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What style or styles will solve your company's innovation problems? Consider
each style in turn. The most dramatic, fastest strategy innovation accomplishments
come through Cauldron strategy innovation.
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Does your company face a crisis? Does dealing with the crisis require a whole series of big changes? If the answer to both questions is "Yes," it's probably worthwhile to take your company through the difficult but exciting process of heating the Cauldron. Moreover, if there is no obvious crisis the usefulness of Cauldron innovation may make it worthwhile for leaders to create one. General Electric didn't face any obvious crisis when Jack Welch took over in 1981, but Welch created a crisis by insisting that every GE business had to be No. 1 or No. 2 in its industry, and that crisis launched Cauldron-style strategy innovation at GE. But not every company needs the radical transformations of the Cauldron style. After considering Cauldron strategy innovation, consider whether you want to focus on radical improvements in your existing business through Spiral Staircase strategy innovation. You can't know how great are the opportunities for improvement in your existing business till you've focused on creating them. But you can ask, "Can my business grow?" "Can it inspire passionate loyalties?" A business with growth potential or passionate loyalties is worth trying to transform with Staircase innovation. If you're neither igniting your company with Cauldron innovation nor wedding yourself to your customers as you climb a Staircase with them, you should pursue Fertile Field. Understand your portfolio of assets and competencies and then advance with them in new directions. Finally, does your company face opportunities you can't capture through any of these three styles? If your fragmented industry has difficulty serving customers well, if it's moving in many directions at once, and if you have the resources to build a first-rate capability of acquiring and assimilating outside technology, you can achieve great things through the PacMan style. And if you sense a big opportunity where there are dozens of questions that must be answered and probably many years of work before profitable products can be sold, the Explorer style can effectively create a transforming set of new strategies. |