stay hungry stay foolish I want to thank our sponsor zai bowley transforming the future of financial services with a suite of embedded products and services enabling businesses to manage multiple payment workflows and move funds with ease checkout zai hello zai.com before we even begin today I want to make a key statement today's book is not about women versus men it is not even about gender it is about celebrating the duality of the feminine and the masculine in all human beings and making sure we activate both energies to create Innovation that brings True Value to our world it is a pleasure to welcome the author of Venus genius the female prescription for Innovation Fabian Jacque bienvenue I really appreciate to be here on this show and hopefully uh please the audience with my thinking it's such a welcome book and Innovation needs women it needs feminine energy but I thought we'd start with a question Fabienne and I'm gonna pose this to our audience if you have kids with an earshot maybe you'll divert their attention just for a quick moment so I'm just going to give you a moment to divert their attention why should a sex toy for women be shaped like a penis that's the question and the answer Fabian tells us is quite simple I'll pass the mic over to you Fabienne to explain this one thank you very much and and a very provocative statement but it makes the point it does make the point that the world as I said and you said you mentioned that is driven really by masculine energy and by Man by definition because so far men have more masculine energy than women and it has been recognized like that but as we'll see not biologically it's more the upbringing the environment that shapes you know gender as we grow up so it's the world is made by men for men through the man's lands so when it comes this example and we have a lot of other examples in the book two sex toys for women men think that the only way that women can achieve pleasure is through their wonderful organ of course what else well they just forgot a little detail is that and the kids can still be away women have a clitoris and this is their major way to achieve sexual pleasure but not recognizing that is you know as when you innovate you have to understand the needs of your ultimate consumers and client and here men think with their man's cup and it's not um uh condemning them I I understand because they've been brought up like that and it's obvious to them they don't even think about it so this is why it's so refreshing to see companies like Dame products I mentioned and other companies driven by women they've reminded me Fabian I worked in a company once a media company and the audience of this it was for a radio station and one of the radio stations had a very much female audience and they wanted to hire a community manager to manage Facebook and Instagram all those type of social platforms and they were hiring men and I was like why are you hiring a guy to speak to women like he's he's he even if he's the best writer in the world he's gonna struggle to do that you got to be you're fishing in the wrong Pond and I raised that to say it's exactly like you were saying about the products you mentioned multiple products will discover some of them today but also the skill for example it's good to have empathy yes but it's even better if you're the you are the target audience who is actually developing the product you absolutely agree with you and again as you mentioned at the beginning it's not men versus women it's really this energy and I'm sure we will talk about that I relate in the book how personally being protest between two brothers being a scientist uh when you know at that time you didn't have that many girls in the science field I had to fight I had to use my masculine energy and then in the corporate world it was the same thing so I really was so used to function from my masculine energy that it really hurt my personal life as I narrated in the book so the the point is really rebalancing wherever I say wherever you are I was on the masculine side you may be on the very feminine one even if you your gender is to be a to be a man so wherever we are but being balanced being monsanted as a human being is perfect for not only the personal life but also the professional life and let's share as well the the challenge here because it's taken us a long time to get to where we are in the business World which is very unequal and as you say current research shows that it's going to take about another 100 I'm going to say 116 because the book was written about two years ago 116 years oh you're really ready to achieve gender parity it's going to take that long maybe you'll tell us a little bit about this yes because again you have to go back to history and I'm a scientist okay so whatever I said in the book believe me I did research and I love that and by the way nowadays doing research with internet what a pleasure I did my PhD you know going to the library and I got this huge chemical in a chemical abstraction of this huge bookending in them oh my God it was it was really it was really a another period but anyway so I did a lot of research and um the point is that innovation in the past was really driven by technology and measured by patents so as women haven't been taken out of Science and did universities until recently in the history women were not exposed to Science and Technology hence they were you know not into the Innovation Arena so this is one reason the second reason is that it's an interesting one because people think that Innovation is like for Rebels and adventurers and as I say it's not my case uh but a lot of girls are raised first they are softer than men let's Advent less adventurous and so on but the um the way they are brought up boys you know it's normal they fight and they are brought up to be adventurers and and they explore the world and so on and girls to sit and be quiet and so on so of course it doesn't prepare girls to be innovators so you know you have a lot of historical and social reasons why women have been really out of this Innovation Arena Plus usually even if they were really good and stunned men were at the front and they were taking credit for women having to book a lot of examples in different areas it can be science it can be art like female artists you know being behind their male counterpart and it's pathetic and it's sad because women can bring something different as I say in the book to Innovation and to this world and we need this healing female and feminine energy today especially in these days of chaos and where people are depressed and don't know where to go and what to do so I think we really need this positive healing collaborative energy you found personal experience in this you've worked in Labs you've created products and you mentioned for example when a product product has things like convenience and basic performance mesh so there you've got them what it really needs and we know this more and more from marketing is it needs emotional energy and that's often what's lacking in a lot of products they might lack this real emotional energy that's poured into the product and it's not just about the messaging it's not just about the marketing of the product it's about the product itself and maybe you'll share your own personal example where you brought a product from ideation all the way through to the shelves I think you are referring to this shower gel project yeah and and this is a very project which is very close to my heart so we were tasked to and I annihilate that in in the book also to develop a relaxing shower gel especially for women okay fine so of course I was in in Orange at that time my marketing counterparts started to say oh yeah so we should have you know visuals of a bath with candles and vanilla scent blah blah blah blah and I was like thinking wow this is boring you know anyway and so I think okay let's have something let's have brainstorming sessions with actually with women who who can tell you what is really relaxing and so on and so we we were in a remote location it was great I had a multi-function team you had even legal Finance uh safety you have r d of course you had marketing you had a consumer insights all the people who will would ultimately work on the product and launch it because it's important to have them involved from the very beginning and you had a lot of women not also men in in the group and we started to brainstorm and at one point his lady said well you know what let's be honest what is good for me and relaxing at the end of the day is a glass of wine and everybody laughed and I said don't laugh don't laugh because she has a very good point so we developed a shower gel that had all the Napa Valley you know visuals and so on and the formula was burgundy with the little beast like you know these little seeds and so on and and a fragrance that was very good mountains on and it read it it really when we tested it with consumers and we tested it not only for the functional benefits that were of course good but for the emotional benefits and this product rated the highest of the category in the emotional ringing we're very proud of that and indeed resonated with the consumers had very very good results so it just proves that when you create a product with your emotions starting from your own emotions it shows it's like an artist I was also giving the example that it really inspired me of this guy who was inspiring us with a song and he was singing and it was about you know separation it was sad we were almost crying in this business environment I said why is it so emotional I say because I created this song with my emotions so it's same thing for Innovation if you don't create it from your own emotions why are startups successful because the person who starts the startup says oh there is a problem and they are deeply involved and emotionally connected to this problem like my mother has problems with the finances and she doesn't find a bank that really listens to her needs and then creating this banking for women you see what I mean so they are emotionally attached and this is why it's successful because it's something which is real which is emotional and we feel it you feel it authenticity we feel as people when people really mean it I really thought about it as art and I know art is very close to your heart because your husband is an artist and for those people watching us on YouTube that beautiful piece of art on the wall That's fabian's husband's work and would maybe share his website as well at the end on the show notes as well Fabian but I was thinking about that because a few years ago now actually a guest on the show a Liam r she mentioned that really when you're buying a piece of art today artificial intelligence can do that art artificial intelligence can create it but she asked the really killer question what are you buying and then she answered it as follows you're buying the evolution of the artist from when they had the idea all the way through to delivery to the image on the canvas and I thought that was just a beautiful way of thinking about it and I actually think about Innovation that way just like you were saying about the products from ideation so many ideas got killed when they're just an idea when they're in inkling and it takes a lot of female energy as we'll talk about it a little while particularly to nurture an idea to Bear us to bringeth into the world is a very much female evolutionary skill at the very heart of it as well but I want to just remind our audience keep in mind the story that Fabian told about the shower gel because it's an anchor on which to hang a lot of the skills we're going to talk about later on we will refer back to when we'll come back to it but before we do I love the story of the lady so think of an old lady in a sharp tattered dress with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth as you'd say in France hanging from her bottom lip and uh Ash Fallen all over her Etc and she's there in the corner knitting on the yarn and this is a story where you use utilize how to show all the different female energy traits coming together with a person and then we'll come back and we'll go through those traits individually over to you Fabian when you talked about the painting and the art and so on I think I should share this story I have in my book about my husband's paintings uh so Patrick my husband no he painted and he sold uh paintings and especially a friend of ours was really a fan of his and then it happened my husband had a lung cancer who had two years of hell and so on and then one day he was strong enough to be able to strong enough in his head and also he's a physically to take the brush back and paint and he painted this painted painting usually takes two or three months it was like done there and he called it him to life okay then our friend will say oh I would like to buy another paintings for Batteries okay fine so he comes here and as usual I lined up all the canvases around the the room for him to choose and so on and I started I didn't even finish and he looked at this one and said this is the one I want and we didn't share it was the last one we didn't share you know the story the title and I say why why do you pick this one he looked at me and said you know what because I feel both hope and despair I tried and I say well and I explained to him the story so to your point artificial intelligence could definitely create beautiful pictures aesthetically Pleasant and so on but he should never at this point of the technology it would never ever convey the emotions that my husband had when I do that so I just wanted to share that because it's really building on your story about this lady talking about art and this is emotions again because yeah it's beautiful so what or is somebody famous and this is because of the value but having something that resonates here this is what art should be yeah I didn't forget and I didn't forget about the story so actually I wrote this book uh in the in a program and I had co-authors and we had these weekly meetings and so on and this lady and Hogg I I uh interviewed for for the book I was talking about feminine energy and suddenly she said I have to share a story so she was in Chicago and she was you know advertising agency in very early in her career okay and then she wanted to do some creative Hobby and she said oh what about knitting so she goes in her neighborhood and pushes the doors you nicely described all this shop and you have this lady Grampy and so on you know I'll just say with a cigarette dangling and earning and say what do you want so well I just one is it possible to learn how to knit I said oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know just to buy these needles buy things I will help you and then and said okay so I think I will try to start with with a scarf she looked at her saying no way this is not the way we do it here what what do you want to have what is really close to your heart I don't know what I want to go back home look at the magazines and you come back when you really really want to knit that thing so she comes back home and she thought of a Chanel jacket she has seen in a magazine and of course she couldn't afford it and she came back with that and the lady looks at it okay fine Papa and she draws like that this is how you should do and son and she guided her and Son weeks and weeks and weeks because it's not an easy task and Anne discovered that this lady had workshops so it was a shop but also ladies around were coming and she was teaching them how to knead and it was a community so it was not only you know selling something it was a community it was like and and also the fact that this grumpy was so feminine as we will discover later and femininity is not linked to gender as we already said numerous times but he's also not linked to your look and the way you behave some people do I say I'm masculine oh yes you're so feminine I said no you don't get it I'm asking it here let's map it now to why that actually matters because you later on talk about and I just want to remind fabian's a scientist so she's done the huge amount of research on this and it's beautiful timing Fabienne because it comes on the back of some episodes we've done on the brain and you talk about well there's a difference between what gray matter and white matter does in the brain and these have dramatic differences in how you run a project because one is about collecting dots and it was about connecting dots so well yes I'm a scientist I always say you know I'm a doctor chemistry so if you get sick the only thing I can prescribe to you is champagne just to do dramatize but yes I'm a scientist and and part of it and and it helps a lot in life because you analyze things and you do research and and so on and so when I decided to create my business you know we even write this book I had analyzed the skills that make a good innovator and I really want something I did a lot of research and I listed everything and then I crossed that with the skills that were labeled feminine and then I picked six of them that I think are really important for Innovation and more on the feminine side and I wrote my little chemical formula I shared in the book and on my website which is when you have empathy you add inclusivity intuition like the I2 things gratitude and you catalyze on that with collaboration you get Innovation that resonates emotionally with consumers and bring you money so this is the way for me to capture you know all this um and and I forgot nurturing and have also nurturing so these six skills into a formula say it works and applying it to for example this lady they are the knitting lady or um I also have at the end of the book a story about a chef a cook who is a guy but who plays exactly this formula and is very successful let's talk about your framework as well because there's multitude of Frameworks the library behind me full of them and I love your framework because it really focuses on two parts and again let's refer back to your shower gel project because you talk about there's a front-end part of innovation and then there's the back end so this is a very classical process if you Google process Innovation Innovation process sorry you will have a lot of processes and very commonly did very complicated and but most of them and it's classical in the world of innovation you have a front end of innovation which is when we go from nothing to a prototype and then the back end while you take this prototype and develop it into a commercial solution so a lot has been written and we have a lot of processes and so on and and people know that when you have a prototype how to develop into a commercial product this text actually masculine energy and this is my hypothesis okay that this back end taking a prototype and scaling it up and testing it to make sure it fits you know all the consumersness and then developing the the pilot developing at the industry or Skate Supply Chain and so on everything is very logical focused decision making this masculine energy that we all have and is necessary to spring into action and actually do something with it however the front end of innovation which is basically going from nothing or an idea to the Prototype is where a lot of companies and businesses cut short because okay yeah I have an idea and jumping to this prototype so they cut that and they jump directly there and this is how we end up with a lot of things we don't really need to be honest or don't even like so when you spend more time in this front end of innovation you develop something that is more meaningful sustainable and connects better to the final consumer and this is where I developed the six skills that I think help the development of a meaningful prototype that yeah you spend more time up front but it pays off afterwards I'm gonna start off the next little section with a quote and I'm gonna ask our audience guess what the heck I'm talking about here is it a torture device it goes as follows a Public Health Challenge doubled the number of American women going to the emergency room between 2002 and 2012 according to a BMC Public Health Report in 2017.
it causes musculoskeletal pain Venus complaints such as fatigue and heavy feeling legs and has been found to provoke venous hypertension in the lower limbs not to mention long-term aches and pains in the U.S this practice affects 70 percent of women at some stage in their lives and over 40 percent on a daily basis 50 percent of women experience daily pain from this and yet women continue to do it this was fascinating and this really emphasizes the challenge here and as you mentioned there and this is what provoked me to talk about it we often have products that why the heck are we using them still and they dominate in a field over to you to explain this one you know the answer I'm wearing them I'm wearing them yeah yeah I know this is the beauty of Zoom we don't see the bottom part so this practice is and I'm the first culprit because to me high heels have been part of my life I was running in this high heels my entire life and um recently I had two foot surgeries the first thing my surgeon asked me did you um where have you been wearing high heels I said yeah of course my entire life you say well this is it and again this is scientific research and it's proven that wearing high heels is not at all healthy and it's it's it's a it's a it's a big problem so why do we do it and why did I do it well this is because again this social historical reasons that the story of high heels through history is absolutely fascinating like at the beginning men were wearing high heels but it was for very practical reasons it was because you know they were on the horses and the hills where keeping you know them from sledding in the syrups that's why I wear them that's why I wear it but you know stiletto don't work for that hi then but then in the middle age actually both men and women were wearing you know high heels and and platform shoes it was another practical reason is because the streets were full of filthy things so to be elevated from that but then only men wore Hills like uh the our French King and son because it was a sign of superiority and you know it was only four minutes and then suddenly it came that it was women who were wearing high heels and the reason was because it made them look more sexy to the male gaze and they felt more sexy and I will go even further with high heels you cannot really run away from a man I'm very serious it's all this is so complex and this is so grounded in this patriarchal society where women are and women bodies are objectified and used by a man so a famous French designer says that he creates shoes for women thinking of the man's gaze because men will have the pleasure of looking at women walking in them you cannot walk in these things this is terrible and it gives you the ideas I mean like Anyway this topic is is really very interesting and and and it's so anchored again I did it and you see how I'm preaching that you have to reuse the feminine energy and I did it so it's really rooted in our society in in our culture that it is the case now luckily luckily it's evolving a lot you had now a lot of women entrepreneurs who are creating shoes that of course are still sexy and we want to feel beautiful and sexy and and well in our body but we can walk in them actually be comfortable and I think this is a huge a huge progress that we can now change that I think and also other things changed um it was interesting in New York City that the in the shoe stores on the floor they were saying that women were asking for flat shoes because they wanted to be aware able to run fast it was after 9 11.
and then with the covet also very interesting like well more casual and sad and say why do I torture my feet I'm far more comfortable in more comfortable shoes so I think a lot of things made us think about it and evolve which is good and and this is going for for the better but God this is so so anchored it just shows you how socialized we have been you know that that still prevails but you also mentioned in the book that you you talk about the law in Carmel about the high heels as well and maybe we'll explain that because that's a practical reason but then what absolutely shook me about one-third of women have to wear high heels to work they have to they were one lady you mentioned was sent home for not wearing high heels that still exists today uh absolutely and in 2017 at the festival of can in France uh the ladies couldn't go on the red carpet because they were wearing flat shoes I know it this is why I say it's evolving so slowly it's pathetic we should be able to to Really choose what we want to walk in and and some women love silitos and fine but if the this is their choice totally fine while totally free to do whatever we want but that we have to because of the law because of the the the work policies or because men expect us to wear those high heels this is not right let's give another example because you don't care about WCI women-centered Innovation so there's a massive massive opportunity here a massive untapped Market more and more women are earning more and more money slowly as as we said it's going slowly but it's happening and designing products for women by women offers a huge example a huge opportunity but let's use the example here of how the evolution of the tampon happened and what you've seen through your experience as well because originally there was a lack of Technology but it was women originally innovating to create these products because they needed them yeah the tampon and and you know these are nectar the NASA it cracked me up because when they send the first female astronaut into space and the engineers the NASA are very nicely thought of oh what about she has her period so how many tampons does she need and instead of doing what should have been done is asking women around but maybe there were not a lot of women around at that time but instead of actually a woman they started a very very sophisticated calculation with flows and absorbency rates of tampons and materials and so on and come up came up with okay a hundred tampons for a week which obviously is not really the right number so it just shows that men innovating for women they use their skills the logic all the calculations and so on and not even you know connect to the emotions of the and say practically please how do many tampons do you use just as your wife your daughter I mean like so the tampon actually again it has been developed by men for uh for women and um at the beginning as you said women always used whatever materials including vegetable you know herbs or or herbs or whatever they could find around them and and pieces of clothes or whatever to use as a tampon because they had to to to deal with uh with uh these natural even that happens every month for um all the women in in the world and then the this was actually a Californian woman who had the idea of inserting this sponge in you know inside instead of having the pad outside because for most of the history we had these famous paths that you still had to uh you know it was it was a nightmare but anyway so she had the idea and she talked to a friend of of hers who was a scientist and of course he developed and patented the technology and then sold it to a female entrepreneur Stein who who is the one who created Tampax but then it was acquired by a big company and so on and then so you have a lot of historians and it's pathetic to see that until very recently you didn't have any Innovation around the tampons and also you had this very very strong in some regions in some countries um cultural blocks that um in China actually a young lady was interviewed and she said that her boyfriend didn't want her to use tampons because this was infringing on his territory I mean like it's it's really very yeah again anchor that the body of the women has to be at the service of men which is not right and now again you mentioned that a lot of women are really rethinking the way we should approach menstruation make it more fun make it more accessible and accessible also is a good um a good point because it has consequences in Africa little girls for a week they cannot go to school so they lack education versus the boys because they have their period and they have nothing to protect themselves so some women started to sell products and for each product you buy one is sent to a school in Africa so this is really what I mean by Innovation driven by the feminine energy empathy starting with empathy empathy for those girls who cannot afford it um and really thinking about the consequences and thinking long term which is another thing about the feminine men are very resource oriented and it has its value but the masculine is really action as your problem I act I do it great however it's very important also to think of the long-term consequences I often think about that in in evolutionary sense we did a show a few years ago with a guy called Richard rangham a brilliant brilliant writer he wrote about how discovering fire made us human because of a multitude of reasons but the one thing I wanted to share was he talked about a hypothesis that well if you think about a man who is a hunter versus a woman who was a gatherer also the man lee were talking about that short-term Focus he went out and hunted that because he was bigger he was he was a bigger Beast and the women stayed home and looked after the tribe and looking after the tribe needed these skills like empathy and nurturing the skills that you talk about intuition being able to spot is that somebody that's a threat to the tribe Etc because they were really focused on the continuation of the species and man's job was really to hunt for the species and yes protect it but it was a more short-term more aggressive focus and it takes a long time as we know for the for a Evolution to kick in but before we jump into the skills because I really want to share the skills that you've identified on your formula I thought we'd share one last part that you talk about so this is where Fabian looks at challenges that exist today let's just share one so we know cyber security is a massive threat it's growing as a threat it it will become more and more important as more and more devices are connected it will become more and more important as we move into 5G 6G Etc whatever we don't even know yet but I loved your point on this because I really think this and I say this to so many young women I know who are in college I go study cyber security it's going to be such an amazing place for you it's going to be it needs women in there and you said in 2013 for example women only made up 11 of people working cyber security and it's only grown to 20 by 2019.
still far from a top opportunity there's a huge potential here I was in a woman associations meeting and there were talking about about the cyber security and then I introduced ourselves I introduced my company and the lady came and said oh my God this is very interesting I never thought about you know this feminine skills do you think you can write something about the feminists for cyber security I say yeah of course then I came back home and said oh my God I don't know anything about cyber security so what did I do I went on LinkedIn and I looked and I did some research and and I spotted some people men and women especially who were you know very knowledgeable in cyber security and I interviewed them and it was fascinating to me because and also I interviewed a guy and I had met in a social event in New York and he had a cyber security uh business so I was so excited I was in the books to talk to him because oh I will learn a lot and so I I say okay I'm writing about the feminine in cyber security and I would be curious to interview you and and learn and better understand he said are you in cyber security I said no this is why I'm trying to understand say yeah so why why do you talk about somebody or didn't let me explain something to you you know cyber security is about technology and so it's a man's world because it's a toy and it's for boys it's not for girls and he left I was wow this was an interview but luckily I met a lot of other people and especially men uh who were fantastic and really shared with me that they wanted really new skills in cyber security and that women had very specific skills that were needed so to start with cyber security is a lot about Geeks which is like these men who have this uni-dimensional career they are technology they know very well and we need that perfect what He said is that when they start to hire women women have a more diverse background so it brings a totally new view to cyber security second women collaborate more than men men are more the lonely wolf and I will solve that on my own and so on and women will seek uh the team um teams input they would talk to other people and so on and this also enriches the solutions because there is not one solution and also very importantly the hackers are so good now the Technologies between the hikers and the cyber security guys it's equal but makes the difference is the human creativity and hackers are getting very creative so having if I tell you you have to have empathy for the hacker are you kidding me Fabian yes you do because if you have empathy for the hacker you would start to you try to understand why why is it this guy hacking what is his motivation or her motivation what is the motivation of the hacker of the person on the other side and when you understand that you understand better how to counteract this hacker because you understand their motivation and the last thing which is extremely important because it's both um emotional and and and and in our head and also practical is that most hackers or men and men and women code differently so for a hacker it's more difficult to counteract something that has been written by a woman and this is somebody who is in cyber security we shared that I thought he was enlightening I thought yeah this is a very interesting and you know have we need and I I think I I give numbers in the book we will need so many jobs new jobs in cyber security and it's not fulfilled at all and while cutting ourselves from 50 of the world and on top of that as you say many women leave stem because they're being forced out on science where they're needed yes this is this is the this is very tough I know it was tough in my days and I thought that today it would be better but it's not that good actually girls graduate better than than boys but then when they start to join the stem world is so it's been so tough on on women the conditions of the work and the mentality and that they give up and this is why you have more and more which is a happy consequence more and more women entrepreneurs because they are their own bosses then and they can't realize their dreams I thought about this a few years ago and where she's coming back onto the show again free Eureka fabritzius she's written great books on the leading brain she talked about the brain and how when they did brain scans of leader women leaders their brains looked male and she kind of poses the question was that nature or nurture did they become the into the position because they acted male or did they have to act male and therefore kind of the brain became neuroplastic and actually changed as a result of that and that really came to mind as it was reading your book as well because you share your formula next and I I really wanted to share that because it's so important to understand this and we I'd love to go through this so I'm going to give it a go at your formula here so this is how I I read it so it's Em which is empathy plus n which is nurturing plus I2 which is inclusively inclusivity and intuition plus G e and that's all catalyzed by Co which is collaboration and that equals a beautiful product that will earn you money wow you're so good yeah this is my formula you could be a chemist so let's start with empathy because again we've touched on this as well and maybe please feel free to hover in between your stories that you've mentioned in the book for example your own shower gel product and and how empathy played a role I really enjoyed that part when you talked about that with collaboration and I'll remind you of those little aspects later on but let's talk about empathy because really if you look at any book on Innovation today and product development it would never work without empathy empathy is a key skill in design thinking it's a key skill in focus groups done right but over to you to explain your version of empathy definitely empathy as you know is not new okay I don't say anything new I'm just putting it in a new context here in a different context um empathy and you can jump right away which is obvious to the customer if you don't have empathy for the customer again we saw if a man designs a product for women and has empathy he can design the best product because you can really understand her deep needs and be in her shoes really empathy walking in some of somebody's shoes so this is very important but empathy doesn't stop here and and a lot has been said on that I want to emphasize more empathy for your colleagues this is very important different functions usually I know I'm from RND when I move to marketing they told me you're going to the enemy I said what are you talking about they're our partners same thing oh I will I will actually go oh no no you go they said they are our partners they are here to protect us if you explain to them what we're trying to achieve we'll be together so empathy for the other functions what they are going through and I'm passive for our bosses too and I'm the first culprit because I was so driven by Innovation and pushing for this project I had to understand that my boss is at a report to Wall Street and that yeah it was important but they had other things to to deal with so empathy is really for the entire ecosystem for the customer of course but also for your partners for your external Partners I worked years in external Innovation where we were looking for Technologies to bring in and usually it was from startups or inventors so very very small structures that we were bringing um into the big giant you know corporation uh and you have to have empathy for those guys this technology they develop is their life and so you have to understand that so there was a there are a lot of examples of the value of empathy the entire ecosystem and the last one and most important one especially these days we're talking a lot about it is empathy for mother nature today we develop products and then we say it's hurting the planet what can we do and then we re-engineered and try to cut things and so it doesn't work like that why don't we create products and services where nature the environment is taken into account from the category from the very beginning so you start to develop something that is not that is designed to not hurt the planet and the environment instead of trying to correct it afterwards so to me this is the entire power of value of empathy it's huge and it starts there let's write the book as well Fabian you share practices that we can take home and work on so we won't go into all of them today because there's about six at the end of each chapter for all six of the skills but maybe we'll share a couple of the ones on empathy because I thought these were particularly interesting again whether you be a parent trying to encourage empathy particularly for me I have two boys trying to encourage empathy in them or in yourself trying to encourage more empathy try to put your really yourself in the shoes of the others and I have this anecdote of develop an overall care line for senior people who have some some issues and I partnered with the company and they had this suit that was mimicking the effects of Aging okay so with the arthritis thing it was like a suit and also the Googles and and it was really mimicking the effects of Aging so a young marketing person said oh okay I will try it and and you know as a as a demonstration so she was she volunteered for that she put into this and she performed Oral Care and son and then at the end she was getting out of the suit and we were ready to ask her questions and she was taking a lot long time to get out of the suit and then she turned to us she was crying and we say what's happening she said oh well I've been bullying my grandmother telling her that she could do that and she had just want to do it and so on I didn't realize that she could not and she had experience firsthand being in the skin of an older person what it was so it's really try to have the experience go when you develop products for people go into their environment go where they live live with them live like them and when also and this is not what I'm something I'm very good at but listen listen listen listen listen listen because it's so easy to jump in and I bit my tongue a lot of times I say you know a friend of mine lost her dad and she's in France and so we jump on the phone and I almost said oh I understand what you are going through because I had lost my dad and son and then I bit my tongue Fabian listen and I listened to her and I ask questions so a very good way a very simple way to understand I have empathy for another person just ask questions simple questions so our family was doing our doing how are they coping and Sanaa and she's the one after a while who said well Fabian you will understand me because you have been through that but she's the one who said it I didn't voluntary so I know I'm learning you know I'm learning and I'm evolving every day and learning my own lessons and trying to apply them so this is how you can practice empathy listen question and really make an effort at living in the world of the other person virtually actually augmented reality or this is a great way a great way to put yourself in the shoes of the others so there are a lot of Technologies now besides just going and and living with this person for a couple of days I say this to people in my workshops all the time about communication I go I could have saved myself so many arguments if somebody had taught me this before just to listen and acknowledge that somebody else is going through a crappy time trying to stop trying to hijack their moment and kind of go what a you know this happened to me let me try and fix it for you Etc and and having that empathy is so important but you tell us there's neuroscientific reasons for that as well we're wired differently and men want to fix no absolutely and this is all this story between the gray matter and the white matter and so on but actually just to make sure it's very clear there is no truly there is a female and a male brain but our brains are more similar than they are different you have some significant and statistically significant differences between men and women so one is the use of gray matter versus white matter and gray matter is like the focus the action and the white matter is more connecting the dots okay so this is a different approach to your point this explains why and then you have the of course the chemicals so the testosterone which is really more aggressive more action again versus the oxytocin which is the bonding the love hormone and sun which is more present in women and so on but the the beauty is that our brains or your unique patch of male and female patches it's a mosaic it's really a mosaic of this all different patches and it's very unique and to your point the brain plasticity is huge so we can learn and at any time we can learn new skills we can change things and this is why the environment is so important and nature versus nurture and for a lot of skills for example intuition with jumping there intuition which is called feminine by default because it's a fruitful it's not very serious intuition intuition is actually not really feminine it's we can all use intuition but culturally he's been labeled feminine which is wrong because Steve Jobs was the best in Twitter in the world and it has nothing feminine okay but this intuition is really when you have a lot of knowledge in our brain you know yeah there's a lot of data and a lot of knowledge when you have all that in your brain intuition is just connecting the dots into something new and this is what the beauty of it and you can't do that by sleeping eight hours by resting by stopping not going to burn out because you will not be effective and so respecting our brains and and numbers are fantastic and we don't even know all is happening there but we know the plasticity we know that we can learn we can yes we have some differences between male and female but it's not that big it's not that big and we can really rewire the brain one of my hats that I wear is Executive coaching for CEOs particularly when it comes to when they're trying to lean into more Innovation aspects of their roles and I I thought about this only while reading your book was where if you think about most people in leadership roles they're usually executing and if you're only executing and you've been in your role for a very long time you you have a very limited world view you don't see wider you don't see what your customers are doing etc etc you may have reports and data but the map is not the territory that does not mean that that's what's happening on the ground but then on top of that if you don't explore and you're constantly in this exploit mode you don't learn anything you and you can't collect any information to be intuitive and I say all that say because you think about your story and maybe I'll share this about when you came up with your business innovive.com and I want to say that because on top of that there's lots of resources on the site as well that you kindly offer and all the information there about your workshops Etc but this was like I've written a book I've sent you before coming on air unlike you so many times waking up with two or three in the morning and jotting down stuff that just comes to you through your intuition but it was from collecting it in the first place if you don't collect it there's no dots to collect it's absolutely true this is why it's linked to data but when you just follow the data you go into what we call the analysis paralysis and you can gather so many and then you have the children and some data contradicts others and some sometimes it's just like Let It settle do you know 15 minutes of yoga let's do a brain do it's sharp it knows what to do and we have to and it's not when we say listen to the girls actually it's not it's all linked anyway but it's not that it's not this oh I woke up and I thought of that no no when I woke up with innovive the name it was because I had done years or of course of experience but also months of research about what would be my next step and I'm a scientist again so I have my Excel sheet with all the possibilities all I could do and you know and connect again connecting the dots and what came up was Innovation because it's my passion challenging the stat require and trying to make a better world and The Feminine that I have been missing in my life and I was experiencing and enjoying now that I'm older and I wanted to to put that back all together instead something that makes sense and this is how it was born but it was not born like Oh I thought of that and no no no the uh the Apple that no no no no no no the haha moment is not that the haha moment is that word your brain does the job for you if you allow your brain to do it and not in an override and always scrolling through social media and doing a lot of things and let it praise there's a quote by Peter Drucker and he said that to do something new you have to stop doing something old and I always think about that like one of the first questions I asked executive teams is what are you going to stop doing to be able to do this to be able to innovate because there's something you're you're at capacity and firstly you need a new information source and sometimes that's a consultant coming in with new information and sharing that new information to spark new thinking but other than that that's only going to last for a while you need to create new habits throughout an organization it's a mindset to your point it's a mindset Innovation again is this buzzword everybody was oh I have Innovation but Innovation is a mindset it is not only tools and processes of course you need that you need the structure but the most important is the mindset in the entire company from the c-suite to the people in the field you need to have this mindset and it has to be accepted and taking risks and fail we talked about nature but nurture is really important because we see this all the time so many ideas get killed prematurely in organizations they're not nurtured because Innovation by its very Nature has a different timeline it takes longer to figure things out especially if it's a legacy organization who's already created products and has a repeatable reliable Revenue stream from those progress and then you kind of go here's a new idea and they kind of go when will it be profitable and they kill us too early and I love this concept you we're talking about the very feminine aspect of nurturing and it it a night a really nice thing has happened in the last while my son that he's nine he's got into planting seeds and it's been lovely to watch him nurture them and he goes you know those little water misters he goes out with his water mister and he's like I'm gonna water the plants and and he's just seeing them grow and because he's seen he's related the fact that he's been nurturing them with their progress It's just it's beautiful to see that in motion and again Serendipity strikes I was reading your book while I was spawning this moment and I was like that's nurturing but it's a very feminine skill yeah it is a nurturing skill but it's more than it is it is in the brain we hope again have more oxytocin and a lot of more empathy naturally and more nurturing yes we do but it's not that feminine and it's not uh no the motherly thing is I don't have kids but I'm very nurturing so you know it's not linked to no when I I was looking for for my workshop at one point I was looking for images for nurturing and when you do that you have like the mother and the baby and so on this is not only that this is too limiting nurturing is bigger than than that so nurturing is really about growing helping guiding and it's really linked of course to educating a kid but you touch it to me my best way to nurture is to Garden I love to Garden but when you're Garden you have really to protect against you know the insects the the have some squirrels that I love really love my plans um and to help grow you can guide you can cut you can train you can yeah and nurture and feed and feed with water with sun with love also and so so it's it's it's a lot of helping grow and this is perfect for ideas as you have said so many ideas are so fragile when they were born take this lady who in the group said oh my way to relax at the end of the day and is to have a glass of wine everybody there and dismissing I said no no no no no no no no no there is something here how can we make that stupid idea somewhere work for this shower how can we tweak it how can we nurture it into something that makes sense for the business and for this category and this is how it happened everybody chiming in and developing something that made sense but in another context he would have been in a business context I'll say haha yeah so we don't talk about whining here you see what I mean so it's so easy to just discard what is strange and instead of saying hmm why did she say that there is a good reason why don't we explore that further why don't we nurture it why don't they put it and and and look at it under different angles and feed it with other people chiming in or or tweaking in and so on uh which was also into collaboration so this is why nurturing is so so important nurture these ideas so that and also nurturing is bringing together you know some little ideas that may be stupid or insignificant separately you bring them all together into something bigger and I love that you talked about that nurturing together as well because that that's this is one of the major skills that you displayed with the shower gel project as well and when we talk about the Catalyst which is collaboration in a second we'll really see that come to life but the next one may surprise people and it's something that I I try to practice I not always as religious as I should be with this but this is gratitude the practice of gratitude and this may surprise people why the heck has that got anything to do with Innovation they might ask and I asked the question myself because I I said at the beginning when I selected those six traits and I had a lot in competition and gratitude was not the top one to be honest and I was like yeah gratitude but why and I started to think about it and then I said yeah I had examples where I saw that gratitude was a big proponent for Innovation and this was in those groups where we were working together and when we were working together we were creating the concept together the formula everybody was was working together on all the aspects and what happened is that some when we develop the concept some scientists said wow I didn't realize it was so difficult to create a concept I thought it was like you know writing some words then when we went to prototyping for the night to uh to show consumers a prototype and the chemist where you know doing all and the marketer marketing person was like oh I didn't realize you had so many steps and it was so complicated to just do a small sample so what happened then they were grateful for the other function they were grateful for the work that the others did and being grateful for that it was totally totally different Ambiance then suddenly the marketer didn't ask for example for yesterday because they understood what it took and then the um the scientist was saying oh the concept I understand that they they really spent a lot of time thinking about each word and I and and this is important so it created really this understanding and this gratitude for the work done by another person to bring that to the team and I found that extremely extremely powerful and I say this little anecdote somebody in the team had the idea to uh to have this little wooden tokens shaped like a heart we thank you and when something was done well in the team they would just give a thank you and I remember this scientist and she was like radiant is just this pile of you know little hot tokens on her desk and it was gratitude from the others for what she had done so gratitude really is is um the cement the glue in the team that allows again collaboration to be able to kick in gratitude is the cement collaboration is the Catalyst that brings it all together this just is the chemical reaction happens because a collateral collaboration and I really from reading the book I really felt that's what you did particularly well in this and I want to remind maybe you'll wrap it around this anecdote this story that you tell on this in the book which is because we've all been there you're asked to put a team together a team from different parts of the organization and sometimes those people aren't us they're voluntold they're they're told that they need to be part they're on secondment whatever it might be and they might treat it like oh my God I have to go down to the Innovation team and oh well you know what I'll just take it easy there and at least I'll get to inbox zero or clear my inbox so they go with this reluctance and as the leader of a team like that well actually I'll strike the word later because you say in a true Innovation team there is no leader it's a self-organizing body of people but you and you showed huge empathy here with a colleague who was extremely reluctant almost destructive to the team and instead of what many of us might be inclined to do which is jump in and give out to them or give out to their boss and go I don't want Aiden and my team he's a bit of a jackass you went with a different approach and and this is what you often see isn't it those type of people it's like Carl Jung's work about the psychology is like oftentimes you can find some value in those people who are the most difficult in your life it talks to um one of the traits we skipped which is inclusivity so inclusivity when we think inclusivity of course there is gender this is one of the topics of the book obviously this feminine and masculine you have culture you have a race you have a yeah you have but it's very limited to The Usual Suspects and as I said I want to talk about neuro plasticity the the neural differences neurological differences and having autism autist people in a team brings a lot of value because I think differently they are wired differently and this is very so everything which is this so different social contexts and backgrounds age oh my God ageism when you know you age okay you're just no actually the white matter increases when you age yes the gray matter of the decreases but the white connecting the dots increases so having young and old people in your team is fantastic so inclusivity is bigger than just you know the color of the skin and the accent and the uh and and and the gender it's really going Beyond and this anecdote was linked to the differences in thinking and so I put this team together as I said and usually people volunteered um but at the beginning it was new and they didn't know what it was and it's something above and beyond their current job so I talked to them and I talked to their bosses to see is it okay if they come and so on and so we're negotiate and people came together but they were very happy to experiment something new and they liked the way I worked with people so they were here one guy in marketing because this process was four days in a remote location and really working all together and like like what we call the hot groups here we are focused on that one just doing that for four days and he was like oh I will not you know waste four days you know so important that I have other things to do no no no it's a waste of time and sound and so I just went to him and I said okay listen just come the first day and if you don't like it you feel feel free to go but I really would love for you to experiment and have your point of view and he said okay I can do that for for a day so it comes the first day and we had a rule because it was so intense it was like 7 A.M until 10 p.m and with the consumers and so it was very very intense and we had a rule that we had a big Basket in in the middle of the the room in the middle of the table and and we would just put our phones there and then we had breaks where people could of course some emergencies and necessary calls but during the time we were together the phones were not allowed so it was the end of the first day and I saw that guy take the phone and start to text so I came to him and nicely but from the essay oh come on you know you're gonna do that and he's smiling it's not me hold on I'm texting my boss that actually I will stay for the four days because I really like it and he's going somewhere I wanted to hug him he was so great but you know he had experienced that and and being of course as I said if you have only people who don't want to be there it will not work but when you sprinkle those people who are not really very you know positive but mold into the process and with the other people and it was so enthusiastic and it was working actually in terms of business that he was convinced and after that it was my first proponent for the process he was selling the process to everybody because he really liked it but also during the the four days he brought a different perspective because it was not thinking as us and it was more critical and we need a critical View so this is this is the point of inclusivity diversity bringing the right environment so that collaboration can happen and collaboration when you put all that together and really collaborate with and collaboration is really not teamwork as I said you can be assigned to infinity and I do my job and then I get no no collaboration is really going to Tower something bigger together with a vision and bringing your own skills Powers this Vision but you own the vision and at the end of the process everybody was owning the Prototype and defending it um you know versus the oh yeah but he could be that no no I was there the consumers were there we picked that Hue that color because of the consumer and there is a good reason for that uh beautiful beautiful and one last thing on collaboration because this is important you mentioned this as well is that in in English it's too many cooks spoil the broth in French it's throw the cuisine in French right and it's like well collaboration has a dark side as well because you can have too many people involved and that can lead to an absolute mess as well maybe you'll share because you've you've experienced this as well which I love the fact that a you're a chemist you've you've done this work you've understood it you're you're a scientist and you've brought that world in into r d and you've used all these human skills to bring a product into the world the point is that you have to have to have right people it's not even the number but it's the right people to the the team because and also once you say these are the cooks you don't have another Chef coming and say oh yeah but I don't like that you know this is where I think too many cooks comes for the broth you delegate people this is this Innovation team they are doing the job and you trust them and trust is another you know and you trust them and this is where collaboration is very important you have to trust the others I have your back okay so you trust the others and you trust that team to do a great job and you don't come after that saying oh yeah but I'm the boss and I think we should change it or do that also then everybody has a different opinion and it's a mess and you destroy the beauty of the original idea so it comes also with nurturing you have to nurture the idea you have to nurture this product that you have to protect that prototype because a lot of people around will want to kill it and put their own print or I think that if we this is actually what happened some of our projects where you know some people say oh yeah but you know this this visual is not good well I want that to say well this is what was really coming from the consumers who have experienced the product and for the entire team who has been working on that for months so then you have arguments to say but this is where you have to have a limited amount of people who are really involved and then of course it's open for criticism but constructive criticism instead of wanting to just put your print on the project throughout the book Fabian interviews many many people to bring these skills to life to emphasize points Etc and one of those was a beautiful interview with Pat roke and you summarized it in your interview and I'm going to share this because I absolutely love this this is going to be my closing quote because I I really do believe in this harmonizing of the energies and it's it's not new this has been it goes right back to ancient times the importance of this in eastern Traditions Etc the yin and yang Etc are so important and it's so important more than ever in Innovation as Fabian says but the quote is as follows and Fabian I'm gonna quote this but I wanted you to close Today's Show so I'll let you think about what your closing message is for our audience while I'm gonna quote this but before I even start that I mentioned your website already but where can people find you for a consultation for Keynotes to find your book to find the tools and resources that you have Etc the website is http://www.inoviv.com which is enough i n n o v e v e enough and eve.com I've shown you beforehand my pin today which was beautiful I had a I had even the Garden of Eden like how the heck I'm such a nerd I had one of those in my box of pins as well so it was perfect that I had that to celebrate you on today's show so the quote I loved is as follows and then I'm gonna hand it over to you the feminine traits for leadership apply to innovation the humility to know that we are not supposed to be great at everything individually but our Collective team should be so the more that we can Shine the Light on the gifts and Genius of others the more that we can live and come from a place of gratitude and the more we can collaborate and nurture with empathy I thought that was beautiful because it brings all the skills together that you talk about in the book what about you Fabian what's your final message for audience today be sure your your own self and you leverage all these beautiful brain patches that are unique to you bring your unique gift to this world of innovation and don't shy away don't be a clone just you know put your skills and your specific skills in front of give them as a gift to the others to bring something better together we cannot this is a big world and it's getting very complicated with the technology we cannot do it things alone the Marie Curie yeah doesn't exist anymore and even those guys were in teams by the way but just be um part of this big story that the young people especially are building and I'm very proud of that and I'm actually creating a video course based on the book uh to help the Young Generation innovate their future and the future of our world and it's called smart Rebel how to innovate your future and this is this is my message is the Young Generation they have all all the tools they can they can do anything they want and they doing they're doing it how many teenagers have started to change things challenges and so and this is beautiful so just to it go with your guts go with your intuition be your own self leverage your feminine don't be humble be vulnerable this is beautiful you don't know it fine you know ask and move on don't try to you know I say success is not about money or fame or the number of followers success is about being true to your yourself to who you really are and bring this unique to to the world author of Venus genius the female prescription for Innovation Fabian jacket Mercedes IA anytime as always thank you to zai boldly transforming the future Financial Services with a suite of embedded products and services enabling businesses to manage multiple payment workflows and move funds really
