TransformaTion

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Assume transformation 1is necessary. The only way to get to transformational questions is to purposefully chase them, and this starts with assuming that transformation is necessary rather than an option. Assuming transformation is necessary changes the conversation in the team from ‘should we transform something’ to ‘what will we transform?’ Consciously try to identify things in your category, consumer experience, products and business that just are the way they are, without needing to really be that way. In most businesses, you’ll find a long list of these things and transformational questions hidden inside them. In an age of 2personalization, when there is such tremendous breadth in consumers’ financial means and trajectories, why do mortgages come in only 15 and 30- year increments? When less than 15% of the population finds full-strength spirits palatable, why is 98% of the category sold in a way that requires compensatory behavior? For inspiration, just look how far architect Frank Gehry was propelled by simply questioning the need for walls and roof lines to be straight. Cultivate a healthy disrespect for present reality. Knowledge is a potent form of competitive advantage, but there is often a razorthin line between a knowledge base and the entrenched paradigms that have been attached to it over time and permeated innovation in your category. Know that knowledge is power in certain moments in the journey, but kryptonite in others if not properly harnessed. 3 Temporarily forget what you know.
? ? ? ? ? ? 4 ? Ask yourself how likely it is that your competitors aren’t working on the same questions you are. ? ? ? ? Literally picture yourself right now sitting in the room with a similarly-chartered project team at your key competitor’s office. If you can readily imagine them working around similar questions, you probably haven’t cracked the transformational questions you’ll need to get to transformational answers. The point is not to second guess what your rivals are up to, but simply to gauge your own conviction that you’ve uncovered transformational questions. Big thinkers find big questions exciting. So if you don’t viscerally feel that you’ve broken new ground, you probably haven’t. 5 Move the camera around the room. Finding big transformational questions usually happens by distancing ourselves from the prevailing category context we live in every day and approaching it from a fresh angle. This doesn’t just work metaphorically, it works literally too. Looking at your ice cream business not through the eyes of the consumer seeking indulgence, but from the perspective of the product behind the frosted freezer glass watching consumers go by, like an orphan hoping for adoption, may open a powerful new set of questions to ignite transformational innovation. If that doesn’t work, deconstruct the life cycle of an ice crystal born in the churn at the factory, or ask what the spoon would say as it’s bent in the act of scooping.
Page 1: The Question of Transformation A pe
Page 4 and 5: A QUESTION OF Competitive It’s ab
Page 6 and 7: The way a transformational question
Page 8 and 9: Enter the transformational question
Page 10 and 11: Beneath the seemingly reasonable di
Page 14 and 15: 6Learn to hear the thundering sound

TransformaTion

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