like Ferrari’s pit stop process applied to paediatric surgery), great (they provoke a visceral, goosebumps reaction), and reliable (they produce a concrete outcome such as revenue growth, lower costs or better customer experience scores).
What is brand detachment disorder?
Brand detachment disorder is the tendency to dismiss another company’s approach as irrelevant because “we’re not that kind of company” or “that would never work here.” It is a form of psychological protectionism that blinds organisations to ideas from outside their industry — and it makes the risk of staying the same higher than the risk of trying something new.
What is a brand transplant?
A brand transplant is the antidote to brand detachment disorder: you study a brand you admire, identify the patterns behind what makes it work, and transplant those patterns into your own organisation. Big Ass Fans transplanted the quality and care of Zingerman’s Deli, and the CDC transplanted zombie-apocalypse culture into disaster preparedness.
Why do you need 200 ideas before you find a great one?
Research Carla cites shows the brain first dumps its most familiar, safe and risk-averse ideas. Genuinely creative ideas only start to appear after roughly 200, once the obvious answers are out of the way — which is why rushed one-hour brainstorms so rarely produce anything new.
Who is Aidan McCullen?
Aidan McCullen is a Thinkers50-recognised podcast host, author of Undisruptable and a keynote speaker on change and innovation based in Ireland. He works with organisations worldwide on transformation, reinvention and building cultures of perpetual innovation.