548: Building a culture of fearless product innovation at Snap-On Tools – with Ben Brenton, PhD
Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators · 2025-07-07 · 34 min
Episode notes
How Snap-On puts customers at the center of product management Watch on YouTube TLDR In this episode, Ben Brenton, Chief Innovation Officer at Snap-on, joins me to share practical strategies for fostering a sustainable, fearless culture of innovation. Ben reveals how Snap-on transformed a traditional manufacturing mindset into one deeply centered on real customer insight. He details actionable systems that drive continual breakthrough products—not through motivational rhetoric, but through persistent field engagement, cross-functional collaboration, and relentless focus on customer needs. Whether you work in tools, software, or services, this conversation is packed with lessons on making innovation succeed in any industry. Introduction We have all been in a meeting where someone says "we need to be more innovative" but nobody can explain how to actually make that happen. These are organizations where innovation gets relegated to a buzzword in a value statement instead of becoming the driving force behind breakthrough products.