Observations about circular innovation

In my previous post, I’ve introduced the concept of circular innovation and its dynamics.

In closing the post, a few questions emerged:

1) How long will the circular innovation cycle last in a company? 2) Can/will an organisation embrace the new idea? 3) Is it worth creating a new organisation to implement a new idea?

In this post let’s explore observations about circular innovation.

1. Employees direction of rotation;

Employees move along the two circles in the opposite direction.

In management centred and control-driven organisations, employees move clockwise. In the leadership focused and Idea-driven, organisations employees move anti-clockwise.

The different direction is not a nuance - to break circular innovation is not enough for employees to diverge (on a tangent direction) but also to set in motion a new organisation moving on a different course.

2. Strategic & Cognitive distance (space between the two circles).

Our perception plays an important role when thinking about business innovation. Let me give you a real example.