# Tessa Forshaw and Rich Braden: "Innovation-ish" and why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582/tessa-forshaw-and-rich-braden-innovation-ish-and-why-most-innovation-doesn-t-have-to-be-a-moonshot
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582/tessa-forshaw-and-rich-braden-innovation-ish-and-why-most-innovation-doesn-t-have-to-be-a-moonshot.md
Podcast: [Design Better](https://stenobird.com/podcast/design-better-58582)
Published: 2026-04-16T14:50:00+00:00
Episode link: https://designbetterpodcast.com/p/tessa-forshaw-and-rich-braden-innovation
Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/p.podderapp.com/1794982497/chrt.fm/track/1C4248/prfx.byspotify.com/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/211/traffic.megaphone.fm/MLALE4754136218.mp3?updated=1776351373
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/design-better-58582/episodes/tessa-forshaw-and-rich-braden-innovation-ish-and-why-most-innovation-doesn-t-have-to-be-a-moonshot
Duration seconds: 2778

## Resource

We’re all familiar with the tropes around innovation and how it starts. You just need a garage in Silicon Valley, a few geniuses and visionaries, maybe some good snacks. Our guests today help us debunk that myth. Rich Braden and Tessa Forshaw wrote a book called Innovation-ish, and that little “-ish” is doing a lot of work. Rich Braden is a design strategist who’s taught innovation at Stanford and advised companies around the world. Tessa Forshaw is a cognitive scientist whose lab studies the psychology of creativity — why we lose it, and how we get it back. In this conversation, we talk about why most innovation doesn’t have to be a moonshot — and why chasing moonshots might actually be holding your team back. We dig into the neuroscience of what Tessa calls “innovation hesitation,” the tiny amygdala response that makes us reach for certainty instead of possibility. Bios Tessa Forshaw As a co-founder of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University, Tessa specializes in using cognitive science to develop creative and innovative potential in the workforce. She draws upon her academic research as a cognitive scientist and extensive background as a former designer at IDEO CoLAb and Accenture to turn the cognitive processes involved in design, creativity and innovation into practical insights that can be applied in the flow of work. These insights are also the foundations of what she teaches as a design educator at Stanford University and now Harvard University. Recognized for her impactful design projects, Tessa is the recipient of multiple design awards: a Fast Company Design Award for General Excellence, two Core77 Industrial Design Magazine Design Awards, and the Australian American Chamber of Commerce Innovation Awards. Rich Braden Rich Braden is the founder of People Roc…

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