The Three-Box Solution
A Strategy for Leading Innovation
Leaders already know that innovation calls for a different set of activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches—it is well-understood that creating a new business and optimizing an already existing one are two fundamentally different management challenges. The real problem for leaders is doing both, simultaneously. How do you meet the performance requirements of the current business—one that is still thriving—while dramatically reinventing it? How do you foresee a change in your current model before a crisis forces you to abandon it?
Vijay Govindarajan expands the leader's innovation toolkit with a simple and proven method for allocating the organization's energy, time, and resources—in balanced measure—across what he calls "the three boxes":
• Box 1: The present—Keep the current business going
• Box 2: The past—Forget what made the business successful in the past
• Box 3: The future—Create the new model
Vijay Govindarajan (known as VG) is the Coxe Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, a Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School, and widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation. He is the author of many books and articles, including the New York Times bestseller Reverse Innovation.
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