Innovation at the speed of AI

Creating clarity in an environment of high uncertainty and change requires looking beyond the noise of today and exploring the possible future states of tomorrow, which will ultimately better inform our decision-making today.

Simply asking customers what they want does not work, in part because human beings often do not realize they have a need until a solution comes along and reveals it. Firms now need the mindset, skillset, and tools of User-centered design and Design thinking—techniques that push beyond talking and listening to customers by digging deep into who they are and what they want.

Many leaders downplay ideas when they clash with their beliefs or intuitions about what works. Or they discard ideas entirely because they sound too fantastical to ever find practical use. Divergent Thinking and Applied Creativity is a set of processes and approaches leaders can use to frame and reframe questions to explore multiple possible answers to those questions, and to recognize and then suspend judgement long enough to thoroughly explore fresh ideas as they emerge.

Disciplined Experimentation is a set of principles, processes, and tools that leaders can use to test ideas fast and cheap while guard-railing their downside. When faced with conditions of high uncertainty, these processes help leaders and their teams to say, “I don’t know,” and move forward.

Because digital technology is intertwined in everything we do and will continue to become more intertwined in the future, digital literacy has become the new lingua franca that all businesspeople must understand. To be a digitally literate leader doesn’t mean you need to be able to write code; it means that you understand the implications of digital technologies for your current and future business at any moment in time. It means you can answer, “How might technology disrupt our competitive position?” And equally, “How might technology improve our performance and delight our users?”