_I was told over and over again that I would never be successful, that I was not going to be competitive and the technique was simply not going to work. All I could do was shrug and say "Well just have to see". -_ Dick Fosbury

When U.S. athlete Dick Fosbury died this year, the world lost an Olympian and a fascinating innovator. Unlike his competitors who straddle-jumped the high jump bar at the 1968 Olympic Games, Dick jumped _backwards_ off the wrong foot and arched his body over the bar.

His gold-medal winning technique became known as the Fosbury Flop and changed the high jump forever.

And this innovation is a perfect example of the 4th option  crazy ideas that prompt disbelief or laughs.

Most innovation plays safe with where we are today and some stretch goals.

But we learned in our masterclass with Kaihan Krippendorff that hundreds of ideas \(many of them crazy 4th options like the Fosbury Flop\) are better. Here we summarise Kaihans framework, and 8 areas of your business that could be transformed.

**The IDEAS Framework**

Ideally, your innovation strategy contains ideas that your competition ignores or laughs at.

Its not that they cant do what you do, but they _choose not to_. At least initially\! This requires you to think differently and maybe even develop a new language.

Heres Kaihans IDEAS Framework:

- **Imagine  Envision a future**. Are you clear on your long-term vision and goals?

- **Dissect  Dissect your business model**. Do you intentionally design choices in all 8 dimensions \(see below\) of your business model?

- **Expand  Generate new options**. Do you generate a rich pipeline of ideas?

- **Analyse  Choose options to prioritise**. Do you make clear choices of which ideas to pursue \(including which crazy ideas to work on\)?

- **Sell  Build buy-in and support**. Do your people fully understand and are aligned to your strategic priorities?

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**Start with Imagine**

Innovation requires imagination, and imagination needs a zoomed-out view  well outside the walls of your workplace.

**Mess.** Step one is to look into the future and identify the mess youre in. The mess is the undesirable but realistic future that awaits you on your current path.

**Trends**. Step two is listing the key trends that will shape the long-term. Consider regulations, technology, socio-demographics, and macro-economics.

**Long-term ideal**. Step three is to envision the long-term outcome you most want to achieve, and describe it as concretely as possible.

**Near-term ideal**. Step four is list the near-term indicators or outcomes that must be met to know you are on the right path to your long-term ideal goal. \(See also [Shannon Byrne Suskos 3 Hag Way](https://www.thegrowthfaculty.com/blog/GREATIDEAS3HAGWAYbyShannonByrneSusko)\)

**Strategic questions**. Synthesise the near-term ideal into a question that is measurable and time-bound.

**Then Dissect Your Business Model**

A salesperson might see innovation opportunity in sales, and an HR person may generate ideas around people. However, Kaihan says when we focus on just the obvious, then we dont choose all the possible leverage points.

In other words, at least 8 aspects of your business model are ripe picking for innovation, as we'll see below....

**8 Business Model Elements to Consider**

As you work through these elements, discuss with your team "Is this a strength or a weakness for us?"

**Positioning**  Who will your core customer be? What should your brand mean?

**Product**  Do you know what your customers really care about, \(for example, are you reliable but not beautiful\)? Will your product/service attributes need to change?

**Pricing**  Is it confusing? Should you change your pricing model?

**Placement**  Should you distribute your product/service differently? Not just your core product but all ancillary products \(such as information services, access, etc\)

**Promotion**  How will you get customers/users to commit? Can your customer acquisition cost be lower than the competition?

**Physical Experience**  What should your customer experience be? What can they hear, smell, see, taste, touch?

**Processes**  What key processes must you run/how should you operate?

**People**  Who do you recruit? How do you organise? What should your cultural values be?

Another good question to ask the team is _What do we want to focus on this year?_ A business takes a lot of time and energy to run, so you cant focus on all eight.

**Expand**

To stay ahead of the competition, you need to both **defend the core** and **generate new growth** in your business.

Let's look closer at these 2 types of strategy to beat the competition:

**Defend the Core**

This is the fortress you build around your revenue-generators. Spend some time cataloguing the advantages you already have over your real or imagined competitors. Can you leverage economies of scale, build in customer captivity \(make it undesirable for customers to switch\), or lock up resources \(tangible, intangible, or organisational\)?

**Generate New Growth**

These are the ships you send out to discover blue oceans. You might move early to the next battleground \(skate to where the puck is to use an ice hockey term\). What are future customer needs or behaviours? Where is technology headed?

- Kaihan suggests one future battleground is **PROXIMITY**  where items and services move ever closer to where they are bought or needed \(for example, a 3D-printed food item or a soft drink dispenser that flavours carbonated water onsite\).

- **Coordinating the uncoordinated** is a future battleground, much as Wotif, Airbnb, and Uber do successfully. Who or what would you like to coordinate? Customers? Employees? Suppliers? Partners? Systems?

- **Force a two-front battle** is another strategy. Kaihan says successful companies these days are less often defining themselves by their industry. Instead they might be a  **customer service** company that **sells shoes**. Define yourself by your ecosystem. What business are you really in? How would _that_ kind of company behave differently?

- **Be good**  investing in workers and communities  can be a strategic power.

- **Create something out of nothing**. Most businesses tend to follow rules that dont really exist. Instead of playing the way everyone else does, what can you add to the game? Start something that unlocks non-consumption. Find those potential customers who currently arent buying because of price, access, know-how, or time. Can you add a product or service to the game? You could add new stakeholders, occasions, categories, or needs?

**Analyse and Sell**

**Select your 4** **th** **Option**

Having generated your hundreds of ideas, plot them on a matrix to separate out such things as easy to implement and high value ideas. Crazy ideas may be difficult to implement but can offer a high return. Waste of time ideas are difficult to implement and offer little value.

From these, pick your 4th option. Then continue the process of getting buy-in and support to make your innovation a reality. In a years time revisit your strategic plan and regenerate ideas.

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