www.theGeniusWorks.com “Creative Genius” by Peter Fisk Interview with the author What was the background to you writing Creative Genius? I was astounded by Leonardo da Vinci. From sculpture to geometry, anatomy to mechanics, he embraced the border crossing principles of the Italian Renaissance to transform art and science. 400 years before Newton, 200 years before Corpernicus, from helicopters and submarines, he saw things differently – placing context above subject, recognising the power of paradox and parallels, embracing fusion and design. He was a man truly ahead of his time, and with the help of art historian Michael Gelb, I explore the “seven secrets” of da Vinci which are most relevant to business today. We live in what you might call a “VUCA” world – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Nothing is certain any more. And the strategies, products and business models which have made our businesses great are by no means passports to future success. We need to think more openly, more discontinuously. But it depends on how you see things … VUCA can also mean vibrant, unreal, crazy and astounding … welcome to a physical and virtual hybrid, where power has fundamentally shifted, geography is irrelevant, as are most of the other rules of the industrial age. This is a world full of technicolour opportunities ready to be exploited by those with sufficient boldness and imagination. Today’s winning companies think differently. They have bigger ambitions, more innovative strategies, and take bolder actions. From Apple to Zappos, Air Asia to Virgin Galactic, they have embraced a more innovative approach to every aspect of their businesses. The best companies see things differently, and think different things. These companies understand the wider impact they can have, on customers and society more generally … how they can enable people to do more, and ultimately make life better. They recognise that competitive advantage is about being different, not just through stronger brands and better products, but by understanding the future better than others. They value ideas and innovation as the essence of business … shaping markets in their own vision, rather than living in the shadow of others. For me, innovation is my first love, and so the book I have always wanted to write. From nuclear physics to managing the Concorde brand, I have had a yin-yang business career, working with some of the world’s biggest and most entrepreneurial businesses. Each experience offers something new, and it is the fusion of these insights and ideas which is most inspiring. Creative Genius is the fourth “genius” book that I have written – a series which I hope people find more inspiring than your average business book … Stretching and challenging for organisations and individually, alongside brilliant stories from
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“Creative Genius” by Peter Fisk
Interview with the author What was the background to you writing Creative Genius?
I was astounded by Leonardo da Vinci. From sculpture to geometry, anatomy to
mechanics, he embraced the border crossing principles of the Italian Renaissance to
transform art and science.
400 years before Newton, 200 years before Corpernicus, from helicopters and
submarines, he saw things differently – placing context above subject, recognising the
power of paradox and parallels, embracing fusion and design. He was a man truly ahead
of his time, and with the help of art historian Michael Gelb, I explore the “seven secrets”
of da Vinci which are most relevant to business today.
We live in what you might call a “VUCA” world – volatile, uncertain, complex and
ambiguous. Nothing is certain any more. And the strategies, products and business
models which have made our businesses great are by no means passports to future
success. We need to think more openly, more discontinuously.
But it depends on how you see things … VUCA can also mean vibrant, unreal, crazy and
astounding … welcome to a physical and virtual hybrid, where power has fundamentally
shifted, geography is irrelevant, as are most of the other rules of the industrial age. This
is a world full of technicolour opportunities ready to be exploited by those with sufficient
boldness and imagination.
Today’s winning companies think differently. They have bigger ambitions, more
innovative strategies, and take bolder actions. From Apple to Zappos, Air Asia to Virgin
Galactic, they have embraced a more innovative approach to every aspect of their
businesses.
The best companies see things differently, and think different things.
These companies understand the wider impact they can have, on customers and
society more generally … how they can enable people to do more, and ultimately
make life better.
They recognise that competitive advantage is about being different, not just
through stronger brands and better products, but by understanding the future
better than others.
They value ideas and innovation as the essence of business … shaping markets in
their own vision, rather than living in the shadow of others.
For me, innovation is my first love, and so the book I have always wanted to write. From
nuclear physics to managing the Concorde brand, I have had a yin-yang business
career, working with some of the world’s biggest and most entrepreneurial businesses.
Each experience offers something new, and it is the fusion of these insights and ideas
which is most inspiring.
Creative Genius is the fourth “genius” book that I have written – a series which I hope
people find more inspiring than your average business book … Stretching and
challenging for organisations and individually, alongside brilliant stories from
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businesses around the world, and practical tools and processes to make new ideas
happen. This for me, is the last and best of my “genius” books.
Business Genius challenged business leaders to lead with their heads up in a changing
world, making sense of change, and inspiring their people to think differently; Customer
Genius urges them to work from the outside in, fundamentally on customer’s terms;
Marketing Genius explored the left- and right-brain challenge of competitive and
commercial success. Each book has around 50 case studies, and around as many
practical tools.
You can find a more detailed summary, key principles, case studies and toolkits for each
of the books from my website www.theGeniusWorks.com
Who should read it, and why?
Creative Genius sets out to be “the essential innovation for business leaders, border
crossers and game changers”. It’s for people who want to do more – to take their
business to a new level, to develop ideas beyond our current imagination, and to make
things happen, that have never been done before.
Big ambitions, I know … But why else do we lead a business, embark on new projects, or
study to improve ourselves?
The book is intellectually stretching and stimulating – it doesn’t try to be too academic or
technical, but it does explore the most detailed approaches – the creative journeys of
Jobs to iPad and Branson to space travel, the intriguing principles of Christensen’s
disruption and Maeda’s simplicity, juxtaposed with the disciplined processes from NASA
to 3M, and the rigorous demands of venture capitalists and stock markets.
Creative Genius is for
Leaders who seek a new perspective, have bolder ambitions, and want to create
step-changes in their business performance.
Managers who want to drive innovation in every aspect of what they do, to
embrace creativity, design and accelerate ideas to market.
Entrepreneurs who seek inspiration and direction, into a how the business world
is not just about money, but a fantastically exciting voyage of discovery.
What surprised you the most when researching it?
Whilst innovation is so often called the lifeblood of organisations, the top priority when
talking to investors, the rallying call of leaders … then inside the vast majority of
organisations it goes little beyond the brainstorm. What amazed me of many of the
companies I visited was the lack of disciplined innovation strategy, process and co-
ordination. Too often it is still seen as focused only on products, a subordinate activity of
marketing, a nice to have.
People are confused between creativity, and design, and innovation.
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What surprised me even more is the speed of change in the outside world. Whilst Coke
is tinkering with its flavours, Microsoft preparing for its next release, even Apple on its
relentless gravy-train of fantastic devices, the world is moving even faster.
Small companies understand the scale and direction of the changing world better than
large companies, particularly in the emerging markets of Asia and South America where
networks and technologies enable the tiniest business, with the brightest brains, to out-
think and out-manoeuvre the lumbering supertanker of the last century who are caught
between old and new markets, legacy capabilities and future opportunities.
But perhaps the biggest surprise was how much business can learn from other places.
Lady Gaga might seem a youthful irrelevance to many business leaders – but consider
how she came from nowhere to global dominance in 24 months. On the very week that
Lehman Brothers crashed amidst financial crisis, Stefani Gremanotta, and her mentor
Akon, were launching The Fame Monster. Bold and provocative, maybe even mind
bending, she harnessed the world of social media and digital downloads to make herself
a global superstar. What could your business learn from her?
Add many others to this. What could you learn from Damian Hirst about contextual
pricing? How can you resolve a paradox like rocket man Burt Rutan? And when science
says no, like it did to Zaha Hadid when designing the London 2012 Aquatics Centre, how
can you overcome the challenge? What is the secret of fusion according to Paul Smith?
And when it comes to social impact, look east to the fabulous business model of Aravind
Eye Care, or west to the social renaissance inspired by the Guggenheim.
These are just some of the more inspiring stories I came across.
You say, “Reductionism, incrementalism and efficiency: the enemies of effective
innovation in business today”. Can you expand on this for us?
Markets are changing at such incredible pace, with fundamental shifts in culture and
technology, attitudes and expectations. Consumers are in control, and it’s not how big
you are, but who has the best ideas.
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From west to east, big to small, business to consumer … the hot fashions are in Buenos
Aires, the best green tech is in Shanghai, the top web designers in Mumbai, and the most
venture capital in Shenzhen.
Are you focused on the big opportunities? Over the next 5 years, female consumers will
grow faster than China … by 2020 there will be 50 billion devices, creating an intelligent
cloud accessible to everyone anytime. By 2025, the economies of the E7 will be bigger
than the G7, renting will replace buying, water will be the new gold … and on …
Too often, we have our heads down in our spread sheets – trying to optimise what we do,
reducing the costs, improving the margins, enhancing the product or service levels.
Doing things right, but are we doing the right things? As a scientist I appreciate the quest
for optimisation … the precision of segmentation, the productivity of supply chains,
balancing portfolios and scorecards, budgets and service levels, net promoter scores
and stock prices.
Working harder rather than working smarter. Extending life rather than creating new.
Imitating others rather than thinking different … We have become too left-brained for
our own good – analytical, logical, reductionist. We need to reengage our right brains
too – intuitive, holistic and exploratory.
Why should we “embrace paradox”?
Paradoxes throw up some of the best opportunities for innovation. They emerge when
something currently seems contradictory, incompatible, not possible.
Nintendo Wii resolved the paradox of playing computer games (geeky,
unhealthy, antisocial) and being good for you (socialising, healthy, sporty).
Swatch resolved the paradox of having a cool, high-quality, designer watch, but
still be so affordable that you can buy a new one every year.
Tesla is resolving the paradox of how to have an environmentally friendly, electric
or hybrid car, but still have the speed and styling of a Ferrari.
Setting out to resolve a paradox requires new thinking, to challenge the conventions that
led to its inherent conflict, and to explore how a positive combination of two opposites
could be valuable.
What, for you, are the five factors that will define the future of businesses?
Success in the 20th century was characterised by size and scale, in the 21st century it is
defined by ideas and impact. The five factors that will define the future of business are
1. Ideas. The new currency of success – individual and collective imagination is
determined by how well a business seeks and stimulates them from many
different sources, including customers and partners, how well a business
connects them together into richer concepts, and then is able to turn them into
distinctive realities that are practical and profitable.
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2. Purpose. In a world of infinite possibilities, any business can do anything.
Capabilities can easily be sourced, and any audience reached. Therefore rather
than being defined by what you do, a business needs a better sense of being – a
more inspiring purpose. Beyond the pursuit of profits, what is the distinctive way
in which the business seeks to make life better?
3. Networks. The ability to connect markets with infinite reach, to connect people
with people rather than just with companies, enabling collaboration like never
before - enabling audience and content, interaction and involvement. The most
authentic content is user-generated, the best marketing is word of mouth – digital
and physical, low cost and more trust, fast and global.
4. Enablement. Brands are not about what business does, but what customers aspire
to achieve. Products and service are not about sales transactions, but about what
they enable the customer to do, which they were never able to do before. Build
your own house, design your own website, run faster, enjoy life more. It’s all
about enabling people to do more.
5. Innovation. Relentless, significant, and holistic. The ability to continually renew
itself will be the ability of a future business – to anticipate and respond to
accelerating change, to embrace new technologies and behaviours, to
collaborate with partners and customers, and to balance development with
delivery, ideas with impact, purpose with profit.
Can you define your concepts of „future back‟ and „now forward‟?
Start with the impossible than work out how to make it possible.
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“Future back” is about leaping into the future, to imagine more clearly what it might be
like, without the prejudices and limitations of today, and then work backwards to connect
it to the present world.
“Now forward” is about taking decisions, investments and innovative actions that are
guided by a better view of their implications and what will happen next, and innovate
less restricted by what we currently know, think and do.
This was the real genius of da Vinci, but can equally be seen in the bagless vacuum
cleaner of James Dyson, the Virgin Galactic space ship designs of Burt Rutan, or the
electric charging networks of Better Place. Dyson was relentless in his experimenting
and prototyping until he broke all the rules of his market. Rutan played with paper
aeroplanes to perfect his idea of a mothership launch pad, whilst Shai Agassi has a vision
where electric cars will be the norm, and the person who runs the charging network will
dominate the market … the iTunes of the car industry, and more, in the making.
You quote an interesting statistic in the book, “3M estimates that it needs around
3000 clearly specified ideas, from which emerge around 300 prototypes, from
which they get 30 strong concepts, which are eventually whittled down to three
market entries, in order to get one successful innovation”. Why do so many ideas
fail?
Many ideas fail because
1. They are not relevant – they are driven by technological possibility, rather than
potential consumer demand, they are designed by scientifically rather than
ergonomically, they are focused on their function not their differentiation, on the
product not what it enables. Innovation starts with the customer, not always what
they need or can even articulate, but with a clearly defined way in which they will
add practical, relevant value to people’s lives.
2. They were not big enough – ideas need to be big enough to withstand the
inevitable practical and commercial filters put on them, to outweigh the risks and
uncertainties which they inevitably bring, and to stand out from the crowd and
support and price premium. Bigger ideas emerge from the fusion of smaller
ideas, so the real story is not always about eliminating the ideas, but about
connecting them like molecules to create something better and stronger.
3. Market entry is seen as the end point – all the brain power and resources goes
into getting the new idea to market, to launching it. But that is just the starting
point. More important to the success is how it penetrates the market, moves from
early adopters to mainstream, how people use it rather than just buy it, what they
say together and how reputation spreads. Sustaining an innovation in its first year
is perhaps the most important, and most neglected phase.
4. Creating a profitable business model – most creative effort still goes into the
product, less into the service, even less into the channel and broader customer
experience, and hardly any thinking goes into the business model. The old make
and sell model is increasingly irrelevant. Leasing, subscription, replacement are
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all increasingly popular models – why buy a car when there is Zipcars, why buy a
magazine when I can subscribe online, and so on. There is an inverse relationship
between the types of innovation, and the impact they can have.
But having said all that, 3M has a good, disciplined innovation process. Imagine if you
had a less good one – even more failures. The reality is that you need an awful lot of
ideas in order to find success. James Dyson had well over 5000 prototypes before finding
the right solution.
Most people just don’t spend enough time generating enough ideas – a quick brainstorm
with 20 random ideas in 30 minutes is certainly not enough. A one-day team workshop is
not enough either. The ideas are just starting to flow when everyone goes home.
Innovation is serious business. It needs real effort, hard work, time, and lots and lots of
ideas, together with a disciplined process to make them happen.
What are the „opening up and closing down‟ processes?
“Opening up” is the creative process of generating as many ideas as possible.
The phase inevitably, and quite acceptably, starts with a bit of fuzziness. This is because
the first creative challenge is to define the question – the problem or opportunity to be
addressed. Whilst a leader, or sponsor, might state it upfront, it is often what sits behind
that is more interesting. Therefore spending a bit of time exploring, shaping, even
redefining the question is good.
Once we have a clear starting point, then it’s about opening up as far as possible on this.
A wide range of creative techniques exist to explore the obvious possibilities, and then
the less obvious ones. A quick brainstorm is certainly not enough. The challenge is to be
divergent. Learn from the margins not the mainstream, from parallel markets that have
similar situations, from nature, or sport, or the arts.
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“Closing down” is when we start focusing in on the best ideas. This is achieved in two
principle ways – by fusing together ideas into stronger concepts, and through filtering
these concepts. A range of different evaluation filters should be used to find the strongest
ideas, but care should be taken to ensure that old-mindset filters don’t block out new
possibilities
For example, a concept might never be a big revenue driver, but maybe given away free
and with the support of a business model based around advertising, it could be very
successful - online gaming for example, refillable cartridges, or razor blades.
Innovation is about making ideas happen profitably, creative and commercial, and is
therefore an opening up and closing down process.
What are the “three levels of innovation intensity”?
The intensity of innovation relates to how ambitious it is - how much time and resource,
cost and risk it embraces – and how greater impact we seek in the market and bottom
line as a result. There are three levels of innovation intensity
Incremental: innovation as improvement, keeping pace with change and
expectation, adapting designs and applications to evolving needs. In the car
market we see a new version of the same car emerging frequently, maybe with
slightly enhanced features.
Next generation: innovation as change, moving ahead of the competition to
define a new level of performance, tapping into emerging needs and exceeding
expectations. In the car market, this is a significantly new model, launched every
few years, with a new brand name.
Breakthrough: innovation as revolution, changing the rules of the market,
challenging the behaviours of customers, maybe redefining the market altogether
– “game-changing”. In the car market, this is the SUV or the hybrid engine,
creating a new genre, a new category.
You need all of these innovations – a balanced portfolio of innovation projects at each
level being developed simultaneously. Incremental innovations keep you in the market,
little noticed and quickly imitated. Next generations get you ahead for a short-time,
maybe opening up a new revenue stream. Breakthroughs are what make you famous,
shaping your markets. They inspire customers, attract investors, and deliver leaps in
value creation.
What is the „Genius Lab‟?
When I work with organisations today, I focus on facilitating and accelerating their
innovation process We use a process of three intensive two-day workshops. During each
workshop, with a cross-functional team of their most interesting people and some
outsiders too, we focus on what matters, what’s possible, and what extra-ordinary (yes,
anything but ordinary) things they can do, in extra-ordinary ways. We capture the
insights and ideas, decisions and plans in words and pictures, photos and movies,
leaving the teams to do their specific tasks, before we meet again.
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The three phases of “The Genius Lab” defines the majority of the Creative Genius book –
the Ideas Factory, the Design Studio and the Impact Zone. An apparently simple process,
but with much underneath – taking ideas from the future back, as well as the inside out
and outside in, using left- and right-brain approaches, creativity and innovation, in order
to make the best ideas happen “now forward” and to deliver extraordinary results.
Phase 1: The Ideas Factory
This is about insights and ideas – from the future, in partnerships with customers
and experts, and our own imagination – from which we develop understanding
and inspiration, direction and hypothesises.
We explore the possibilities, based on future scenarios, customer immersion,
parallel worlds, emerging trends and creative ideas. Insights emerge out of the
collation of knowledge from different perspectives - “flashes of inspiration” or
“penetrating discoveries” – which are then fused with creative thinking.
Insights are much more than information, and create new platforms from which to
generate stronger ideas. Ideas are much more than actions, but concepts for
making life better. By understanding the problem or opportunity better, we have
more chance of creating successful solutions. By focusing on real insights, we
develop better ideas that are distinctive and powerful.
Phase 2: The Design Studio
This is about creativity and design – shaping the best ideas into more concepts
that are compelling, practical and profitable – articulating, testing and evaluating
each of the best concepts.
We work at the best ideas and hypothesises – reframing the context in which they
are positioned, fusing ideas together into richer molecular structures, considering
the function and form of these bigger ideas, enhancing their practical usability
and aesthetic appeal.
Concepts work beyond products and services - they emerge as propositions,
solutions and experiences, perhaps requiring new business and market models. It
is then about evaluating each of the best concepts for their value potential for
customers and business, how they will make people’s lives better, and how we
can make them happen distinctively and profitably.
Phase 3: The Impact Zone
The ideas factory The design Studio The impact zone
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This is about development and commercialisation – making the ideas happen,
launching them into the right markets, making them contagious and sticky, and
ensuring they deliver sustained results.
We creatively focus on the opportunities that will deliver the most return, the best
markets, customers, and solutions. Don’t try to do everything for everyone, do
things which are significantly different and better. And we don’t stop at market
entry - that is the starting point for bringing ideas to life, changing people’s
attitudes, encouraging new behaviours.
Delivering sustained results is about finding space in the market that you can
make your own, defend and grow. That is achieved by telling your story, in ways
that are compelling and contagious, and shaping markets in your own mind rather
than being a slave to somebody else’s vision, stretching and evolving ideas so
that can have even more impact, and stay a step or two ahead.
You explore eight „worldviews‟ to give us new perspectives on age-old problems
and opportunities. What are they, and how can we apply them?
Innovation requires new perspectives - finding new insights, better ideas and the best
opportunities. Whilst the future offers most stretch forwards, there are many other
perspectives, or worldviews, worth considering – separately and then collectively
considering the viewpoints of customers, business, competitors, parallel markets,
technology, responsibility, finance and the future.
The eight “worldviews” to help us see problems and opportunities in broader, richer
and new perspectives are
Future world – exploring future scenarios based on emerging trends, pattern
recognition and random possibilities that might be driven from science or sci-fi.
Customer world – exploring the needs and wants of diverse individuals, their
experience of you and your competitors, their frustrations and aspirations, trust
and loyalty.
Business world – exploring the drivers of business performance, key issues and
opportunities, assets and capabilities, assumptions and employee ideas.
Competitor world – exploring the strengths and weaknesses, postures and
differences, strategies and potential actions of direct and indirect competitors.
Parallel world – exploring how companies in different markets address, or have
addressed similar issues; who won and who lost, and what did they do; and even
extreme situations.
Technological world – exploring the emerging fields such as networking
technologies, computing, mobile technologies, artificial intelligence, biotech and
nanotech.
Responsible world – exploring the increasingly vital issues of environment,
ethical practices, fair trading, human rights, local communities, well-being and
transparency.
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Commercial world – exploring the consequences of changing price, costs,
profits, market share and the wider implications of changing regulation,
governance and competition.
These perspectives provide a wealth of discontinuous and complementary insights.
They can also be fused with existing knowledge – customer behaviour, market research,
employee surveys, boardroom thinking, business performance, industry reports,
technological insights, analyst reports, and catalytic thinkers.
What is „getting out there‟, and why is it important for the innovation process?
“Getting out there” means rolling up your sleeves and spending time in the market,
watching and talking with real people to understand the issues and opportunities in more
detail. It might include
Customer immersion – spending time (a day, a week, even longer) with real
customers, and non-customers, not just asking them what they think of you, or
want – but observing how they live and work, talking about their motives and
influences, understanding their issues and aspirations. This is much more
insightful than superficial average-seeking market research.
Business partners – likewise spending time with suppliers, distributors, existing
and potential product and service partners who currently or could serve the same
customers.
Specialist experts – likewise learning from academics, technologists, extreme
users and others
Parallel markets – likewise learning from companies in other markets,
geographies or sectors, which have similar issues or been through the same
change. Banks learning from retailers, telecoms learning from energy. Ask to
meet with you peers in non-competitive companies from these other markets, to
learn what happened, and how to succeed.
Marginal markets – likewise learning from related markets where people have
been more deviant, for example they have improvised because of lack of
resources, or they are adopters of more advanced or deviant behaviours – m-Pesa
in Africa, skateboarders in inner cities, fashion from junk shops.
Random inspiration – sometimes just do something a little less normal. Get the
perspective of somebody completely different, read a magazine you’ve never
read before.
You talk of the hidden patterns that are all around us, and of blinkered, reactionary
thinking, that blinds people to subtle shifts in the zeitgeist. Can we train our minds
to be more open and recognize these patterns and trends?
In simple terms, it’s about spending more time with our heads up, rather than heads
down. More time out there in the world where customers live, rather than inside our
business. Think about what you watch on TV, where you shop, what you read. And be
more observant, more curious.
I am intensely curious. Yes, I can travel to places all around the world, talk to an eclectic
range of people, and wonder the towns and cities with eyes open. But it can also be close
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to home. Watch the Simpsons or Al Jazeera news, read New Scientist or a range of online
blogs, download some TED Talks or some interesting looking apps.
Jeff Bezos, Ratan Tata, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson … they all say that their secret is to be
intensely curious. They deliberately take themselves out of their normal spaces, to meet
new people, to be inspired by new environments. They take a notebook everywhere
they go, they draw pictures rather than write words, they talk and think, and try to make
sense of change.
More tangibly, a range of future scoping and pattern recognition tools helps to make
sense of weak and strong signals – bringing together all the little behaviours and fads to
interpret fashions, and likewise looking at the broader direction of fashions to
understand trends.
A whole industry exists on trying to decode such patterns – from the Institute for the
Future, to Trendwatching, Now and Next to The Future Exploration Network. Of course,
the challenge is not just to observe a whole range of behaviours, adding fun names, but
to find real insight, implications and opportunities.
How can scenario planning support managers?
Scenario planning is built on systems thinking, the recognition that many factors may
combine in complex ways to create surprising futures due to the non-linear “feedback
loops” of causes and effects. Rather than just simulating futures based on today’s factors,
scenarios can also embrace new factors – new technologies, deep shifts in social values,
new regulation or disruptive innovations. Systems thinking used in conjunction with
scenario planning leads to plausible “stories” based on relationships between the many
factors.
The process starts with two types of knowledge - things we believe we know something
about, and things we don’t. The first type of knowledge, typically in the form of trends, is