The Mission Way: Syntezia. On the human side of innovation.

    "I try to identify abnormalities. Things which shouldn’t be this way."

I met Yves through an EU accelerator, and our conversation didn’t stop there. His thinking and work stayed with me. It was something I wanted to explore more. Yves Zieba is the managing partner of Syntezia, a company based in Geneva. His professional path has taken him across companies of all sizes, working on innovation, ecological transition, and strategic agility. Always with the same underlying conviction: human thought, creativity, and the differences in what people actually need must always be taken into account. His expertise is grounded in a holistic vision of innovation, where agility and collective intelligence serve as levers for economic, environmental, and social good. And that they are interconnected.

What led you to this work with innovation? Was it your curiosity, previous work experience, or all of it combined?

Looking back, innovation has been there all along. I studied strategy, with a focus on innovation, and wrote my thesis on sports and innovation. It has always been my specialty and my interest. I then spent years in large corporations, across advertising, sales, and customer service, before creating my own company fourteen years ago. Ever since, I have been working with innovation in many different ways: strategic agility, radical and open innovation.

"Innovation" can mean so much,  because it is applied across many disciplines. The concept can easily become abstract and detached from the specific needs, experiences, and challenges that give it meaning. I am especially interested in how people ground this concept in their own work. What is your understanding of innovation?

I completely agree with you. There are probably as many definitions as there are individuals who practice it. My own take is that I observe, I listen, and I identify abnormalities. Things which shouldn’t be this way. That is usually my starting point. It can be something that is dysfunctional, something that is not fair, taking too long or too complex. But if there is no abnormality, I do not think there is room for innovation, or it is going to be very difficult to find a market for it. I like to travel and see how things are done in different places, meet different people, and bring back the ideas, the concepts grounded in actual needs.

Innovation often involves many ideas, possibilities, and unknowns. What does that process look like in practice for you?

I visualize it as a funnel. There are lots of small bubbles of ideas that will unfortunately never materialize, and there are some that become projects that last long enough to be turned into a product or a service that finds its market. I have a little notebook where I write down all my ideas. I think ten lives would not be enough to do them all. But I prioritize what has the biggest impact. We are very focused on decarbonization, so we prioritize water and CO2 emissions. If we have to make a decision or a trade-off, we look at the non-financial indicators to decide.

There are many possible ideas and directions. How do you decide which ones to pursue?

We have a platform to help us with that, because otherwise we are distracted by too many ideas. There is an innovation process to determine which ideas will become a real project. We have people on our platform who can decide which idea they follow or vote for. That gives us an indication. If I am the only one to believe in an idea, it is probably not going to go anywhere. But if I see traction, people willing to follow or vote for the project, then that gives us more hope. The other thing we do is alignment. We have a company strategy and defined objectives. If a project is aligned with one of those objectives, or with one of the risks of the company, it gets prioritized. So there are criteria to evaluate and decide.

What have you observed that works well in an innovation process, whether it is technology, decarbonization, or else?

It sounds obvious, but the quality of the team is usually the key factor. Even if the individuals are talented, it is not enough if there is no team dynamic or complementary skills. What makes the difference, and what is usually underestimated, is the importance of the team and the combination of unique and different skills. In Switzerland, we see many projects that are technically very strong, but with a team of ten or eleven engineers, all from the same school, all from the same background. I believe in interdisciplinary and intergenerational innovation. Even if they are technically very strong, they may be lacking the diversity of perspectives needed to gain credibility and attract support. The ideal team has some engineering, but also business and finance people, and designers or artists. That combination is the most difficult to find, but probably the best insurance for success.

Your work has a strong focus on decarbonization. It is a true mission in the sense that it addresses a large-scale issue, unfolds over a long period of time, involves many people, and comes with a great deal of uncertainty. Where does it get stuck, and what can help move it forward?

When we work on decarbonization roadmaps with companies, they all know that they need to reach net zero as quickly as possible, and at the latest by 2050. But it is not easy to project into the future because, from a data viewpoint, you do not have data for future roadmaps. There may be a hundred possible initiatives to reduce emissions, but they are interconnected. Depending on the order in which you schedule them, they may have different effects on other objectives. One of the biggest challenges is the prioritization between financial and non-financial indicators. If decarbonization is not a budgetary priority, there is very little you can do. Through information and behaviour change techniques, you can achieve certain things. But when it comes to procurement, mobility, travel, or even renovating a building, money is involved. There needs to be a return on investment, and people need to be convinced.

The other side of the equation is to introduce non-financial indicators and give them weight, so that decisions are not based solely on financial considerations. If projects are evaluated only through financial return, decarbonization initiatives will often struggle to compete with other investments.

But if organizations also consider non-financial indicators, decarbonization projects become easier to prioritize and less likely to be forgotten. There are benefits that are not always captured in a purely financial calculation. For example, people who join your company will see what you stand for. For more and more people, this becomes one of the criteria they strongly consider. They want to see whether an organization is genuinely acting on the values it promotes. That can create a ripple effect. When a company makes these considerations part of its decision-making, it becomes more value-driven. It stands for something.

So even though there is growing awareness, reporting frameworks, targets, there is still a gap between intention and doing. 

It probably depends on company size, but yes, the friction is still there. For quoted companies, they need to comply. They have CSRD compliance, and they usually have their own frameworks for ESG criteria. Sustainability reporting is also becoming an investment criterion for investors selecting stocks. So there is something in place. It is not perfect, there is still room for improvement, and there is potentially some greenwashing to avoid.

If we speak about mid-caps or SMEs, it is on a voluntary basis. They can move as quickly, or as slowly, as they wish. That is why we work much with nudging techniques and behaviour change techniques, because it is voluntary. There is no auditing and there are no sanctions if they do not act.

That is actually why we specialized in voluntary sustainability reporting for SMEs, and why we have initiated so many decarbonization initiatives. We wanted to create a catalogue of possible actions, ranging from something that does not cost anything, such as creating a community with your neighbours, to something that requires investment, such as acquiring a heat pump for a hotel, which is a significant investment.

That gives us more options when we meet with executives from SMEs and mid-caps who want to do something but do not know what to do, or do not know in which sequence they should prioritize their projects. This is where we can help them.

Reaching sustainability goals is, to a large extent, about attitude and behaviour change. Through your conversations, what patterns do you see in how people relate to this issue?

What people say, in different ways, is that they do not have the time or the money. If we summarize it, it simply is still not a priority for many. And it's not always because they don't understand the urgency, they do. As long as it is not a priority, what we can do is work with behaviour change perspective. For years I have been working with AUSIC, which is a proprietary behavior change framework often used in corporate change management and organizational training to overcome resistance and embed new workplace habits. Like every organization, companies want to change, but they also face certain resistance. This framework recognizes that people go through different phases before they actually do something. There are five stages. First comes pre-awareness, where people do not know or do not believe there is a problem. Then comes awareness, followed by understanding, which requires research and gathering information. After that comes support, where people may not take action themselves but support the actions of others. Finally, there is implementation and commitment.

One lesson that I have learned is not to try to get people to commit before they have even reached the awareness stage. People like you and me may already be convinced. But when we are speaking with people who are not aware of the problem, or who refuse to see it, we need to help them move through those stages before asking for commitment.

That has been a useful lesson for me. It can feel like wasting time. But if you ask for an immediate commitment, or for funding, before people are aware or before they understand, the answer is usually going to be "no". What we want is a "yes", so taking the time to engage people through these stages is part of the innovation process. 

This insight is a great bridge to my next question. When you bring together people with different perspectives and backgrounds, what helps them move from one stage to the next? In my experience, connecting complex solutions to real-world contexts and people's experiences can make a true difference. What is your take on that?

I look at it as a journey. An individual journey, but also a collective one. It could take five steps in five days for certain people, and five steps in five months for others, because people go at different speeds. What we can do is design those journeys deliberately. Some elements of awareness raising at the beginning, more detailed information for the understanding steps, and then moving into getting them to support something,  putting their name on a proposal, a letter of intent. They do not commit to anything yet, but they show support. Then you continue with the  financial contribution,  the commitment, the implementation, the time. Recognizing that this is a journey makes all the difference. Like a patient care journey. You do not win the World Cup because you want to play football. You need to train, and get progressively better at what you do.

I noticed that creativity is something you mention when it comes to your work. What role does it play in innovation and in helping people embrace change?

We need imagination, intuition, and creativity at every stage. I am not going to convince everyone on the first try. We need to help people imagine what is possible. We need to build early adopters and champions who can share their experiences, so that it is not only you or me talking and seeing, but other people believing the same thing. Over time, there is a switch. The majority moves from resistance to commitment. But it takes significant time and effort to move a majority from being skeptical or resistant to seeing the possibilities, and then to actively implementing and committing. Finding ways to support that process is where creativity comes in.

But often it is not only a matter of personal motivation. There are also other forms of resistance at play.

Yes, and the resistance is not only about people. Budgets are resistant. Contracts can lock people in. Habits, such as “we have always done it this way.” And there are always one or two opinion leaders on the opposite side, saying the only criteria is cost, or asking why we should care about the environment at all. If influential people are advocating the opposite message, it creates all sorts of resistance.

The budget is probably the most dominant form of resistance in my experience. It is not that people are negative. They understand there is climate change. But they have a programme to deliver. Financial departments have budgets. Legal departments have contracts. Depending on who you are speaking with, you encounter different objections.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. That is also part of the journey. Europe has urgency, yes, but there is still a very large gap between the strategies and the reality. It is a challenge.

If we look at Europe more broadly, there is a lot of discussion about ways to strengthen Europe's competitiveness in relation to the US and China. A big part of that conversation is the need for greater collaboration across countries within Europe. From your perspective, what helps move collaboration from something

we talk about to something that genuinely happens?

If I reflect, first of all, it needs to be a personal ambition. You want to be active at a European level, or at a local level, or at a national level. If you and I are active at a European level, it is because somewhere along the way we have been thinking, maybe I should look at collaboration and cooperation not only in my village, but maybe a bit wider. That takes some transversal thinking, because different countries have different languages, cultures, points of view. Once you have this ambition to work at the European level, then there are tools. When I see Chinese delegations visiting Switzerland, they ask me about global leadership. They do not ask me about Switzerland. When I speak with Americans, they talk about global by design, global from day one. It is a mindset question. Having the mindset to grow, to explore possibilities outside your region, outside your country, and to see that as a learning opportunity.

I remember I had the opportunity to be an evaluator for a Slovakia-Taiwan cooperation program. Being invited was a privilege, because I got to see what kind of innovation was taking place in Taiwan and in Slovakia. If you work only within the same environment for long enough, you risk seeing the same ideas, the same approaches, and the same conversations repeated. There is value in being exposed to how people in other places approach innovation, because it broadens your perspective and creates opportunities to learn from different experiences. That learning process is also what helps build stronger connections across Europe.

I took a flight to visit Ljubljana in Slovenia and discover Zagreb in Croatia, countries I had never visited before. I came back with a better understanding of those countries and met great people. We had coffee together, they invited me after work, I visited their factory, they invited me to give a presentation, and I was able to present what we do.

The goal is to move from being a contact on Linkedin to a relationship. A point where you trust each other enough to write a proposal together and commit to working together for one, two, or three years. At that stage, it is no longer such a big risk because you know who the partner is and whether they are reliable. For me, reaching that point takes more than a ten-minute video conference or a LinkedIn contact, meeting people in person and getting to know them is ideal.

That is also why, in some accelerators and programmes, we encourage people to attend networking events and develop their own strategy for building connections, whether for projects or for their businesses.

When we create new technology, often the focus is on the technical achievement itself. But I’m curious—how do you ensure that from the start, the innovation is aligned with the real societal needs it’s ultimately meant to address?

I am really glad you asked this question. I'm not an engineer, so my focus is usually not on the technology itself. My role is to understand the problem first. For example, in healthcare projects, we focus on the patient. We start with the patient or the patient group. We listen to their needs and experiences. If we don’t spend enough time understanding the problem by listening to them, we risk developing a gadget or solution that nobody uses, no matter how advanced it is technologically.

To give you an example, I worked on a cancer-related project, and I gathered all my ideas directly from patients. I asked them: What are the side effects? What is most difficult for them? How long does recovery take? What can they or can’t they do? From these interviews, you can gather countless ideas. Once you have these conversations, you end up with a clear list of problems to solve. Then you check if existing solutions address them or if these are unresolved issues. Only then you look for the technology that can actually solve it.

Sometimes innovation starts with a clearly identified need, and sometimes it starts with a new technology looking for applications. Both approaches have their place. In our work, we usually begin with the needs of patients. We listen to their experiences and identify the challenges they face. From there, we define the requirements for a solution and then explore what technologies or approaches might address them.

This is also where collaboration with researchers becomes valuable. Researchers may already be developing technologies that are relevant to a particular challenge. By combining their expertise with insights from patients, it is often possible to adapt existing research into a solution that better addresses real-world needs. That is our way of innovating: starting with the problem and then looking for the most appropriate solution.

And this leads to my last question. Can you recall something you have developed yourself, or seen, that you would consider an impactful patient-driven innovation case?

I have seen many, but I can share one real life story. The idea was coming from an oncologist, from the Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. Because she did not have solutions for one of the cancer side effects, which is that you lose the dexterity of your fingers. [This is a condition known as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, a common side effect of certain treatments, causing numbness, tingling, and loss of fine motor control.]  If you have cancer and you are being treated with chemotherapy, you are losing the dexterity of the fingers, and you are losing the dexterity at the bottom of your foot. That has a knock-on effect on daily life, and people can fall. And because she had no solution, hospitals were spending huge amounts of money to equip the patients with material which was not adapted and was not really working. So it was not a matter of lack of money, but there was not an efficient mechanism to tackle the side effect. She asked whether we could look for alternative solutions that would do some compression on the fingers or on the feet. And for fashion, it is very easy to make gloves or socks. But adding the compression is where you need technology. We had understanding of the needs of the patients, so it is not that the solution is difficult, adding some pressure on the gloves, which is not too strong and not too light. We were able to find some technical textiles and find a mechanism to put this kind of pressure so that they have less of the side effect. So that is a story where we know why we are looking into technical textiles, it is because there is a patient group that is suffering from side effects. It is very directly addressing the need. We have listened to many patients and summarized it. Long story short, this is where you also find solutions in another industry, in this case the fashion sector.

Thank you, Yves, for this conversation.