February 8, 2018

by Roel Mangiliman, Manager of Innovation and Learning

As “Manager of Innovation and Learning,” I am often asked what I do exactly? What is innovation? What does innovation mean in the context of legal aid? I suspect these questions stem from the possibility that my job title sounds novel, maybe vague. In response to this, I love to talk about cheetos. Specifically Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Hear me out.

Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were invented by a man named Richard Montanez. Born in Mexico, raised outside of Ontario, CA, Richard Montanez worked as a janitor at the Rancho Cucamonga plant of Frito Lay Company. One day Montanez heard a video message from the Frito Lay’s President telling all staff to “act like owners,” to take active investment and dream big in their roles. This left an impression on him. “I looked around and didn’t see a lot of reaction from my co-workers, but for me it was the opportunity to do something different.”

As fate would have it, one of the assembly lines later broke, leaving some of the Cheetos without their iconic bright orange coating. Montanez took some home. Montanez was intrigued by the possibility of adding chili powder to the cheese puffs, inspired from the Mexican food elote. “I see the corn man adding butter, cheese and chili to the corn and thought, what if I add chili to a Cheeto?” He went to his mom’s kitchen and added chili powder.

His family loved it, and told him to share with his plant supervisors. His supervisors loved it, and encouraged him to pitch to higher ups. After speaking with the president’s secretary, Montanez secured an executive meeting two weeks later. In preparation for the pitch, Montanez read a book on business strategies that he borrowed from the public library, and bought his first-ever tie for $3. Montanez even designed his own sample bags for the meeting, and put the spicy Cheetos in them.

The pitch was a hit. Company executives loved the idea and decided to go into production. “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos” was born, and the rest is history: the spicy cheese puff snack went on to become Frito-Lay’s highest selling product. In addition, Montanez is now an executive vice president of Pepsi Co.

The story of how Hot Cheetos were invented is interesting for many reasons.

On a personal level, I am always inspired when people who come from modest means exude creativity and determination when they do not have to; Montanez took a role of relatively low-positional authority and felt determined in the potential of his ideas.

On a professional level, there is a lesson here for my work. There were mechanisms at Frito Lay allowing innovation to emerge. There was encouragement from leadership via the all-staff video. There were co-workers who put creativity in a positive light. There was also a clear way (albeit formalistic) for ideas to bubble up to the top.

According to the nonprofit consulting group, Bridgespan Group, innovation is driven most commonly by such features: diverse, high-functioning staff, empowering leadership, a pathway for new ideas, and resources to execute. Similarly, management guru, Peter Drucker, describes innovation as a disciplined and systematic process of looking for market-shifting opportunities, one that appreciates people’s unique strengths and ideas. Frito Lay deployed these conditions in its own way, and is millions of dollars richer for it.

Roel Mangiliman

My job is to help legal aid groups strengthen their own drivers of innovation at a time when innovation — or the ability to adapt to change — is most needed. The legal field has entered an era of transition, clearly. From changing client demographics; reduced government funding for legal aid; fluctuating numbers of law school applications; to the influence of technology on day-to-day life. Legal groups can see these transitions either as organizational threats or opportunities. My job is to help them see the latter.

Having shared the Hot Cheetos story, hopefully my work makes more sense to people. Feel free to contact me if you want to know what this all means in detail, or suggestions on how we might work together.

I am eager to hear what innovation means to you, what it means to fellow OneJustice staff (look out for a related post by Peter James, Senior Manager of Impact Evaluation), and in general in what innovative or ‘out of the box’ ways might OneJustice bring legal help to places where it is most needed.