In the latest episode of The BIG Strategy Podcast, Jessica Mitchell, a former executive at Peets Coffee, shared her insights into what it takes to drive successful innovation in a large organization. Three key themes emerged:
- Grounding innovation in consumer insights: Successful innovation must start with a deep understanding of consumers’ unmet needs and evolving preferences. At Peet’s, this meant recognizing that younger consumers were looking for different coffee experiences, such as cold brew, and crafting solutions to better serve them.
- Navigating organizational resistance to change: Driving innovation often requires challenging an organization’s core identity and ways of working. The Peet’s story illustrates the delicate balancing act of staying true to a company’s values and heritage while evolving to remain relevant in a changing market. Engaging key stakeholders early and often is critical.
- Ruthless prioritization and knowing when to kill ideas: Not every innovation idea can or should be brought to market. Having the discipline to rigorously prototype, test, and iterate – and the courage to kill ideas that don’t clear the bar – is essential. Innovation leaders must be willing to make tough calls, while continuously selling the vision internally.
Woven throughout the Peet’s Cold Brew story is the importance of diverse, cross-functional teams in making innovation happen. From R&D and marketing to operations and the C-suite, successful innovation requires aligning stakeholders around a shared vision and enlisting their fingerprints and voices throughout the journey.
Building on consumer insights, organizations can overcome resistance to change and apply a similar approach to drive transformative growth and sustainable success. Most importantly, leaders must be courageous and cut underperforming projects, incorporating the lessons learned into future innovations.
Empowering diverse, cross-functional teams to embrace change and iterate relentlessly is the key to unlocking innovation and creating value in an ever-evolving market. The lessons from Peet’s Coffee provide a roadmap for turning bold aspirations into reality.
Check out the complete podcast interview.
