Abi Hird joins Mark McBride-Wright to share her journey from unexpected career beginnings to becoming a leader in innovation. From early dreams of being an art teacher to navigating academia and industry, Abi speaks candidly about embracing challenges, following opportunities, and finding her place in shaping how organisations think about growth and change. Her story highlights the importance of curiosity, resilience, and stepping into the unknown with confidence.
In this episode Abi unpacks what innovation really means beyond technology and products, revealing how culture, strategy, and communication are often the real game changers. She discusses how to create space for meaningful conversations, why innovation is relevant to everyone, and why sometimes the biggest risk is doing nothing at all. This is an inspiring conversation for anyone who wants to understand innovation differently and feel empowered to take the leap in their own career or leadership journey.
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Mark, hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m joined today by Abby Hurd, who is the founder and director of defangl innovation, an innovation consultancy guide in organizations to deliver responsible, inclusive and profitable innovation, drawing from a rich career across academia, advanced manufacturing and public innovation ecosystems. Abby applies system aware thinking to help businesses navigate complex, uncertain environments with confidence. Her work blends design led methods, process foresight and cultural sensitivity to create meaningful change through innovation with experience at Innovate UK, the Design Council and as a visiting academic at multiple UK universities, Abby is passionate about collaboration, inclusion and embedding sustainability at the core of product and service development. Through defangl innovation, Abby empowers clients to de risk innovation and foster community centered growth, placing people process and purpose at the heart of transformation. Abby, welcome.
Abi Hird 1:09
Hi Mark, thanks for having me.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:13
Well, it’s the it’s the least I can do. You know you kindly invited me to one of your defangle innovation dinners in Glasgow a few months ago, so the least I could do is return the favor and get you on the safe leader podcast
Abi Hird 1:26
that was it was so good to have you. It’s good to have an exotic guest all the way from New York to my little dinner in Glasgow. It was brilliant to have you there. Mark,
Mark McBride-Wright 1:35
glad, well, yeah, not so exotic given that I’m from the nicer city across on the other side of the coast in Scotland.
Abi Hird 1:47
Yeah, no, I’m
Mark McBride-Wright 1:49
joking. I’m joking. That’s Scottish jest for anyone who is wondering what is going on here in this present moment. So I was thinking we we met way before, actually, when you’d set up the phone call and I saw you at the Royal Academy. I think we crossed paths when you were at Innovate, UK, wasn’t
Abi Hird 2:16
it? Yeah, I was a while back now, yeah, I think you ran a webinar session. I don’t know if it was on this leader, but it told a bit of your story.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:26
Yeah, no, it would have been before that. Yeah. I think I was at the EDF Women’s Leadership Summit or something at the oval, when I had a back room and had to, you know, make it all all fancy looking, but I was working with the basics of what I had with crap Wi Fi and I was probably sweating, wondering I was going to get like disconnected. So tell us, tell us a bit about your your background, if we go back to the young Abby, did you always want to work in manufacturing and innovation? Did you know this is where you would end up going? What did you want to do when you were younger?
Abi Hird 3:03
Oh, yeah, definitely not here, not that didn’t want to do this, but definitely wasn’t, I didn’t even know it was a thing to be doing this. Okay, yeah. Like, way, way back, like, I guess, like, the whole spectrum of stuff when I was a kid, like, wanted to be a detective. I wanted to be a bit. And then I kind of, like, really wanted to be an art teacher, so I wanted to go to I wanted to go to art school, so I applied to get into art school in Glasgow, actually, and I didn’t get in. And then I ended up, yeah, I didn’t get into art school, and I ended up doing adjusted enough hires like from a weird, cobbled together process, which might go into later, I don’t know, managed to get into degree program in product design engineering at what was Bell College, which doesn’t even exist anymore. It was like a local like poly, and then so I quite like that, because it was creative. I think I felt frustrated with the art school process because it was so subjective, like, whether you were good enough to get in, so I felt like, I’m going to do something technical, at least it’s like, right or wrong, or like, Do you know what? There’s less, yeah. So they did Product Design Engineering, so that was like, kind of technical, kind of creative a little bit yeah, and yes, I did three years at college and found out, like, weird stuff, like, I was actually quite good at maths. It was a total revelation to me, you
Mark McBride-Wright 4:31
just not tapped into that whilst at school. Or had you had an inner voice telling yourself that you weren’t good at it, and therefore that’s how you showed up in your math classes, or what was different to your product design maths to you know, when you were at school?
Abi Hird 4:47
I think so. I yeah, I don’t even realize this until much later, but I think I had, like, this inner monolog about being stupid. Like, I just felt like I was stupid. Like, really, like, deeply. Like. Like in greens anyway, a the so finished college and went to uni and did the same thing at uni, Product Design Engineering at Strathclyde. And that was like, pinch myself, like I’m at uni. I never thought that was ever going to happen to me. Yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:19
What do you do in a product design degree, or course, college course, like, what do you because my mind, straight away, goes to the physicality of an object, and that’s it. But obviously it’s not that. It’s the whole user experience of it and how it’s going to be made and show up in the world and the impact that it has. And the you know Was this your first foray into, like inclusion as well. And I always when I hear product design, I immediately My mind goes to like accessibility and user experience and engaging with different groups that that might use your product or service. So can you just tell us a bit about how deep you went, what involved, how it broadened your horizons. So it’s a proper
Abi Hird 6:03
kind of generalist degree, like the inclusion stuff came much later, much later, the kind of interest around that. So it covers, yeah, covers, like user centered design, all those kind of design process, manufacturing process, manufacturing methods. And it innovation, innovation management, but also, like operational stuff, like how to set up manufacturing, project management, and then, I guess, like the human side of things as well. It touched on that a little bit like, yeah, okay, aspects.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:41
Did it give you a good grounding for what you then, because you, you know you’ve went on and then set up an innovation consultancy. So talk us through the the years, leading from graduating from Strathclyde through to being at finding entrepreneurship.
Abi Hird 6:57
So, so yeah, so graduated with a master’s in product design engineering, and then I went on to do a doctorate. So I did a doctorate that was sponsored by this medical device company debut who like a Johnson and Johnson company based in Leeds. So I was there for four years in their design office, looking at product development process and how you plan product development. So, like quite an innovative business developing lots of new products, really like market leading products for like surgery and for the implants. So learned a lot about like product development process and that kind of like, scale of organization and how to plan for it, how to manage innovation. And quite a like, I guess, like, like, what lots of what they did was kind of like industry standard, like, good good practice innovation management, but not necessarily suitable for all types of firms. Are all, all scenarios. And then I went back to Strathclyde. When I finished that there were, there was redundancies in the business. They weren’t like keeping people on. And back to Strathclyde, and I did a postdoc with BA Systems. So looking at the product development process for the type 26 which is like a surface ship, and like how information is managed and how decisions are made through that process. So when you’ve got, like, all the different systems of a ship coming together, how do they use information, get the right information at the right time to make decisions right sort of way, and how do they iterate and evolve the design? So did that for a couple of years, and then I went to, kind of worked across the engineering faculty, looking at coordinating research, so supporting PhD students and helping with like things like MPL Scotland, so running workshops to think about what the themes were going to be around. That
Mark McBride-Wright 9:04
is that, NLP, neuro linguistic programming,
Abi Hird 9:09
the National Physical laboratories. How do you measure a kilogram? And like, yeah. And then I got like, so, yeah, I was also, I think, because my doctorate was an industry like, my understanding of how to do research was really, like, based on understanding how industry works. So I ended up having chats about what I done in my doctorate with other companies and landed a few KTP projects, good, like, I guess, like, research, research income, and I was doing interest and stuff, so I got, like, possession, I think, mostly off the back of that of a Monash, just to factor these KTP projects, one with Alexander Dennis, who makes busses, Johnson’s, Elgin, who make cashmere scarfs, spirit systems. To make your craft competition
Mark McBride-Wright 10:03
such a such a diverse portfolio of manufacturing things?
Abi Hird 10:09
Yeah, very different companies, but I loved, loved like spending time with the businesses, understanding their challenges these sorts of conversations, and the thought of publishing papers just like I just did not inspire me at all, and I knew, like, if I wanted my career to progress, I was going to have to do that stuff. Yeah, I enjoyed teaching as well. That was That was fun. But got to the end of my probation, three years probation to be a lecturer, and realized that I was either going to be here forever or so I’ve done, like my undergrad, my doctorate, my post grad, got lecture in position. It was like, I’m either like
Mark McBride-Wright 10:50
you’d also had you dabbled in industry as well. You hadn’t gone up the traditional career, traditional career track of academia, and never stepped foot in a in a feel engineering, sort of manufacturing environment. You’d actually been in that world, so you’d already sort of straddled the two, the two sides, and I can imagine one had a stronger pool than the other,
Abi Hird 11:19
yeah, yeah, I feel like I wasn’t really supposed to be an academic. I was supposed to be, but I didn’t really want to go and get a job and a single company, either. So I went to work at Innovate UK and their manufacturing team, helping people with product development. So not lots of the manufacturing team are really focused on productivity, helping manufacturers with like digital technology adoption, whereas I was focused on people across different sectors and technology areas that had, like a hardware, like something that had to be made, like a physical product, helping them think through how to do that. So there’s like different challenges and risks compared with maybe other types of innovation. So built a community around that realized, like, I loved building community, like, that’s something that, like, gives me energy getting people together, yeah, and then I moved into the design team and built a design innovation network, so connecting innovators, people, different different technologies, different sectors, with user centered design, and trying to build a bit of strategy around systems thinking, getting people to think more holistically about innovation and what they were doing. And then went off to have Aida. Was on maternity leave for a few months, and he didn’t go back. Just Yeah, I kind of felt like I needed a new challenge
Mark McBride-Wright 12:52
as well. As having a little person in your life, you needed another new challenge as
Abi Hird 12:56
well. Yeah, I felt like if I went back into work with ADA and doing a job that I knew I could do, like, I mean, just
Mark McBride-Wright 13:09
coasted, yeah, or become
Abi Hird 13:11
bored and like I needed something new
Mark McBride-Wright 13:15
to and you sound like someone who’s always had the finger on the pulse of their career, making intentional, strategic choices to well, you’re laughing. It’s all like you’ve fallen from one thing and another, like there is a story to the well there, at least there’s a convenient logic that’s come up through the you can spin it in a certain way, even if you might feel it’s different.
Abi Hird 13:36
I think I’ve been opportunistic. I think that I’ve always looked even within a role, I need to be challenged, like I need to be trying something new or doing something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I think if I’m just going through the motions, yeah, I just can I just like, I just look, there’s an itch or something
Mark McBride-Wright 13:59
that’s expanding, expanding mental expansion. Tell us a bit about the fankle then. So you set that up. I remember now you telling me this. You set that up just after your, after you had Ada, hadn’t you? Or was it on your you were thinking about it was percolating The idea there whilst you were on maternity leave and so, so, how, how are things going? You know, tell us a bit about the fan calls, some of the projects you’ve worked on, and, you know, the world that you’re creating for yourself as a founder, entrepreneur,
Abi Hird 14:33
yes, has been amazing. Like, I’ve got absolutely no regrets about making that leap. Yeah. So I start, actually started before I was really ready, which I think was a positive thing, because I think I could have quite easily over thought everything, but, um, so Ada was about, she was, I guess, like she wasn’t even four months and I was in, I’d gone into in town to have a meeting with somebody who’d promised me the possibility. Of work. And I thought, I’m just going to go and knock on somebody else’s door before I go to this other meeting and see if they happen to be in the office more just for, like, a catch up. And she was like, I’m desperate for somebody. We’re like, in between, like, we’re recruiting somebody, but we’re not quite there yet. Like, could you come and help us out two days a week, just for two months, and help us with business development around KTP. So, like, I knew KTP inside out. It was like, minimum, like, cognitive pressure, like I knew what I was doing, and it just, like, got me going. So, like, she because there was urgency around getting started, it gave me a bit up the backside. So, like, my strategy, my like, maternity pay from my employer had came to an end, and I was on maternity pay. So, like, I knew you were allowed to, like, work self employed. And so I just, like, went for it. Did it launched. Like, I had the best the website kind of building in the background, yeah. Like, I was just like, Okay, we’re going to, we’re going to set that stage when it was four months, which feels really insanely early, but like that I was gonna just went through it and started two days a week, and it made, made the kind of announcement, and then people were just really very generous, like, with like, oh, you could get involved in that, or you need to speak to this person, or and then things just evolved. So I guess that KTP business development stuff was not really what I’d set out to do. It was more innovation support generally. But I wasn’t. I didn’t have a clear value proposition. I don’t, I mean, I think I’m only getting to that now, actually two and a half years in,
Mark McBride-Wright 16:38
takes time. Takes time. What was that KTP support? So KTPs knowledge transfer program,
Abi Hird 16:44
knowledge transfer partnership. So it’s like partnership between industry and university. So yeah, making, yeah, just making the connection between the academic and the company. And the KTP center is based at Strathclyde, but actually covers Strathclyde, Glasgow, the art school and Caledonian University. So you’re working across different universities.
Mark McBride-Wright 17:08
What do employers get out of it? Like, what they get the resource of a student or a researcher? Well, it’s
Abi Hird 17:16
such a good program, honestly, like a so it’s not, it’s like a graduate. So it could be somebody to one honors, a masters or a PhD, and there’s different salary band and support, like support, it’s for SMEs. It’s 70% funded by innovate, UK, right for larger businesses, it’s 5050 funding. But the outcomes of are amazing. I think I don’t know if it’s like 14 to one return on investment or something like that. It’s like, wow, yeah, but yeah, we get the benefit of having somebody with deep expertise around the particular problem. They also get half a day, a week of academic time. There’s a really clear project plan laid out at the outset, and then the process is kind of managed by Innovate UK and a knowledge transfer advisor. So it’s like a really nice way for businesses to do innovation. Like, I’m so
Mark McBride-Wright 18:13
like, is it like a short term does the graduate? Like, they become a permanent employee on a full time contract, or is that, by definition, a fixed term thing, engagement for the duration of the KTP? Is it at the end of their studies? And it’s, it’s hopefully leads to, like, a job with the SME or or the the business. So normally,
Abi Hird 18:38
they’re 24 months long, and I think there’s like some variation. That was a standard, standard project with 24 months long, and the graduate can stay with the business. Often they do stay with the business. Sometimes they don’t. So like the Johnson’s Belgian, when I did, I had a graduate who was actually based at Strathclyde, who knew he really wanted to do a KTP project, yeah, and he, yes, he was on the Johnson’s KTP, I think was like 26 months or something. I think it might have been extended slightly, and he’s now director. And, wow, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 19:12
wow, that’s brilliant. So it really helps with recruitment then as well, and for, for for job outcomes, for individuals, yeah, good way to bring in innovation, then to a business. Yeah, definitely. Would you ever consider doing one yourself? Do you have to be a business as a certain scale? So you’ve done it before, like helping foster it, but is it something defangle Could could tap into?
Abi Hird 19:37
I think as soon as I am big enough, I will be looking at an rkcp. So there’s, yeah, you’ve got to have your own premises, so you want to be able to host a company. So there are ways around that, like co working spaces and things, but you want, you have, have to be able to host an associate, sorry, and then you’ve got to be able to demonstrate that financially you’re stable enough to cover your proportion of the funding. Yeah. Um, so I think normally, a team of four is what they look for, like, has an absolute minimum. So I think, like, just now employee wise, it’s just me at the moment. So I think, I think in the future, definitely, definitely looking at KTP. I think, yeah, I think it’s nuts that more people don’t do them. You should be looking at
Mark McBride-Wright 20:21
Mark. I am not going to lie that there’s an agenda to me asking you these questions right now. Abby and I’m scribbling away not some post its to follow up afterwards, because I see them on the Innovate UK website when I’m going on my shopping sprees, as I call it, to look up opportunities for equal engineers, but I’ve never really, yeah, understood them, or, like, in detail, like what they actually are, so it’s just that, like being sure that we can definitely offer a good experience to anyone that takes part in it. You know, the last thing you want is to be successful in securing something but then not able to live up to what it’s touted. As you know,
Abi Hird 21:08
so other advanced so the plans all detailed out the start has got to be strategic. So it’s got to like, really working on something that is really important to your business, and then something that you don’t have skills for in house, and that you probably couldn’t just go to a consultancy and get Yeah, yeah. So
Mark McBride-Wright 21:26
maybe I’ve got a gazillion and one ideas floating around my brain.
Abi Hird 21:30
And then the other thing about it is that the application process, it’s not like a smart grant where there’s like a 5% success rate. If you’re going to submit a KTP application, you’ve got the process looks slightly different. So you’ve got to work with the knowledge transfer advisor who will take your application and kind of champion
Mark McBride-Wright 21:49
it, yeah.
Abi Hird 21:52
So you, as you get to the kind of like process of completing a full application, you’re probably going to get funded. So, like, the through that submitting applications and not getting funded, and the frustration around that, like you’re not something that
Mark McBride-Wright 22:06
we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve on and off. Done Innovate UK, we did one they had, like a diversity one a few years ago, and we tried to apply for funding for our neurodiversity network. It was like 50,000 pounds or something. And it was, you know, even though we got quite a high score, we still didn’t get so I guess the threshold then just so high. Are there so many applications that are of such a high quality that then, you know, you see a number that’s in the high 80s, and you’re still told that you still didn’t get it. You’re like, oh, right, okay. But you know, it gets good, you get feedback at least. And you know you’re then, you know you’re then on to something, and so you can work it through in a different way. Yeah. So what’s the so that’s what you did. So what are you working on now? Like, what’s the future for defang call, where are you heading now in your entrepreneurial journey?
Abi Hird 23:10
So yeah, we’ve gone through a process of doing things like training programs for public sector around innovation. I do coaching, Innovate UK, Business Connect design for growth, coaching. I do teaching at Strathclyde, so it’s quite like coaching and teaching focus. There’s also little bits of consultancy in there. Often people will get me in to talk about innovation process, and actually you find out that it’s not necessarily the process, it’s their culture or their strategy, so help people think through that type of stuff. And I think now I’m at a point where I’m clear that about the value that’s that I can offer around that, and how my experience is like really well aligned around that, specifically for engineering and technology companies. So I think my technical background and my experience working in this space really helps. But I think the strategic consultancy and helping people think about their innovation strategy is is where the focus is going to be going forward.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:15
You think we teach innovation properly in engineering at university level.
Abi Hird 24:24
Oh, well, so, yeah, that’s interesting. So I teach, I do teach it at Strathclyde. I teach it to third years, okay? And I teach it, so I teach it to third years on like part of the core of like specific courses. So it wouldn’t be necessarily available across engineering faculty, but then I teach management of innovation to post grads, okay, and people from across engineering so, like mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, will come to that class, and I think it blows their mind. It’s kind of like, like, I know people from that class will go off into industry with a. Completely different perspective, yeah, from just having done, like, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, they’ll understand the point, like, how it all fits together, not just like their single discipline.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:12
Yeah, no, it’s they’re eat. So I started when I actually after your dinner, the fankle innovation dinner that I came to in Glasgow, I was flying back to New York the following day, and when I was at the airport, I picked up. I did my usual, buy one, get one half price business books, which is why I’ve got bookshelves that work like yours as well. And one of the books that I picked up. Well, I’d already done my buy one, get one free, pre security, and then when I was through security, I went back into another bookshop, and I thought, I can’t buy anymore. Then I picked up one book, and I read a paragraph, and I was like, I’m going to get this actually. And it was and I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it’s the third most read book in the United States, and the author is Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Now I may not necessarily agree with his politics and background and what have you, but it was I wanted to read it. And it talks about how we don’t get a very good financial education. We’re not really taught finance at all. And, you know, this book came out back in the 70s, and it’s, he’s updated it subsequently, and it’s been, you know, it’s a it’s a book on good financial education. It’s why a lot of people have have read it, or know about it when I’ve mentioned it, but I’ve actually read, like bought his two other books that followed. Subsequently, he’s got an entire ecosystem of books now on the under this rich dad brand. But he talks about the ambition for financial freedom, and you know, and what I’ve what I’ve found through reading it, the Cash Flow Quadrant, which is his second book. So interesting, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, myself, having been an employee and then moved into being a business owner, the way he was talking about about everything, assets and liabilities and how to look at your balance sheet and your income statement and everything like that. You know, I get training. I’ve had education like that from my accountant, and I know how to do that roughly. But do I properly know how to do it? Do I know how to do it in my personal life and in my professional life, not so much. And you know, I was reading this even as an entrepreneur running an engineering business now, having done an engineering undergraduate and an engineering doctorate, and I’m thinking this would have been really useful to have known a while ago. And then I had this thought, I know, I’m aware of a few innovation in the title accelerators and programs and initiatives and electives. And then I’m sort of thinking, are they, are they even, are they talking about stuff in this way? I don’t know. I don’t know. And so it’s, it’s, it’s not something I’ve I’ve only just finished reading that, you know, the books and that and it, but it’s definitely shifted my mindset as an entrepreneur about how I view things and how I prioritize contracts, and how I how I execute things. And I don’t know it just, it was just pause for thought, thinking about, obviously, I’m trying to do all this EDI stuff in the curriculum. And I don’t think we ever really did innovation properly when I was at Imperial, we did some electives with, at the time, the Tanaka business school, but it’s now the Imperial College Business School. So yeah, I don’t know. It’s just,
Abi Hird 28:59
I think, I think the other way to look at it is the stuff that I teach to engineering students. So there’s only like 40 of them. I don’t know how many people graduate from engineering faculty or Strathclyde each. Oh, hundreds. Maybe a small fraction of them will have that understanding of innovation management. But when you go out into business, companies don’t, and that’s, that’s like a pretty that’s like a 12 week module, a couple of hours a week, like, it’s not, like, super intense. This is everything you need to know about innovation, even at that level. Like, businesses just don’t. They either don’t have an innovation process, they don’t understand the importance of culture, they maybe don’t even have a really clear strategy that’s relevant to what the direction that they’re heading in. Like, yeah, there’s like, yeah, big gaps. Or if people do have an innovation process, it’s probably like a Stage Gate process. Process, it might not be appropriate for what they’re trying to do. Like, the cultural stuff around innovation is huge. Like, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think when people think about innovation, they think about tech, and actually, it’s just one type of innovation. There’s all sorts of other innovation that you can be involved in or doing that can different ways. You can add value to your customers or grow your business, and doing it well is not just about product design or technology development, it’s about that, how that fits the strategy, how you’re managing your resources to give you leverage, to give you the best of advantage the systems and processes that sit underneath that that allow you to deliver that consistently, that will allow you to adapt. Should you have to adapt? Yeah, build in resilience. And then it’s about the storytelling. So the communication around that stuff that everybody in the organization is on the same page, like innovation is not going to work if people have disjointed views of what it is you’re trying to do. The communication around it’s key, and then the culture, like the culture, underpins everything.
Mark McBride-Wright 31:05
Yeah, I wonder. You’re such a fountain of knowledge, and you know, how? How do you make people realize that thinking about innovation in this way is critical? Is critical. It’s, it’s, it’s so important. I’m just, I’m wondering what you could do to help grow your business in you know, I’m thinking about all my sales training with lead funnels and getting people into your into your funnel. Yeah, we talk a bit about you yourself, using your origin story more as a founder, and getting out there, on on, on the stages. And I think I, you know, I think that would be, I think that would be incredible for your business.
Abi Hird 31:59
Yeah, I think people maybe aren’t comfortable with the word innovation as well, which is some people off, or they have preconceived ideas about what it means, and think either they’ve cracked it or it’s not relevant for them. And I think it is relevant for everybody. I think
Mark McBride-Wright 32:16
maybe, maybe that’s your thing, then maybe that that sometimes it’s easy to over engineer the message that we think we have to be bringing to the world and over complicate it, but actually we need to be simplifying, simplifying that. I mean, we run an Innovation of the Year Award at the engineering talent awards, and my mind goes straight to thinking about the technical things. I think, in our course, in our award description, we clarify that innovation isn’t just, you know, a physical thing or an output or product. It could be an innovative process or a redesign of something, but it usually ends up being some sort of fancy application to a new context that is innovative. You know, that are the things that we see coming through. So maybe, maybe yeah, maybe, maybe challenging engineers to to revisit what innovation means, yeah,
Abi Hird 33:12
yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:14
Is a big, a big, a big, a big, big, big, big ask, I guess, big ask. Yeah, I just realized I haven’t actually looked at any of these questions that I’ve prepared for
Abi Hird 33:27
you. Yeah, I feel like, is this, is this a podcast? It feels like just a normal, a normal chat.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:32
Well, that that, that that’s what that well, that’s what I am. What I really valued about what you curated at the dinner that we had, because, you know, you, you definitely are a people connector. I wouldn’t have met Ian had I not came to your dinner that night. And I’ve got, I got a copy his book on Servitization, and I know I need time to read that and really immerse myself and what it means and how I might be able to benefit from it or adopt it for my business. So So on my to read list in in September. But yeah, you’ve had, you’ve had such a fusion of people come and come into those I think, I think they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re a great, they’re a great way to help build to help build relationships. Is your work? Do you work across the UK? Do you work internationally? Are you? Do you tend to find you’re quite Scotland focused? Yeah,
Abi Hird 34:35
across the UK. I would say I’ve not done anything internationally yet, like somebody from France brought some of my card sets, but I’ve not not done any international work, like the first year, lots of my work was in London, and that was actually quite hard, where they’d have been so small. So I think although I’m keen to keep that UK work, I’m also a bit more focused. Looking for local work and building local
Mark McBride-Wright 35:03
relationships. Tell us about your cards. Yes, we haven’t spoken about them. Tell us about your your your card sets.
Abi Hird 35:11
So that was maybe, yeah, that, I guess that was like maybe part of how we met at Royal Academy of Engineering. I don’t know it was run a workshop on inclusive innovation when they had a kind of like conference event launching culture, plus with Innovate UK and Royal Academy of Engineering. I think Ada was brand new as well. So it was, like still very early days. I think I maybe started in May, and the event might have been in September. So I kind of like thought, if I’m going to run a workshop on inclusive innovation, I need to, like, be it was inclusive design, sorry. So it was like, yeah. I was like, I need to be, like, super prepared. So I made this card set to run the workshop. And then even, like, being so, like, over prepared, like, in the morning and the hotel, I was like, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe I could just, like, pull a second. I had to really force myself to go, like I was so nervous. I’d think, I’ve ever been so nervous. But I think that was just like, the
Mark McBride-Wright 36:06
it was great. It was really good. I loved it,
Abi Hird 36:12
yeah, like, it did go well, like people enjoyed the card set. Like people were asking if they could buy the card set, which kind of took me back a little bit. And I think, like, I guess the other thing was, everybody in the room was an inclusion, inclusive design, or, like an engineer who was interested. You were like, it wasn’t, like, a basic level audience, like, but I felt like people, everybody in the room, got value for it from it. So I feel like, actually, I’m on to something here, like this is interesting and valuable, and it like I had done work previously at annoy on, like, inclusion, inclusive engineering, inclusive design, and like, thinking about that, like, in systemic terms, rather than just thinking about, like, the HR angle or the physical product angle, but thinking, like, how all these things interconnect and like, how one exacerbates the other, yeah, so, like, they had developed a little card set, and then people wanted to buy them. So I’ve sold not millions. Like, I’m not going to retire on it, but like, I’ve sold a few like, people,
Mark McBride-Wright 37:20
and are they still available? Can people still get their hands on them on I
Abi Hird 37:25
guess, like, based on that, I developed another few card sets to help me with teaching and to help me with the website. I feel like it’s just quite a they’ve been useful tools for like learning things and stimulating thinking and giving
Mark McBride-Wright 37:37
something. I’ve never used a card set. How do you use a card set? Are they like a teaching tool that help give prompts or something in a workshop
Abi Hird 37:46
prompt? So I think they work. The one that works best is probably the inclusive innovation one, I think, because it’s a topic that people maybe feel a little bit uncomfortable with. So you’ve got, like, tan, you’ve got something tangible to hold, which I think always helps, kind of like refer to or like a bit of a crutch, but, and it like, when you the discussion could go so many ways, or there’s so much that could be talked about, it means that people have got, like, a lot of information that they can take away, or they can kind of filter through, rather than dictating what people have got to Talk about. They can kind of like, land on what they’re drawn to. They’ve got choices as well. Yeah, that’s a much more succinct way of describing it. Well,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:29
it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, well, you’ve got a toddler as well. You’ve got a young person in your life. Like, when, when you give choices, it just diffuses so many arguments rather than coming out like this is what you have to talk about. I don’t want to talk about that, you know. If you say, well, these are the things you can talk about that are listed on this card set. Take it as you go and see what creativity you come up with. People are happy and they feel like they’ve got some control, but they’re not fully, you know, because sometimes, if you leave it too wide as a facility, or people don’t kind of catch wind of where you’re wanting them to go. So it’s a way to kind of guide them as well. Isn’t it, like guardrails, almost, for the conversation? Yeah. So
Abi Hird 39:16
you can structure it in different ways. Normally, I get people to choose a case study. So there’s like, a set of cards with case studies, and then there’s a set of cards with, like, tools and methods. So then I get cool, okay, what could have been done in these scenarios that would have, like, helped better design in this situation, or has been used for good could have been used for good design situation that’s
Mark McBride-Wright 39:39
interesting. So you have, you have, you have one set of cards that are, like case studies, one set of cards that are tools and methods. And literally, you could have, like, any combination of application of the tools and methods to the different case studies, the case study deck, yeah, well,
Abi Hird 39:53
but so some of the, some of the case studies, you could use a whole range of methods, and then some of them, it’s actually, that’s. Method should have been prioritized. One example that comes up all the time is representative data, okay, so I think that probably could be used across every single case study,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:14
yeah, and then making sure you’ve got data that reflects the application of the service or technology that’s being considered or designed.
Abi Hird 40:25
Yeah, and then there’s a little, there’s like a little, I think there’s like, 10 prompt cards that just like, get people reflecting on their own practice or their own organizations. And what could be a little bit
Mark McBride-Wright 40:37
different, interesting. Do you use these in your university lectures, in your training with the students.
Abi Hird 40:44
Yeah, I use them in lectures. I use them. Yeah, I run that same workshop a lot,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:51
a lot. Yeah, that you’re your best seller. You know, I’ve always met if you’re on Dragons Den and you’re pitching in front Deborah, meeting and everyone, and Deborah says, What’s your best seller is that? Is that? Is it that workshop that’s your go to.
Abi Hird 41:05
That’s probably the workshop that I’ve delivered the most. Yeah, got
Mark McBride-Wright 41:09
you? Got you? Okay, quick fire question rounds, are you? You’re ready, right? What’s the best piece of innovation advice you’ve ever received?
Abi Hird 41:27
I think, I think maybe the concept that sometimes doing nothing is worse, like sometimes just just taking action, just going for it, sometimes the biggest risk is not doing anything. So just like, do something, and then I think, yeah, I guess, related to that, like the not over preparing, just like putting something out there, and like testing it and going for it, and like taking the leap, taking the leap.
Mark McBride-Wright 41:54
What’s one project you’re especially proud of?
Abi Hird 41:58
Probably my PhD. That’s an easy, easy one to answer. Probably, yeah, my it’s an engineering doctor. It wasn’t a PhD, but that probably
Mark McBride-Wright 42:07
Coffee, tea or something more creative,
Abi Hird 42:12
coffee. Probably I’m just getting any iced coffee.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:15
Oh, nice with some sugar free vanilla syrup. My favorite,
Abi Hird 42:20
I’m actually going for sugar free caramel syrup. Oh, caramel,
Mark McBride-Wright 42:23
caramel. Not, not just as nice, just as nice. What’s one skill every systems thinker should develop empathy. What’s a book or resource you always recommend? Oh,
Abi Hird 42:40
the authority gap. It’s a book by a lady called Mary Ann Steiger. I think, yes, yeah. It’s a brilliant, brilliant book. Yes, I remember you mentioning it. Yeah. It’s probably my most recommended book, the
Mark McBride-Wright 42:55
authority gap. What’s your go to way to recharge creatively,
Abi Hird 42:59
probably wild swimming or cooking, potentially.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:06
What’s one tool or method you think more leaders should use?
Abi Hird 43:16
Um, probably something really basic, like empathy maps or customer journey maps and I think, not just with like their external customers, but thinking about the experience of internal people in their organization as well.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:31
Who’s a thinker or designer that inspires you?
Abi Hird 43:35
Oh, Donella Meadows. She’s like a systems thinker, okay, not seeing their work, just like systems dynamics kind of stuff, like, and then I guess, like, another systems dynamics person would be John Sterman from MIT, like, yeah, Daniela meadows, like, if you watch her lectures online, some of them are like, I’m black and white and really old, which has just got a really nice style, like such a clear way of thinking and communicating, and then a more up to date, localish person, somebody like Andy yohar, who’s, like another one of the Design Council experts, but he’s an architect and systems thinker, and he’s just again, like just real clear and deep ways of thinking about things from a systems point of view.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:29
What’s something about innovation that people often get wrong?
Abi Hird 44:34
I guess what we were chatting about that it’s about technology, that’s just tech or products, and actually it’s more than that.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:41
Finally, what advice would you give your younger self starting out in engineering?
Abi Hird 44:53
I think I’d want myself to be more confident, like just don’t doubt yourself so much. Just, I don’t know, I don’t know it. Just, it’s going to be all right, like,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:04
yeah, you’ve got it, you’ve got it. You can do it totally, totally, and you are doing it. You’ve had a highly successful career, amazing that I’ve learned a lot about innovation. You’ve challenged me a bit more. But my thinking. I’m definitely one of those people that still go to my bias, thinking that it’s about something physical, when actually it can be so much more. We had a team day at Eco engineers last week, two days actually. And I think there are reason, even some things from that, that I can evolve the thinking on a bit more deeply in terms of how we could maybe be more innovative with in terms of our processes and how we work as a team. So I will keep that front of mind if people want to get in touch with you, Abby, if they think you know maybe you could support them. If defang call could do some project work, or, I think you’re looking at more some consulting practice, application opportunities. You know, how do people get in touch with you and find out about what you offer?
Abi Hird 46:08
So Abby at the fanco.com or you can find me on LinkedIn or the website, which is just about to be updated. So, yeah, there’s contact, a contact page on the website, but like LinkedIn or just emailing me. Just fabulous,
Mark McBride-Wright 46:24
perfect. We’ll put all those links in the show notes as well. Thank you very much for your time. Really enjoyed the catch
Abi Hird 46:31
up. Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. Mark. It was brilliant. Make catch up more often.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:35
Definitely, definitely speak to you later.
E034: Taking the Leap in Innovation and Leadership
Podcast Description
Read the Transcript
Mark McBride-Wright 0:00
Mark, hello. Welcome to the next episode of the safe leader podcast. I’m your host, Mark McBride-Wright, and I’m joined today by Abby Hurd, who is the founder and director of defangl innovation, an innovation consultancy guide in organizations to deliver responsible, inclusive and profitable innovation, drawing from a rich career across academia, advanced manufacturing and public innovation ecosystems. Abby applies system aware thinking to help businesses navigate complex, uncertain environments with confidence. Her work blends design led methods, process foresight and cultural sensitivity to create meaningful change through innovation with experience at Innovate UK, the Design Council and as a visiting academic at multiple UK universities, Abby is passionate about collaboration, inclusion and embedding sustainability at the core of product and service development. Through defangl innovation, Abby empowers clients to de risk innovation and foster community centered growth, placing people process and purpose at the heart of transformation. Abby, welcome.
Abi Hird 1:09
Hi Mark, thanks for having me.
Mark McBride-Wright 1:13
Well, it’s the it’s the least I can do. You know you kindly invited me to one of your defangle innovation dinners in Glasgow a few months ago, so the least I could do is return the favor and get you on the safe leader podcast
Abi Hird 1:26
that was it was so good to have you. It’s good to have an exotic guest all the way from New York to my little dinner in Glasgow. It was brilliant to have you there. Mark,
Mark McBride-Wright 1:35
glad, well, yeah, not so exotic given that I’m from the nicer city across on the other side of the coast in Scotland.
Abi Hird 1:47
Yeah, no, I’m
Mark McBride-Wright 1:49
joking. I’m joking. That’s Scottish jest for anyone who is wondering what is going on here in this present moment. So I was thinking we we met way before, actually, when you’d set up the phone call and I saw you at the Royal Academy. I think we crossed paths when you were at Innovate, UK, wasn’t
Abi Hird 2:16
it? Yeah, I was a while back now, yeah, I think you ran a webinar session. I don’t know if it was on this leader, but it told a bit of your story.
Mark McBride-Wright 2:26
Yeah, no, it would have been before that. Yeah. I think I was at the EDF Women’s Leadership Summit or something at the oval, when I had a back room and had to, you know, make it all all fancy looking, but I was working with the basics of what I had with crap Wi Fi and I was probably sweating, wondering I was going to get like disconnected. So tell us, tell us a bit about your your background, if we go back to the young Abby, did you always want to work in manufacturing and innovation? Did you know this is where you would end up going? What did you want to do when you were younger?
Abi Hird 3:03
Oh, yeah, definitely not here, not that didn’t want to do this, but definitely wasn’t, I didn’t even know it was a thing to be doing this. Okay, yeah. Like, way, way back, like, I guess, like, the whole spectrum of stuff when I was a kid, like, wanted to be a detective. I wanted to be a bit. And then I kind of, like, really wanted to be an art teacher, so I wanted to go to I wanted to go to art school, so I applied to get into art school in Glasgow, actually, and I didn’t get in. And then I ended up, yeah, I didn’t get into art school, and I ended up doing adjusted enough hires like from a weird, cobbled together process, which might go into later, I don’t know, managed to get into degree program in product design engineering at what was Bell College, which doesn’t even exist anymore. It was like a local like poly, and then so I quite like that, because it was creative. I think I felt frustrated with the art school process because it was so subjective, like, whether you were good enough to get in, so I felt like, I’m going to do something technical, at least it’s like, right or wrong, or like, Do you know what? There’s less, yeah. So they did Product Design Engineering, so that was like, kind of technical, kind of creative a little bit yeah, and yes, I did three years at college and found out, like, weird stuff, like, I was actually quite good at maths. It was a total revelation to me, you
Mark McBride-Wright 4:31
just not tapped into that whilst at school. Or had you had an inner voice telling yourself that you weren’t good at it, and therefore that’s how you showed up in your math classes, or what was different to your product design maths to you know, when you were at school?
Abi Hird 4:47
I think so. I yeah, I don’t even realize this until much later, but I think I had, like, this inner monolog about being stupid. Like, I just felt like I was stupid. Like, really, like, deeply. Like. Like in greens anyway, a the so finished college and went to uni and did the same thing at uni, Product Design Engineering at Strathclyde. And that was like, pinch myself, like I’m at uni. I never thought that was ever going to happen to me. Yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 5:19
What do you do in a product design degree, or course, college course, like, what do you because my mind, straight away, goes to the physicality of an object, and that’s it. But obviously it’s not that. It’s the whole user experience of it and how it’s going to be made and show up in the world and the impact that it has. And the you know Was this your first foray into, like inclusion as well. And I always when I hear product design, I immediately My mind goes to like accessibility and user experience and engaging with different groups that that might use your product or service. So can you just tell us a bit about how deep you went, what involved, how it broadened your horizons. So it’s a proper
Abi Hird 6:03
kind of generalist degree, like the inclusion stuff came much later, much later, the kind of interest around that. So it covers, yeah, covers, like user centered design, all those kind of design process, manufacturing process, manufacturing methods. And it innovation, innovation management, but also, like operational stuff, like how to set up manufacturing, project management, and then, I guess, like the human side of things as well. It touched on that a little bit like, yeah, okay, aspects.
Mark McBride-Wright 6:41
Did it give you a good grounding for what you then, because you, you know you’ve went on and then set up an innovation consultancy. So talk us through the the years, leading from graduating from Strathclyde through to being at finding entrepreneurship.
Abi Hird 6:57
So, so yeah, so graduated with a master’s in product design engineering, and then I went on to do a doctorate. So I did a doctorate that was sponsored by this medical device company debut who like a Johnson and Johnson company based in Leeds. So I was there for four years in their design office, looking at product development process and how you plan product development. So, like quite an innovative business developing lots of new products, really like market leading products for like surgery and for the implants. So learned a lot about like product development process and that kind of like, scale of organization and how to plan for it, how to manage innovation. And quite a like, I guess, like, like, what lots of what they did was kind of like industry standard, like, good good practice innovation management, but not necessarily suitable for all types of firms. Are all, all scenarios. And then I went back to Strathclyde. When I finished that there were, there was redundancies in the business. They weren’t like keeping people on. And back to Strathclyde, and I did a postdoc with BA Systems. So looking at the product development process for the type 26 which is like a surface ship, and like how information is managed and how decisions are made through that process. So when you’ve got, like, all the different systems of a ship coming together, how do they use information, get the right information at the right time to make decisions right sort of way, and how do they iterate and evolve the design? So did that for a couple of years, and then I went to, kind of worked across the engineering faculty, looking at coordinating research, so supporting PhD students and helping with like things like MPL Scotland, so running workshops to think about what the themes were going to be around. That
Mark McBride-Wright 9:04
is that, NLP, neuro linguistic programming,
Abi Hird 9:09
the National Physical laboratories. How do you measure a kilogram? And like, yeah. And then I got like, so, yeah, I was also, I think, because my doctorate was an industry like, my understanding of how to do research was really, like, based on understanding how industry works. So I ended up having chats about what I done in my doctorate with other companies and landed a few KTP projects, good, like, I guess, like, research, research income, and I was doing interest and stuff, so I got, like, possession, I think, mostly off the back of that of a Monash, just to factor these KTP projects, one with Alexander Dennis, who makes busses, Johnson’s, Elgin, who make cashmere scarfs, spirit systems. To make your craft competition
Mark McBride-Wright 10:03
such a such a diverse portfolio of manufacturing things?
Abi Hird 10:09
Yeah, very different companies, but I loved, loved like spending time with the businesses, understanding their challenges these sorts of conversations, and the thought of publishing papers just like I just did not inspire me at all, and I knew, like, if I wanted my career to progress, I was going to have to do that stuff. Yeah, I enjoyed teaching as well. That was That was fun. But got to the end of my probation, three years probation to be a lecturer, and realized that I was either going to be here forever or so I’ve done, like my undergrad, my doctorate, my post grad, got lecture in position. It was like, I’m either like
Mark McBride-Wright 10:50
you’d also had you dabbled in industry as well. You hadn’t gone up the traditional career, traditional career track of academia, and never stepped foot in a in a feel engineering, sort of manufacturing environment. You’d actually been in that world, so you’d already sort of straddled the two, the two sides, and I can imagine one had a stronger pool than the other,
Abi Hird 11:19
yeah, yeah, I feel like I wasn’t really supposed to be an academic. I was supposed to be, but I didn’t really want to go and get a job and a single company, either. So I went to work at Innovate UK and their manufacturing team, helping people with product development. So not lots of the manufacturing team are really focused on productivity, helping manufacturers with like digital technology adoption, whereas I was focused on people across different sectors and technology areas that had, like a hardware, like something that had to be made, like a physical product, helping them think through how to do that. So there’s like different challenges and risks compared with maybe other types of innovation. So built a community around that realized, like, I loved building community, like, that’s something that, like, gives me energy getting people together, yeah, and then I moved into the design team and built a design innovation network, so connecting innovators, people, different different technologies, different sectors, with user centered design, and trying to build a bit of strategy around systems thinking, getting people to think more holistically about innovation and what they were doing. And then went off to have Aida. Was on maternity leave for a few months, and he didn’t go back. Just Yeah, I kind of felt like I needed a new challenge
Mark McBride-Wright 12:52
as well. As having a little person in your life, you needed another new challenge as
Abi Hird 12:56
well. Yeah, I felt like if I went back into work with ADA and doing a job that I knew I could do, like, I mean, just
Mark McBride-Wright 13:09
coasted, yeah, or become
Abi Hird 13:11
bored and like I needed something new
Mark McBride-Wright 13:15
to and you sound like someone who’s always had the finger on the pulse of their career, making intentional, strategic choices to well, you’re laughing. It’s all like you’ve fallen from one thing and another, like there is a story to the well there, at least there’s a convenient logic that’s come up through the you can spin it in a certain way, even if you might feel it’s different.
Abi Hird 13:36
I think I’ve been opportunistic. I think that I’ve always looked even within a role, I need to be challenged, like I need to be trying something new or doing something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable. I think if I’m just going through the motions, yeah, I just can I just like, I just look, there’s an itch or something
Mark McBride-Wright 13:59
that’s expanding, expanding mental expansion. Tell us a bit about the fankle then. So you set that up. I remember now you telling me this. You set that up just after your, after you had Ada, hadn’t you? Or was it on your you were thinking about it was percolating The idea there whilst you were on maternity leave and so, so, how, how are things going? You know, tell us a bit about the fan calls, some of the projects you’ve worked on, and, you know, the world that you’re creating for yourself as a founder, entrepreneur,
Abi Hird 14:33
yes, has been amazing. Like, I’ve got absolutely no regrets about making that leap. Yeah. So I start, actually started before I was really ready, which I think was a positive thing, because I think I could have quite easily over thought everything, but, um, so Ada was about, she was, I guess, like she wasn’t even four months and I was in, I’d gone into in town to have a meeting with somebody who’d promised me the possibility. Of work. And I thought, I’m just going to go and knock on somebody else’s door before I go to this other meeting and see if they happen to be in the office more just for, like, a catch up. And she was like, I’m desperate for somebody. We’re like, in between, like, we’re recruiting somebody, but we’re not quite there yet. Like, could you come and help us out two days a week, just for two months, and help us with business development around KTP. So, like, I knew KTP inside out. It was like, minimum, like, cognitive pressure, like I knew what I was doing, and it just, like, got me going. So, like, she because there was urgency around getting started, it gave me a bit up the backside. So, like, my strategy, my like, maternity pay from my employer had came to an end, and I was on maternity pay. So, like, I knew you were allowed to, like, work self employed. And so I just, like, went for it. Did it launched. Like, I had the best the website kind of building in the background, yeah. Like, I was just like, Okay, we’re going to, we’re going to set that stage when it was four months, which feels really insanely early, but like that I was gonna just went through it and started two days a week, and it made, made the kind of announcement, and then people were just really very generous, like, with like, oh, you could get involved in that, or you need to speak to this person, or and then things just evolved. So I guess that KTP business development stuff was not really what I’d set out to do. It was more innovation support generally. But I wasn’t. I didn’t have a clear value proposition. I don’t, I mean, I think I’m only getting to that now, actually two and a half years in,
Mark McBride-Wright 16:38
takes time. Takes time. What was that KTP support? So KTPs knowledge transfer program,
Abi Hird 16:44
knowledge transfer partnership. So it’s like partnership between industry and university. So yeah, making, yeah, just making the connection between the academic and the company. And the KTP center is based at Strathclyde, but actually covers Strathclyde, Glasgow, the art school and Caledonian University. So you’re working across different universities.
Mark McBride-Wright 17:08
What do employers get out of it? Like, what they get the resource of a student or a researcher? Well, it’s
Abi Hird 17:16
such a good program, honestly, like a so it’s not, it’s like a graduate. So it could be somebody to one honors, a masters or a PhD, and there’s different salary band and support, like support, it’s for SMEs. It’s 70% funded by innovate, UK, right for larger businesses, it’s 5050 funding. But the outcomes of are amazing. I think I don’t know if it’s like 14 to one return on investment or something like that. It’s like, wow, yeah, but yeah, we get the benefit of having somebody with deep expertise around the particular problem. They also get half a day, a week of academic time. There’s a really clear project plan laid out at the outset, and then the process is kind of managed by Innovate UK and a knowledge transfer advisor. So it’s like a really nice way for businesses to do innovation. Like, I’m so
Mark McBride-Wright 18:13
like, is it like a short term does the graduate? Like, they become a permanent employee on a full time contract, or is that, by definition, a fixed term thing, engagement for the duration of the KTP? Is it at the end of their studies? And it’s, it’s hopefully leads to, like, a job with the SME or or the the business. So normally,
Abi Hird 18:38
they’re 24 months long, and I think there’s like some variation. That was a standard, standard project with 24 months long, and the graduate can stay with the business. Often they do stay with the business. Sometimes they don’t. So like the Johnson’s Belgian, when I did, I had a graduate who was actually based at Strathclyde, who knew he really wanted to do a KTP project, yeah, and he, yes, he was on the Johnson’s KTP, I think was like 26 months or something. I think it might have been extended slightly, and he’s now director. And, wow, yeah,
Mark McBride-Wright 19:12
wow, that’s brilliant. So it really helps with recruitment then as well, and for, for for job outcomes, for individuals, yeah, good way to bring in innovation, then to a business. Yeah, definitely. Would you ever consider doing one yourself? Do you have to be a business as a certain scale? So you’ve done it before, like helping foster it, but is it something defangle Could could tap into?
Abi Hird 19:37
I think as soon as I am big enough, I will be looking at an rkcp. So there’s, yeah, you’ve got to have your own premises, so you want to be able to host a company. So there are ways around that, like co working spaces and things, but you want, you have, have to be able to host an associate, sorry, and then you’ve got to be able to demonstrate that financially you’re stable enough to cover your proportion of the funding. Yeah. Um, so I think normally, a team of four is what they look for, like, has an absolute minimum. So I think, like, just now employee wise, it’s just me at the moment. So I think, I think in the future, definitely, definitely looking at KTP. I think, yeah, I think it’s nuts that more people don’t do them. You should be looking at
Mark McBride-Wright 20:21
Mark. I am not going to lie that there’s an agenda to me asking you these questions right now. Abby and I’m scribbling away not some post its to follow up afterwards, because I see them on the Innovate UK website when I’m going on my shopping sprees, as I call it, to look up opportunities for equal engineers, but I’ve never really, yeah, understood them, or, like, in detail, like what they actually are, so it’s just that, like being sure that we can definitely offer a good experience to anyone that takes part in it. You know, the last thing you want is to be successful in securing something but then not able to live up to what it’s touted. As you know,
Abi Hird 21:08
so other advanced so the plans all detailed out the start has got to be strategic. So it’s got to like, really working on something that is really important to your business, and then something that you don’t have skills for in house, and that you probably couldn’t just go to a consultancy and get Yeah, yeah. So
Mark McBride-Wright 21:26
maybe I’ve got a gazillion and one ideas floating around my brain.
Abi Hird 21:30
And then the other thing about it is that the application process, it’s not like a smart grant where there’s like a 5% success rate. If you’re going to submit a KTP application, you’ve got the process looks slightly different. So you’ve got to work with the knowledge transfer advisor who will take your application and kind of champion
Mark McBride-Wright 21:49
it, yeah.
Abi Hird 21:52
So you, as you get to the kind of like process of completing a full application, you’re probably going to get funded. So, like, the through that submitting applications and not getting funded, and the frustration around that, like you’re not something that
Mark McBride-Wright 22:06
we’ve, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve on and off. Done Innovate UK, we did one they had, like a diversity one a few years ago, and we tried to apply for funding for our neurodiversity network. It was like 50,000 pounds or something. And it was, you know, even though we got quite a high score, we still didn’t get so I guess the threshold then just so high. Are there so many applications that are of such a high quality that then, you know, you see a number that’s in the high 80s, and you’re still told that you still didn’t get it. You’re like, oh, right, okay. But you know, it gets good, you get feedback at least. And you know you’re then, you know you’re then on to something, and so you can work it through in a different way. Yeah. So what’s the so that’s what you did. So what are you working on now? Like, what’s the future for defang call, where are you heading now in your entrepreneurial journey?
Abi Hird 23:10
So yeah, we’ve gone through a process of doing things like training programs for public sector around innovation. I do coaching, Innovate UK, Business Connect design for growth, coaching. I do teaching at Strathclyde, so it’s quite like coaching and teaching focus. There’s also little bits of consultancy in there. Often people will get me in to talk about innovation process, and actually you find out that it’s not necessarily the process, it’s their culture or their strategy, so help people think through that type of stuff. And I think now I’m at a point where I’m clear that about the value that’s that I can offer around that, and how my experience is like really well aligned around that, specifically for engineering and technology companies. So I think my technical background and my experience working in this space really helps. But I think the strategic consultancy and helping people think about their innovation strategy is is where the focus is going to be going forward.
Mark McBride-Wright 24:15
You think we teach innovation properly in engineering at university level.
Abi Hird 24:24
Oh, well, so, yeah, that’s interesting. So I teach, I do teach it at Strathclyde. I teach it to third years, okay? And I teach it, so I teach it to third years on like part of the core of like specific courses. So it wouldn’t be necessarily available across engineering faculty, but then I teach management of innovation to post grads, okay, and people from across engineering so, like mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, will come to that class, and I think it blows their mind. It’s kind of like, like, I know people from that class will go off into industry with a. Completely different perspective, yeah, from just having done, like, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, they’ll understand the point, like, how it all fits together, not just like their single discipline.
Mark McBride-Wright 25:12
Yeah, no, it’s they’re eat. So I started when I actually after your dinner, the fankle innovation dinner that I came to in Glasgow, I was flying back to New York the following day, and when I was at the airport, I picked up. I did my usual, buy one, get one half price business books, which is why I’ve got bookshelves that work like yours as well. And one of the books that I picked up. Well, I’d already done my buy one, get one free, pre security, and then when I was through security, I went back into another bookshop, and I thought, I can’t buy anymore. Then I picked up one book, and I read a paragraph, and I was like, I’m going to get this actually. And it was and I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it’s the third most read book in the United States, and the author is Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Now I may not necessarily agree with his politics and background and what have you, but it was I wanted to read it. And it talks about how we don’t get a very good financial education. We’re not really taught finance at all. And, you know, this book came out back in the 70s, and it’s, he’s updated it subsequently, and it’s been, you know, it’s a it’s a book on good financial education. It’s why a lot of people have have read it, or know about it when I’ve mentioned it, but I’ve actually read, like bought his two other books that followed. Subsequently, he’s got an entire ecosystem of books now on the under this rich dad brand. But he talks about the ambition for financial freedom, and you know, and what I’ve what I’ve found through reading it, the Cash Flow Quadrant, which is his second book. So interesting, being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, myself, having been an employee and then moved into being a business owner, the way he was talking about about everything, assets and liabilities and how to look at your balance sheet and your income statement and everything like that. You know, I get training. I’ve had education like that from my accountant, and I know how to do that roughly. But do I properly know how to do it? Do I know how to do it in my personal life and in my professional life, not so much. And you know, I was reading this even as an entrepreneur running an engineering business now, having done an engineering undergraduate and an engineering doctorate, and I’m thinking this would have been really useful to have known a while ago. And then I had this thought, I know, I’m aware of a few innovation in the title accelerators and programs and initiatives and electives. And then I’m sort of thinking, are they, are they even, are they talking about stuff in this way? I don’t know. I don’t know. And so it’s, it’s, it’s not something I’ve I’ve only just finished reading that, you know, the books and that and it, but it’s definitely shifted my mindset as an entrepreneur about how I view things and how I prioritize contracts, and how I how I execute things. And I don’t know it just, it was just pause for thought, thinking about, obviously, I’m trying to do all this EDI stuff in the curriculum. And I don’t think we ever really did innovation properly when I was at Imperial, we did some electives with, at the time, the Tanaka business school, but it’s now the Imperial College Business School. So yeah, I don’t know. It’s just,
Abi Hird 28:59
I think, I think the other way to look at it is the stuff that I teach to engineering students. So there’s only like 40 of them. I don’t know how many people graduate from engineering faculty or Strathclyde each. Oh, hundreds. Maybe a small fraction of them will have that understanding of innovation management. But when you go out into business, companies don’t, and that’s, that’s like a pretty that’s like a 12 week module, a couple of hours a week, like, it’s not, like, super intense. This is everything you need to know about innovation, even at that level. Like, businesses just don’t. They either don’t have an innovation process, they don’t understand the importance of culture, they maybe don’t even have a really clear strategy that’s relevant to what the direction that they’re heading in. Like, yeah, there’s like, yeah, big gaps. Or if people do have an innovation process, it’s probably like a Stage Gate process. Process, it might not be appropriate for what they’re trying to do. Like, the cultural stuff around innovation is huge. Like, yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think when people think about innovation, they think about tech, and actually, it’s just one type of innovation. There’s all sorts of other innovation that you can be involved in or doing that can different ways. You can add value to your customers or grow your business, and doing it well is not just about product design or technology development, it’s about that, how that fits the strategy, how you’re managing your resources to give you leverage, to give you the best of advantage the systems and processes that sit underneath that that allow you to deliver that consistently, that will allow you to adapt. Should you have to adapt? Yeah, build in resilience. And then it’s about the storytelling. So the communication around that stuff that everybody in the organization is on the same page, like innovation is not going to work if people have disjointed views of what it is you’re trying to do. The communication around it’s key, and then the culture, like the culture, underpins everything.
Mark McBride-Wright 31:05
Yeah, I wonder. You’re such a fountain of knowledge, and you know, how? How do you make people realize that thinking about innovation in this way is critical? Is critical. It’s, it’s, it’s so important. I’m just, I’m wondering what you could do to help grow your business in you know, I’m thinking about all my sales training with lead funnels and getting people into your into your funnel. Yeah, we talk a bit about you yourself, using your origin story more as a founder, and getting out there, on on, on the stages. And I think I, you know, I think that would be, I think that would be incredible for your business.
Abi Hird 31:59
Yeah, I think people maybe aren’t comfortable with the word innovation as well, which is some people off, or they have preconceived ideas about what it means, and think either they’ve cracked it or it’s not relevant for them. And I think it is relevant for everybody. I think
Mark McBride-Wright 32:16
maybe, maybe that’s your thing, then maybe that that sometimes it’s easy to over engineer the message that we think we have to be bringing to the world and over complicate it, but actually we need to be simplifying, simplifying that. I mean, we run an Innovation of the Year Award at the engineering talent awards, and my mind goes straight to thinking about the technical things. I think, in our course, in our award description, we clarify that innovation isn’t just, you know, a physical thing or an output or product. It could be an innovative process or a redesign of something, but it usually ends up being some sort of fancy application to a new context that is innovative. You know, that are the things that we see coming through. So maybe, maybe yeah, maybe, maybe challenging engineers to to revisit what innovation means, yeah,
Abi Hird 33:12
yeah.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:14
Is a big, a big, a big, a big, big, big, big ask, I guess, big ask. Yeah, I just realized I haven’t actually looked at any of these questions that I’ve prepared for
Abi Hird 33:27
you. Yeah, I feel like, is this, is this a podcast? It feels like just a normal, a normal chat.
Mark McBride-Wright 33:32
Well, that that, that that’s what that well, that’s what I am. What I really valued about what you curated at the dinner that we had, because, you know, you, you definitely are a people connector. I wouldn’t have met Ian had I not came to your dinner that night. And I’ve got, I got a copy his book on Servitization, and I know I need time to read that and really immerse myself and what it means and how I might be able to benefit from it or adopt it for my business. So So on my to read list in in September. But yeah, you’ve had, you’ve had such a fusion of people come and come into those I think, I think they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re a great, they’re a great way to help build to help build relationships. Is your work? Do you work across the UK? Do you work internationally? Are you? Do you tend to find you’re quite Scotland focused? Yeah,
Abi Hird 34:35
across the UK. I would say I’ve not done anything internationally yet, like somebody from France brought some of my card sets, but I’ve not not done any international work, like the first year, lots of my work was in London, and that was actually quite hard, where they’d have been so small. So I think although I’m keen to keep that UK work, I’m also a bit more focused. Looking for local work and building local
Mark McBride-Wright 35:03
relationships. Tell us about your cards. Yes, we haven’t spoken about them. Tell us about your your your card sets.
Abi Hird 35:11
So that was maybe, yeah, that, I guess that was like maybe part of how we met at Royal Academy of Engineering. I don’t know it was run a workshop on inclusive innovation when they had a kind of like conference event launching culture, plus with Innovate UK and Royal Academy of Engineering. I think Ada was brand new as well. So it was, like still very early days. I think I maybe started in May, and the event might have been in September. So I kind of like thought, if I’m going to run a workshop on inclusive innovation, I need to, like, be it was inclusive design, sorry. So it was like, yeah. I was like, I need to be, like, super prepared. So I made this card set to run the workshop. And then even, like, being so, like, over prepared, like, in the morning and the hotel, I was like, I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe I could just, like, pull a second. I had to really force myself to go, like I was so nervous. I’d think, I’ve ever been so nervous. But I think that was just like, the
Mark McBride-Wright 36:06
it was great. It was really good. I loved it,
Abi Hird 36:12
yeah, like, it did go well, like people enjoyed the card set. Like people were asking if they could buy the card set, which kind of took me back a little bit. And I think, like, I guess the other thing was, everybody in the room was an inclusion, inclusive design, or, like an engineer who was interested. You were like, it wasn’t, like, a basic level audience, like, but I felt like people, everybody in the room, got value for it from it. So I feel like, actually, I’m on to something here, like this is interesting and valuable, and it like I had done work previously at annoy on, like, inclusion, inclusive engineering, inclusive design, and like, thinking about that, like, in systemic terms, rather than just thinking about, like, the HR angle or the physical product angle, but thinking, like, how all these things interconnect and like, how one exacerbates the other, yeah, so, like, they had developed a little card set, and then people wanted to buy them. So I’ve sold not millions. Like, I’m not going to retire on it, but like, I’ve sold a few like, people,
Mark McBride-Wright 37:20
and are they still available? Can people still get their hands on them on I
Abi Hird 37:25
guess, like, based on that, I developed another few card sets to help me with teaching and to help me with the website. I feel like it’s just quite a they’ve been useful tools for like learning things and stimulating thinking and giving
Mark McBride-Wright 37:37
something. I’ve never used a card set. How do you use a card set? Are they like a teaching tool that help give prompts or something in a workshop
Abi Hird 37:46
prompt? So I think they work. The one that works best is probably the inclusive innovation one, I think, because it’s a topic that people maybe feel a little bit uncomfortable with. So you’ve got, like, tan, you’ve got something tangible to hold, which I think always helps, kind of like refer to or like a bit of a crutch, but, and it like, when you the discussion could go so many ways, or there’s so much that could be talked about, it means that people have got, like, a lot of information that they can take away, or they can kind of filter through, rather than dictating what people have got to Talk about. They can kind of like, land on what they’re drawn to. They’ve got choices as well. Yeah, that’s a much more succinct way of describing it. Well,
Mark McBride-Wright 38:29
it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, well, you’ve got a toddler as well. You’ve got a young person in your life. Like, when, when you give choices, it just diffuses so many arguments rather than coming out like this is what you have to talk about. I don’t want to talk about that, you know. If you say, well, these are the things you can talk about that are listed on this card set. Take it as you go and see what creativity you come up with. People are happy and they feel like they’ve got some control, but they’re not fully, you know, because sometimes, if you leave it too wide as a facility, or people don’t kind of catch wind of where you’re wanting them to go. So it’s a way to kind of guide them as well. Isn’t it, like guardrails, almost, for the conversation? Yeah. So
Abi Hird 39:16
you can structure it in different ways. Normally, I get people to choose a case study. So there’s like, a set of cards with case studies, and then there’s a set of cards with, like, tools and methods. So then I get cool, okay, what could have been done in these scenarios that would have, like, helped better design in this situation, or has been used for good could have been used for good design situation that’s
Mark McBride-Wright 39:39
interesting. So you have, you have, you have one set of cards that are, like case studies, one set of cards that are tools and methods. And literally, you could have, like, any combination of application of the tools and methods to the different case studies, the case study deck, yeah, well,
Abi Hird 39:53
but so some of the, some of the case studies, you could use a whole range of methods, and then some of them, it’s actually, that’s. Method should have been prioritized. One example that comes up all the time is representative data, okay, so I think that probably could be used across every single case study,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:14
yeah, and then making sure you’ve got data that reflects the application of the service or technology that’s being considered or designed.
Abi Hird 40:25
Yeah, and then there’s a little, there’s like a little, I think there’s like, 10 prompt cards that just like, get people reflecting on their own practice or their own organizations. And what could be a little bit
Mark McBride-Wright 40:37
different, interesting. Do you use these in your university lectures, in your training with the students.
Abi Hird 40:44
Yeah, I use them in lectures. I use them. Yeah, I run that same workshop a lot,
Mark McBride-Wright 40:51
a lot. Yeah, that you’re your best seller. You know, I’ve always met if you’re on Dragons Den and you’re pitching in front Deborah, meeting and everyone, and Deborah says, What’s your best seller is that? Is that? Is it that workshop that’s your go to.
Abi Hird 41:05
That’s probably the workshop that I’ve delivered the most. Yeah, got
Mark McBride-Wright 41:09
you? Got you? Okay, quick fire question rounds, are you? You’re ready, right? What’s the best piece of innovation advice you’ve ever received?
Abi Hird 41:27
I think, I think maybe the concept that sometimes doing nothing is worse, like sometimes just just taking action, just going for it, sometimes the biggest risk is not doing anything. So just like, do something, and then I think, yeah, I guess, related to that, like the not over preparing, just like putting something out there, and like testing it and going for it, and like taking the leap, taking the leap.
Mark McBride-Wright 41:54
What’s one project you’re especially proud of?
Abi Hird 41:58
Probably my PhD. That’s an easy, easy one to answer. Probably, yeah, my it’s an engineering doctor. It wasn’t a PhD, but that probably
Mark McBride-Wright 42:07
Coffee, tea or something more creative,
Abi Hird 42:12
coffee. Probably I’m just getting any iced coffee.
Mark McBride-Wright 42:15
Oh, nice with some sugar free vanilla syrup. My favorite,
Abi Hird 42:20
I’m actually going for sugar free caramel syrup. Oh, caramel,
Mark McBride-Wright 42:23
caramel. Not, not just as nice, just as nice. What’s one skill every systems thinker should develop empathy. What’s a book or resource you always recommend? Oh,
Abi Hird 42:40
the authority gap. It’s a book by a lady called Mary Ann Steiger. I think, yes, yeah. It’s a brilliant, brilliant book. Yes, I remember you mentioning it. Yeah. It’s probably my most recommended book, the
Mark McBride-Wright 42:55
authority gap. What’s your go to way to recharge creatively,
Abi Hird 42:59
probably wild swimming or cooking, potentially.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:06
What’s one tool or method you think more leaders should use?
Abi Hird 43:16
Um, probably something really basic, like empathy maps or customer journey maps and I think, not just with like their external customers, but thinking about the experience of internal people in their organization as well.
Mark McBride-Wright 43:31
Who’s a thinker or designer that inspires you?
Abi Hird 43:35
Oh, Donella Meadows. She’s like a systems thinker, okay, not seeing their work, just like systems dynamics kind of stuff, like, and then I guess, like, another systems dynamics person would be John Sterman from MIT, like, yeah, Daniela meadows, like, if you watch her lectures online, some of them are like, I’m black and white and really old, which has just got a really nice style, like such a clear way of thinking and communicating, and then a more up to date, localish person, somebody like Andy yohar, who’s, like another one of the Design Council experts, but he’s an architect and systems thinker, and he’s just again, like just real clear and deep ways of thinking about things from a systems point of view.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:29
What’s something about innovation that people often get wrong?
Abi Hird 44:34
I guess what we were chatting about that it’s about technology, that’s just tech or products, and actually it’s more than that.
Mark McBride-Wright 44:41
Finally, what advice would you give your younger self starting out in engineering?
Abi Hird 44:53
I think I’d want myself to be more confident, like just don’t doubt yourself so much. Just, I don’t know, I don’t know it. Just, it’s going to be all right, like,
Mark McBride-Wright 45:04
yeah, you’ve got it, you’ve got it. You can do it totally, totally, and you are doing it. You’ve had a highly successful career, amazing that I’ve learned a lot about innovation. You’ve challenged me a bit more. But my thinking. I’m definitely one of those people that still go to my bias, thinking that it’s about something physical, when actually it can be so much more. We had a team day at Eco engineers last week, two days actually. And I think there are reason, even some things from that, that I can evolve the thinking on a bit more deeply in terms of how we could maybe be more innovative with in terms of our processes and how we work as a team. So I will keep that front of mind if people want to get in touch with you, Abby, if they think you know maybe you could support them. If defang call could do some project work, or, I think you’re looking at more some consulting practice, application opportunities. You know, how do people get in touch with you and find out about what you offer?
Abi Hird 46:08
So Abby at the fanco.com or you can find me on LinkedIn or the website, which is just about to be updated. So, yeah, there’s contact, a contact page on the website, but like LinkedIn or just emailing me. Just fabulous,
Mark McBride-Wright 46:24
perfect. We’ll put all those links in the show notes as well. Thank you very much for your time. Really enjoyed the catch
Abi Hird 46:31
up. Yeah, I’ve enjoyed it. Mark. It was brilliant. Make catch up more often.
Mark McBride-Wright 46:35
Definitely, definitely speak to you later.
Abi Hird 46:38
See you soon. Cheers. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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