Short and Sweet: How Strategy and Innovation dance

By Fabián Szulanski

Strategy

Some people say that Strategy is how you go from A to B. This meaning what resources

you will deploy, how much time will it take, who will be accountable, and so forth.

Going deeper, you might also state which mental models, principles, values and

paradigms will prevail in that strategic journey.

Innovation

Other people say that innovation is creating new value. There are many ways of doing

that, being the main two making small, incremental changes to the existing slice of

reality; and making transformative, seismic, disruptive changes to it, eventually

creating new paradigms.

Comparison between Strategy and Innovation

A to B

Does Innovation also go from A to B?

Yes, indeed. But B is at a different energy, vibration, frequency level than A.

So, they are similar in a way (both go from A to B; both are transformational). And both

are different in a way that A and B are in different levels, while strategy’s A and B

aren’t, necessarily.

May a strategy help going from A to B when they are at different levels? Sure it may.
New Value

As we have already stated, innovation is related to new value. Commonly, it’s

associated to new products, services and experiences. However, we can sustain that

innovation might create new value at the personal, organizational, and societal levels.

May strategy create new value as well? Surely it may. Even though A and B are in the

same plane, going from A to B can be a personal, organizational or societal learning

journey, adding new value as well at all those levels.

Stance

In strategy people usually apply a much diverse set of frameworks and tools, mostly in

a linear fashion.

Innovation allows for more creative, even artistic ways to think, feel and act.

Strategy and Innovation dance tango

How might crafting a strategy help an innovation initiative? When we go through all the

innovation divergent and convergent paths, it’s very useful to plan what resources we

are going to use during that endeavor. This is normally called an Innovation Strategy.

Might a Strategy be innovated?

Of course it might. Either by modifying strategy incrementally, or radically, by applying

inventive thinking to the different strategy attributes and values. This is normally called

Strategy Innovation.

Innovation2 : Can innovation be innovated?

Anything can be innovated. Innovation isn’t an exception. We’ve witnessed product

centered, human centered, customer centered, and many other types of innovation

efforts. May be this the time for life centered innovation?

Then, what?

We are in a constant quest of inventing and using frameworks for better problem

solving, and incremental and exponential value creation. Nemetics seems to be a good

choice.

How are we going to go from A to B in the future? What values and principles are going

to prevail? What new paradigms are to be created? What skills and businesses that

weren’t’ created so far are going to be involved?

Coda

There are two different words: Strategy and Innovation. Are they so different from each

other? How are they going to dance tango in the future?