The Four Lenses of Innovation: A Power Tool for Creative Thinking

PREFACE

After my speeches and seminars, people often come up and ask me where they can find a book on what I just talked about. I always assumed that my last book, Innovation to the Core, in which I dedicated a whole chapter to the Four Lenses of Innovation, would be sufficient to cover the subject. But after hearing the same question from so many people in so many countries, representing such a broad range of companies and industries, it finally became clear to me that the remarkable innovation methodology I have been using, championing, and perfecting all these years has long been crying out for a book of its own.

I have to candidly admit that, for me, the bigger story—indeed, what I consider the most important business challenge of our era—has always been how to embed innovation as a deep, enterprise-wide capability inside our organizations, so that it becomes just as integral to what we do as other capabilities like supply chain management, customer service, or quality. Given that innovation is now recognized globally as the core driver of growth, strategic renewal, and long-term business performance, it’s simply ludicrous for a company to hope that it will somehow happen just by chance, or with a minimum of management attention. I have therefore devoted most of my consulting and speaking career to helping organizations make innovation happen in a broad-based and sustainable way, and I have been wonderfully gratified to see the positive impact this has had on countless companies ...