Although knowledge is valuable, it is limited. In contrast, our imagination is limitless, allowing us to rethink problems and create solutions. Our imagination plays a critical role in finding new opportunities, rethinking our businesses, and finding growth pathways. However, many companies are losing the ability to imagine. How can organizations harness this skill and keep it alive? 

Martin Reeves, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, draws on the experience and insights of CEOs from different industries. In this episode, he talks about the process of sparking ideas and bringing them to life. He summarizes the imagination machine process to these six steps:

• The Seduction: opening yourself to surprises
• The Idea: how to generate one
• The Collision: rethinking your idea based on real-world feedback
• The Epidemic: spreading an evolving idea to others
• The New Ordinary: turning your novel idea into an accepted reality
• The Encore: repeating the process—over, and over again

Listen as he defines the difference between an incremental change and pivots essential to transformation—especially during a crisis.

Episode Quotes:

Is the book Imagination Machine an exercise designed to help readers identify opportunities systematically, and then exploit those opportunities according to a formula?

So this new book, the Imagination Machine, double clicks on visionary strategy, the creative element of strategy. Which is also the remarkable property of companies to imagine something that doesn't exist, which all founders of companies did. And then to cause that to become a new everyday reality.

How can you be intentional with your imaginative process and strategy for acquiring information?

Imagination is triggered by the contact with otherness, things that don't fit our current mental models, our current ways of doing things. And some organizations explicitly seek out that otherness.

How can you achieve the Renaissance perspective as a team?

Hire the diversity of skills that you're going to need, not just to run a business, but to reinvent a business. They can make sure that they have ambidextrous top teams. They may not be able to be always able to give good prescriptions in fast-changing businesses, but they can have very good questions.

Time Code Guide

00:01:29 Understanding the paradox of the book’s title

00:03:14 Explaining general ideas about the book: Your Strategy Needs a Strategy

00:05:21 Ambidextrous organizations, allocation of resources for innovation, and classic mix of portfolio

00:08:40 Defining imaginative and counterfactual thinking

00:11:03 Mental models for exploitation and exploration

00:13:10 Incremental and Transformative Innovation

00:15:24 The first step to imaginative thinking: surprise

00:18:48 Being selective in acquiring data to guide your decision-making

00:24:13 Controlled hallucination as a mental model

00:29:14 Putting aside time for reflection and counterfactual thinking

00:31:01 How can stress get in the way of creative thinking

00:34:38 How to conduct interviews to help you hire people that'll fit your team's imaginative process

00:36:33 How can legacy organizations encourage and incentivize people on the team that maybe resistant to learning?

00:43:36 How do you cascade cognitive diversity to the human resources department when recruiting?

00:45:17 Designing a corporate script that embodies counterfactual and ambidextrous thinking

Show Links

Guest Profile

• Speaker Profile at TED
• Professional File at the World Economic Forum
• Martin Reeves on LinkedIn
• Martin Reeves on Twitter

His Work

• Official Website of the Book Imagination Machine
• The Resilient Enterprise: Thriving Amid Uncertainty (Inspiring the Next Game)
• The Imagination Machine: How to Spark New Ideas and Create Your Company's Future
• Winning the '20s: A Leadership Agenda for the Next Decade (Inspiring the Next Game)
• Global Recession: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review (HBR Insights)
• Mastering the Science of Organizational Change (Inspiring the Next Game)
• Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
• Your Strategy Needs a Strategy: How to Choose and Execute the Right Approach

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