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

Whether we like it or not, “shift happens.” The pace of change has gone hypercritical. Think about how much difference a decade makes. If we turn back the clock to 1997, for instance, most of us were probably just getting our first simple cell phones, Google didn’t yet exist, and Apple was so down on its luck that Steve Jobs was begging archnemesis Microsoft for a bailout. Ten years later, we had sexy and sophisticated iPhones in our pockets, Google was one of the top 10 biggest companies by market cap, and Apple was the most valuable computer maker in the world.

When Antonio Pérez became CEO of Eastman Kodak in 2005, the company’s market cap stood at over $9 billion⁴² and its future in a new era of digital photography looked bright. In fact, at the time, Kodak was the best-selling brand of digital cameras in the United States.⁴³ Over in Finland, Jorma Ollila, chairman and CEO of Nokia, was also looking forward to the years ahead. With a market cap of over $98 billion,⁴⁴ a global market share of close to 40 percent, and a brand new range of products ready to launch, Nokia’s continued domination of the mobile phone market looked like a no-brainer. Just 10 years later the great Eastman Kodak company was bankrupt, and what was left of Nokia’s once-giant phone business was sold to Microsoft for the bargain basement sum of just $7 billion.

Remember the days before social media? Again, ...