Meet Jake Carroll | Design Thinking and Innovation Consultant

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jake Carroll and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jake, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
The thought process behind starting my own business was simple: I wanted to help companies use innovation tools for better team collaboration and culture.

I’ve spent the last 8 years at startups and innovation agencies, and have learned many tools, methodologies, and frameworks for creating new products and services. I realized that you can use these same tools to look inward and innovate within your company.

My business (Create Kaizen) does just that, designing tools and learning experiences for accessible, easy to apply “internal” innovation.

Most training, coaching programs, and courses I see out there – whether they are for leadership, culture, or innovation – are time bound and linear.

The fact is that you’re not going to learn to become a good leader or build an innovation culture in a 2 hour workshop, 2 week sprint, or 2 month course.

You’re going to learn by having a toolkit you can pull from when you need, getting ongoing coaching to know how to use those tools, and having a community that you can continually learn and get support from.

That’s what Create Kaizen aims to deliver.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Sure, I design tools, workshops, and learning programs for creative problem solving, building human-centered team cultures, and developing an innovation mindset at your company. I also run a community where you can get continual support with innovation tools and learn from others.

Most people don’t have much influence over what their company builds, but they do have a lot of influence over how their company operates, what the culture is like, and how their team solves creative challenges.

Yet, most companies rely on just a few leaders to create this internal impact, innovate ways of working, and build a growth culture.

Companies may set their values and intentions from the top down, but those values are perpetuated from the bottom up, and you’re leaving a lot on the table if you don’t turn your teams into internal innovators.

The world is changing, fast. Organizations are faced with new opportunities, possibilities, and risks everyday. A company’s ability to adapt and innovate can be their greatest strength, or their biggest weakness, and building the innovation mindset at the team level is your best bet for your business to thrive.

This means learning how innovation tools can help you both internally (people and team development, creative problem solving, etc.) and externally (user research, audience definition, product/market fit, etc.).

I chose the name Create Kaizen because “Kaizen” is a philosophy that encourages small, continuous improvement.

Through Design Thinking and Innovation, we can create kaizen each day to make our organizations more human-centered, both inside and out.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The past couple of years has been a bit on the move, between California, Barcelona, and now Melbourne.

Though I’ve only been in Melbourne a few months, I’ve collected a few favorites along the way…

– The markets: every weekend there’s an explosion of creativity to be found at a local market, it’s a really nice way to explore the culture of the city from the people who make it.

– The museums: I’ve found some really inspiring works, and very inspiring stories of young artists in Melbourne. The big museums are great, but there’s always a pop-up show if you want to experience something new.

– The laneways: you can spend week after week turning corners and going down little laneways, finding some cool bar in unexpected places.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I think a lot of credit goes to the team and culture at the company I started my tech career with, NerdWallet.

I had a very non-linear career path when I was younger.

I worked 4 different jobs with 4 different roles in 4 different industries by the time I was 26. I was effectively channel surfing through careers.

I saw this as a flaw, some sign that I didn’t know what I wanted.

But it was the intelligence and care of the team at NerdWallet that taught me two crucial things.

– Putting human needs first builds sustainable impact
– I wasn’t channel surfing through careers, I was collecting diverse perspectives, making me a niche of one

If it wasn’t for my teams at NerdWallet I wouldn’t have the confidence to pursue Innovation Strategy and Design Thinking further, and I sure wouldn’t have started this company.

Website: https://www.createkaizen.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-carroll-ck/