On a blistering Los Angeles day in 1988, Richard Montañez was going about his work as a janitor at a PepsiCo manufacturing site when he heard a noise and saw people rushing to the lines. One of the Cheetos manufacturing lines had broken down.

That evening, Richard and his colleagues took home a bunch of partially-created, unmarketable Cheetos.  Richard noticed these “plain” Cheetos didn’t taste very good. He put some chili powder on them, and found he liked these spicy Cheetos more than the regular cheesy Cheetos. He shared some with his kids who quickly gobbled up the rest.

Richard recalled a video he had seen by PepsiCo’s then-CEO, Roger Enrico, that encouraged everyone at the company to “act like an owner.” It was a platitude that many corporate employees might roll their eyes at. Richard took it to heart.

He knew he had something, but needed the support to prove it. He designed a bag, put some of his new invention in the bag, and after a successful pitch and additional years of hard work, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos launched in 1991. It became Frito Lay’s  number one selling snack product and is now at the top of their snack portfolio that brings in $17B annually.

Shortly before Thanksgiving 2004, a software engineer at Amazon named Charlie Ward had an idea. At the time Amazon was primarily selling books and DVD’s, and they struggled with changing two prevailing consumer behaviors:

1. Consumers were used to going to a store to buy what they wanted immediately, so they weren’t used to waiting.

2. Since consumers went to stores, they didn’t have to pay for shipping costs and therefore didn’t want to pay for shipping costs.

Charlie’s idea was to create a subscription service for fast, free shipping. He submitted the idea to a digital employee suggestion box that Jeff Bezos closely monitored. Bezos loved the idea so much that it became somewhat of an obsession. Bezos assembled a small team that worked throughout the holiday season to prepare a launch plan. They worked at warp speed and launched Amazon Prime in February 2005. With over 100 million subscribers and over $10B in annual revenue, Prime has become a tremendous success.

There are so many of these types of stories. Earle Dickson at J&J. Carmen Medina at the CIA. Freddie Spotser at Alcon. Doug Dietz at GE. 

These are the most impressive stories of “corporate innovation” because the odds were so stacked against them. So often even with the best of intentions by senior leadership, the ideas of front-line employees (the ones ironically with the best customer insights and visibility) are unintentionally squashed.

Some employees manage to be successful at sharing and implementing new ideas despite these challenges.

We call them Cultivators.

Cultivators are the unnamed leaders scattered throughout the landscape of really big companies who show up every day committed to the organization's vision. Yeah, they get their work done. But more importantly, they bring new insights and new ideas to work that may or may not directly apply to their job description. They work on challenging the status quo. They work to connect dots across the organization to see how to achieve better results.

Sometimes the ideas they're pursuing are multi-billion dollar products like Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Amazon Prime. And sometimes the ideas they're pursuing are as small as improving the company's internal expense reporting system or implementing a new way to do project management.

We believe Cultivators, and their ideas, are the future of business. If that’s true, so are leaders who know how to find them, empower them, and bring them together.

We’ll be writing much more on that in the coming weeks.

For now, consider these two questions:

• What do you think the best example of a Cultivator success story would be from your organization?

• What could you do today to help the Cultivators around you?

Let’s get to work. Your organization depends on it.

Share your ideas. Solve problems. Make a difference.

We’re building a community where your voice is heard, solutions are shared, and changemakers around the world can mobilize for change. If you are passionate about change, culture, and innovation, this is the place for you.