Peter Denning returns to the show this week to talk about innovation. But this most likely isn’t the innovation discussion you’re expecting.
Instead, Peter challenges the conventional wisdom in the area of innovation and idea, inviting us to rethink our perceptions on contribution. His work and writing have lead to a series of observations in human and team behavior.
The upshot: our ability to make offers and deliver on the offers we make to others are skills that can be honed and indisputably lead to new innovations in our work. These are skills that most of us aren’t very good at.
If you haven’t read The Beginner’s Creed, we encourage you to read it now. It provides excellent background to this week’s discussion. You can find it, along with our earlier conversation with Peter, right here.
About Peter Denning
Peter is a Distinguished Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He chairs the Computer Science Department and directs the Cebrowski Institute, an interdisciplinary research center for information innovation. Peter has held previous faculty positions at Princeton, Purdue, and George Mason, and he was founding director for the computer science research institute at NASA Ames.
Links & Notes
- Read The Beginner’s Creed by Peter Denning
- About Peter Denning — Naval Postgraduate School, Computer Science Department
- (00:00) – Navigating Change: A conversation with Peter Denning
- (03:21) – How do we bring innovation to our work?
- (04:02) – What is “innovation”?
- (05:47) – Invention vs Practice
- (09:46) – Strategic planning and making great offers
- (15:25) – The Buy-in Myth
- (19:23) – Revisiting our experience as a beginner
- (23:52) – What are the 8 Practices?
- (26:26) – The mechanical nature of “active” listening
- (28:35) – Possibilities
- (30:17) – The role of the leader in moving possibility to action
- (34:04) – Making and delivering on our offers, developing credibility and authority
- (36:54) – Innovation, practices, and the objects we create
- (39:37) – Closing thoughts
