Angela Jenner - Transformation Director of BT - Innovation is about having a culture of curiosity

In this #LeadershipDeepDive episode, Angela Jenner, Transformation Director of BT, talks with Hendrik Deckers about Open Innovation and her 20+ years journey of delivering technology.
„I think that at the heart of innovation is having a culture of curiosity”, Angela says and stresses the importance of collaboration, empowerment, diversity and inclusion.
Learn from Angela on how to organize Innovation:
✅ ensure close collaboration between the applied research team and the delivery arms of the organization
✅ bring together customers and suppliers to work with engineers and solve problems together
✅ facilitate smooth agile transformation
✅ enable hybrid process by mixing agile with traditional delivery of products and services
Throughout this conversation, Angela also shares her view on 5G and real lifetime value it can bring to our everyday activities. Dive into this interview to learn and be inspired by Angela Jenner!
Table of contents:
01:22 | Introduction and Angela’s background
• 28 years of experience in Telco industry
• „I’ve always been really passionate about technology”
03:36 | About BT
• Telecom media technology company
• Over 100 000 employees around the world
• Global, medium & small customers
• BT helps „companies & people stay connected”
04:45 | Current challenges and drivers for change
• Accelerated growth of technology and communications within society.
• Technology at macro level has a fundamental change on people's lives.
06:56 | Open Innovation
• „Innovation has been our DNA for the last 170 years”
• Working deeply with the customers to understand what their problems are and innovate from the beginning
• Adastral Park - BT’s home of innovation with a cluster of over 150 companies
• Innovation happening really close to where operations happen
10:58 | Innovation Culture
• „I think that at the heart of innovation is having a culture of curiosity.”
• Bringing together science and engineering to deliver value and think about what is the purpose
• Collaboration is the key and not having hierarchy stand in the way
• „Ideas do not respect hierarchy”
12:47 | Implementing cultural change
• Agile transformation
• Cross collaborative co-working amongst all the teams
• Team retrospectives - useful tool to see how the teams are operating
• Change takes time
16:22 | Evolving leadership style
• Empowering teams and people
• Learn, change, and move towards agile ways of work is a big change for leaders too
18:53 | Open Processes - organizing Innovation
• Closeness between the applied research team and the delivery arms of the organization
• Bringing together customers and suppliers to work with engineers and solve problems together
• Innovation week (pre-COVID)
• Agile transformation: tribes, squads
• Hybrid process of mixing traditional delivery of products with agile
22:41 | BT’s strategy and vision
Open ecosystem
• Having the right people in the right way and creating an environment where those people can come together to innovate
• Collaboration with MIT
24:33 | Open Technology
• „5G is really changing the way that we live our lives”
• Converged network: bringing broadband and mobile networks together for converged services
• Automation, AI & Machine Learning
• Shifting to the Cloud gives the speed to deploy and deliver new services and products
31:28 | BT’s operating model
• 2 technology units: New Networks & Digital Team
• These units work together along with consumer, enterprise and „global arms of the business to deliver for our customers.”
• Collaboration of all units
32:44 | Angela’s role at BT
• Defining the vision for the transformation
• “Part of my role is how we really make the most of the convergence of those groups and how do we ensure that we are learning from each other”
• Growing the diverse and inclusive team from scratch
35:31 | Angela’s management style
• „My management style is all about making sure that my team understand the outcomes that we're trying to achieve and then really empowering them to do that”
• Demanding, focused on outcomes, yet supportive
38:59 | BT’s leadership development program
• Developing curiosity culture
• To model the right behaviors
43:31 | What drives Angela?
• „Sense of achievement when things get done”
• „What makes me happy is just connecting with people and spending time with people”
44:35 | MBTI: the Protagonist
51:22 | Personal mantra & core values
• GSD: getting stuff done
• „Authenticity and just being who you are”
• Honesty & fairness
55:33 | Best moment in life & the most brilliant failure
• Opportunities to live and work on fantastic projects in different places with diverse people
• Facing a respected customer and say that the project was not going the way it should
59:54 | Advice for people starting out
• „Be bold and take every opportunity that comes in your direction”

[@jamesdean8864]

Angela is brilliant, really enjoy listening to her insight.