Innovation leadership is about heralding and giving shape to a whole new world. Once a deep-seated assumption changes, it takes the rest of the frame with it.
For example, let’s identify the components of driving a car: their engines, the road system, or the drivers. If we reframe the latter, we can think about the concept of the driverless car is an exciting new paradigm, which has been much in the news recently. It has enormous security benefits. There will be far fewer traffic accidents, as these are caused mainly by human error and drunk driving. But driverless cars will disrupt far more than the automobile industry. The advent of driverless cars will also lead to a radically different usage of roads and parking spaces. We will no longer need parking lots, as cars can be continuously on the move, or return home between shifts. The sense of ownership of the automobile will change when we have what are essentially robot-taxis at our beck and call. The trucking industry will change dramatically with delivery-bots.
As Brad Templeton explained during a THNK Forum, one radical change in the way we drive will impact many other aspects. All of the assumptions about cars, driving, and city planning are ripe for reframing, for disruptive innovation, and exciting new business models.
True innovation leadership is about rethinking our current practices; it is about taking the lead in creating something new, something unheard of, something that radically shifts our way of being in the world. In order to achieve that, we need to challenge the status quo of our life, but also of our mind, of our thinking and our approaches. Innovation leadership means constantly questioning the accepted presuppositions about products, processes and projects. Then you are liberated to create a whole new world.