Stages of innovation (and ambition)

I think you can innovate and deliver at 3 levels:

1. In the now with tactical solutions
2. Thinking forward to be strategic about what’s next and how you can grow and evolve
3. Thinking beyond to more moonshot ideas that could change markets, industries, models and behaviours

You need all 3 to stay current and to build futures.

The moonshot allows you to explore what might be and inspire the tactical. It provides a view on where you could go and what behaviours and mindset shifts would need to occur. The moonshot is transformative at many levels. It’s your hero product, the thing that’s unattainable right now but that encourages your audience to want more. It’s the thing that makes your employees want to push through the tactical and it’s the narrative that can make you think different in the now.

How do you get to the moonshot…

1. Identify your long held core beliefs so you know what’s stopping you from or driving you towards change
2. Articulate the supporting facts that keep these beliefs true
3. Look at patterns and shifts in the science, human behaviour and industry shifts to create new beliefs you can explore
4. Pull diverse ingredients together — things that typically shouldn’t work together but that do if you add a hint of something new, an unexpected connector or something new to bind the mixture
5. Look to forms and functions from outside of your current world
6. Create artefacts from the future to test your new beliefs
7. Pull in a great storyteller for it’s the narrative that makes the difference
8. Demonstrate the ecosystem and connections to other moonshots
9. Make it real, make it great and make it (un)believable