|
Magic Tool |
Metaphoric Solution |
Practical Solution |
|
Balloon
Too
little air pressure
Deflated emotions
Competitors fly higher
Wrong wind
'Heads in the clouds'
Gaining visibility
Higher level (e.g. top level marketing) |
Elevate your product /
your company above the competition |
●
→
Surprise
To Win
●
Create greater
→
value
Innovations; Develop a
new-to-the-world product
●
Invent more effective
differentiation and
creative marketing strategies |
|
Take a helicopter view |
●
Work on your business
●
Build synergies and
→
balance your business system
●
Invent new
growth strategies |
|
Set a
stretch goal |
●
Create
and
articulate an inspiring vision and
strategic intent
●
Launch a crusade |
|
Travel to a new place |
→
Discover new opportunities
●
Create a new market niche
●
Develop a
Blue-Ocean strategy |
|
|
|
Flashlight
Too
little light
Too
little limelight
Batteries are down
Looking in a wrong direction
Illuminate
Search
Draw
or focus attention
Showing the way |
Find new ways of doing
things |
●
Challenge assumptions; ask
'Why? What if?' questions |
|
Discover
customer needs;
obtain market insight or competitor
intelligence |
●
Make
trend spotting practices a habit
●
Create early warning teams |
|
Find new
partners |
●
Define what is required to be superb, but is outside
your
capabilities
●
Look for the desired
core competencies and great
synergy potential |
|
Find the
→
problem
and its roots
>>> |
●
Use the
5-Why process |
|
Find an
→
innovation solution
to a problem |
●
Brainstorm; take
different perceptual positions;
discover opportunities |
|
Make rules more
visible |
●
Promote corporate values / guiding principles / idea
evaluation guidelines |
|
|
|
Headset
Mike
is off or volume is too low
Earphones are not working or distort sounds
Competitors' intelligence
Asking questions
Listening
Communicating, persuading
Convey a message
More
voices / perspectives |
Communicate with employees |
●
Create a more effective
suggestion system
>>>
●
Communicate the knowledge and information that
people need
●
Facilitate
cross-pollination of ideas |
|
Communicate with customers |
●
Listen to customers; obtain
customer feedback
●
Partner with customers for development of new
solutions |
|
Communicate with external
experts |
●
Exchange knowledge and ideas with a diverse group of
experts and innovators
●
Inspire criticism to discover
improvement opportunities |
|
|
|
Fishing
Rod
No
fish is caught
Poor
catch
Easy
catch
Wrong bait
Fishing in a wrong place
Enemies are fishing in your pond
Exploring a pond
Testing a bait
Better bait
Learning to fish
Catching some fish
Catching the fish
Hook
& rod to water ski behind a jetboat
Hide
Away |
Test the market
Experiment with different
baits to find out what works best
Create a better bait
"Catch" investors / partners
/ employees
Hire away a key player of a competitor;
|
Beta-test a new product
Experiment with various marketing approaches and
techniques
Ask learning SWOT questions |
|
To be completed soon |
|
Knife
Sharpening |
Cutting / Cutting off |
|
|
|
|
Brood
Rejecting
Wasting resources
Insufficient value
Cleaning |
Cleaning Removing
Flying Punishing |
Risks in test marketing:
giving competitors the opportunity to quickly copy your
product. |
|
|
|
Rope
Running on a leash
Existing ties are too strong
Weak
ties with the target group
Attaching
Strengthening ties
Detaching |
connecting/disconnecting; attaching;
binding together; fixing; tie/untie; building synergies;
pulling out; catching, lassoing |
Attachment to something (old
habits, existing structures, etc.)
causes resistance to change
|
|
|
|
Hammer
Too
masculine |
Nailing Adjusting Destroying
Punishing |
|
|
|
|
Trophy
Temptation
Problems with identifying winners
No
celebrations
Low
emotional drive
Insufficient rewards
Hard
to judge
Standing out
Opportunity to win
Elevating emotions
Celebrating victories
Greater rewards |
Motivating Rewarding
Winning/Losing |
Success is often more
dangerous than failure because it can lead to
complacency. Complacency is a very dangerous foe of
innovation. It is a key reason why innovative ideas are
rejected outright. Previous victories nurture an
innovation-unfriendly mindset: 'We are doing well right
now so why do we need to change?' |
|
|
|
Money
Lack
of capital
Low
value
Cash
flow problems
Insufficient rewards
Low
profits
Reducing costs
Buying additional resources
Better financial incentives
Effective pricing |
Earning Loosing
Spending Giving |
Enemies
-
Cost overruns
-
Wrong rewards: many
organizations reward conformism and successful political
behavior over value innovation and market-changing
results which makes it better to keep up appearances
than to create the future.
-
Financial incentives
are not big enough to motivate the team members to
give their best to the project
-
Competitors invest
heavily in a similar solution
|
|
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