Activating Innovation Using Foresight Tools

• Published in: Research technology management Vol. 60; no. 3; pp. 57 - 58
• Main Author: Crews, Christian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arlington Routledge 01.05.2017; Industrial Research Institute, Inc; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Construction equipment; Crafts; Death; Evaluation; Forecasts and trends; FUTURES PRAXIS; Innovations; Leadership; Market positioning; Markets; Methods; Plutarch (46?-120?); Portfolio management; Project management; R&D; Research & development; Sales; Storytelling; Strategic planning (Business); Technological innovations; United States
• ISSN: 0895-6308; 1930-0166
• DOI: 10.1080/08956308.2017.1301004

Companies are built perfectly to perform the activities they're doing today, and leaders are rewarded for executing existing plans. Therefore, one of the most important battles R&D leaders must fight to get a technical innovation to market is creating the organizational will to take a risk on the innovation -- to bet on change. Truly breakthrough innovations require companies to do more than just make and distribute them; they often bring with them new kinds of value, new pathways to market, new manufacturing practices, even different sales approaches and unique ways to recognize revenues. Humans are natural story listeners, but storytelling is a craft. Luckily, Joseph Campbell provides a template, a hidden structure that underlies oral myths from around the world, for structuring compelling stories. For the purposes of innovation storytelling, these can be summarized into seven major steps. These are: the challenge, the call, meeting the mentor, crossing the threshold, tests and trials, encounter with death, and magical return.