The Three-Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation

The Three-Box Solution is a great read and one I will bring to friends leading and managing start-ups and established Companies. However, the real excitement and opportunity will be to share the book and its lessons with undergrad students studying Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UNC and Duke. VG's simple but critical look at how to manage and optimize for the Present (Box 1), shed and forget the Past and its trappings (Box 2) and be ready for and create the Future (Box 3) is clearly the task ahead for CEOs and their teams. But also something worth sharing with those just starting their careers or launching their ideas. His retelling of Keurig's move from an Office coffee machine to one for the Home is a fantastic lens to understand Box 3 leadership and execution. The Chapter on Keurig is full of gems as he shares the stories behind making a brewer that would heat up fast enough to satisfy an impatient coffee lover at home in the morning as well as pack enough coffee in the K-cup to satisfy the demanding needs of Starbucks and the taste buds of its consumers. VG's abilities to help understand the critical components of a Box 3 initiative are so well captured in the Chapter around Keurig including the importance of creating a Box 3 culture and having courageous leadership which for most is very hard. The book is full of strong examples of company leadership, execution and simple but powerful strategies and considerations as he takes us through all three boxes with United Rentals, IBM, Willow Creek, Mahindra, Keurig and his own insights. Enjoy The Three-Box Solution and getting to know or reading more from the thinking and experiences of VG!

How do you align your organization on the competing agenda of simultaneously running the current business while dramatically reinventing it? The answer is The Three-Box solution. Box 1 – Manage the present core business, the performance engine Box 2 – Abandon practices and ideas that have lost relevance in the changed environment Box 3 – Generate breakthrough ideas and convert them into profitable business. By balancing the three boxes, managers can resolve the inherent tension of innovating a new business while running a high-performing business at the same time. The author, Professor Govindarajan has the magic of turning complex issues into simple framework and articulating it in plain English, which makes reading this book an enjoyable journey. The author cited real examples of how other organizations are using this model and applying these principles: You should engage in both linear (Box 1) and nonlinear (Box 3) innovations to ensure leadership in the future. You must develop the discipline of selectively forgetting the past (Box2) or the past will prevent you from creating the future Optimizing current business models in Box 1 and creating new business models in Box 3 must be pursued simultaneously, yet we call for different activities, skills, methods, metrics, mind-sets, and leadership approaches. After reading this book, I started to realize that this deceptively simply Three Box framework applies to the career management too. To have a successful career, you need manage the current career (Box 1 )to achieve the efficiency at current position but at the same time you should spend time thinking about our long term career goal which is Box 3. In the process, we need selectively forgetting those skills that have lost relevance - the Box 2. In a word, you need the Three Box, for a sustainable business and a successful career.

I like the framework as well as the examples. I would like more hands on tools to use in my innovation challenges.

“The Three Box Solution” by Prof. Vijay Govindarajan is actually a gift to all the business owners in the world. The book contains a prescription of survival for all the businesses. Prof. VG has presented his case, in this book, in such an easy to read style that it gets easier for reader to grab and absorb the key ideas. This makes contemplation easier and application smooth. Various case studies presented in this book show the pragmatic application of “The Three Box Solution” strategy. In this book, Prof. VG linked this modern day business thinking to mythology in a beautiful way. In my humble opinion, this book is a must read for all business owners, students and scholars. And it is a best investment in terms of time and cost. It has so many things/ lessons inside that can be helpful to all the people who are somehow connected to business world. In short, it is another master piece from Prof. Vijay Govindarajan. Dr.Hafiz Imtiaz Ahmad Assistant Professor & Director of PE School of Management New York Institute of Technology Abu Dhabi Campus

VG is an Idea Lab. His ideas change the way we see things, which eventually change the way we do things; thus eventually changing the outcomes we achieve. Three Box Solution is one such repository of ideas, insights and anecdotes that enable us straddle the Past-Present-Future conundrum with ease. The book is significantly relevant for innovation in the organizational context as well as personal context. It gives you a new lens to view and shape things as you put your first step into the future, everyday, day after day. I have drawn life changing insights for me and my work and in remarkable ways, most important being the art and science of reflection in a structured ways to not only curate new ideas but execute them in a disciplined manner. To me, Three Box Solution is one of my all time top five books and will remain a source of inspiration, innovation and implementation. Great piece of work VG and many thanks for bringing it to the world at a time, when it matters most.

In the dense foliage of innovation, the three box framework goes to roots, presenting a clear and precise approach towards leading innovation by taking on the destructive forces by the horn. The concepts of “Planned Opportunism” and the values of “Versatility” are indeed the mainstay for the strategic balance of the three boxes. This is a simple approach, but an overwhelming challenge to implement and maintain the ambidextrous coexistences of the boxes. This book importantly provides the direction for exploration under Box 3 and the exploitation of inherent strengths under Box 1, with the strategic balance provided by the effective execution of Box 2, identifying the practices to discard and the candidates for divestiture. It’s therefore crucial towards investing in the “Horses you can control”, the three box framework clearly provides the solution with requisite tools and approaches towards fostering innovation. This book is certainly a “must read” and a valuable resource to have.

If you are already working on innovation the model and the learnings he shares are too obvious and expected nothing really breaking through, or new to actually innovate in the process... the paradoxical desire to offer a book about innovation not offering any disruptive tool or techniques.

Good book recommended by my exec.

Takeaways from reading the book: Box 1. Vishnu. Vishnu is the God of preservation. So this box 1 is the performance engine. It is here key income is generated and therefore, it is also from work in this box that box 3 work focusing on creation is financed. Box 1 Vishnu is about core competencies, daily operations and delivery. Strong focus is on efficiency, details, precision, reliability and doing things right. Examples of Vishnu box 1 questions: - What do we do really well? How do we do that? - Who and where are our existing users / customers? - How can we do, what we do well, even better? Box 2. Shiva. Shiva is God of destruction. So this box 2 is about forgetting and destroying what is no longer relevant, for example because technologies and/or user needs have changed. It is about getting rid of a way of thinking that has become obsolete. The better we are at removing road blocks in this box 2, the better we will be at creating in box 3. Location 2400: Examples of Shiva box 2 questions: - What do we need to stop thinking? - What do we need to stop doing? - What products / services do not create value for people anymore? - What buildings, machines, and/or other technologies do we not need anymore, because they are not designed for what users need. Location 550: Beliefs that people, who work for Hasbro, wanted to get away from: - Customers are younger than 16 years old. - We are a product company. - We distribute through physical shops. - We are an American company. Location 1450: Long-tenured employees in particular hold on to past successes. Another trap that blocks innovation is fear people have that new products / services replace the old ones. A third trap, which holds innovation back, is the competency gap meaning that focus is put on competencies needed for old products and less on competencies needed for new products with potential to create higher value for users. Location 1400: The purpose of box 2 is to create protective structures and alternative competencies that allow box 3 innovations to flourish. For example, IBM needed a process for enabling, supporting, and rewarding innovators that could help develop new products / services, find new customers, develop new markets, challenge existing ways of thinking and ways of doing things. Box 3. Brahma. The Brahma box 3 is about creating. It is about making investments today to get benefits in the future. An example of a box 3 initiative for a human being is doing sports regularly in order to stay fit / be healthy in the months / years ahead. Examples of Brahma box 3 questions: - What values do we have? - What is our purpose? - What new technologies are there? - What new needs do people have? - What economic changes are happening in different markets? - What do we need to learn? At location 2700, I understood that these signals / clues are most likely observed by curious new employees. - What new products / services do we need to develop and test? - What distribution channels do we need to test? - What places do we need to learn more about? Location 2400: As we look for new opportunities / possibilities in box 3, we need to replace the microscope from box 1 with a telescope. Location 2700: Tata Consultancy Services uses a digital platform to enable its employees to share signals, perspectives and ideas. Box 3 is also about testing ideas / trying out ideas at low costs / doing cheap experiments. Through pilot tests, we learn about what works / what users want and what works less / what users need less. Key in this regard is learning from feedback / results / mistakes / successes and continuing to iterate, for example improve design / content / functionalities and test again. That is why box 3 initiatives should be evaluated - as the author mentions at location 2600 - on their ability to learn and adapt quickly more than on reaching short term financial goals. At location 2700, i learned that mavericks / innovators see the world as others do not. Therefore, they are able to develop unconventional solutions / services / products which others could not see. In this regard, think, for example, of Airbnb that enable travelers to stay at homes of other people. In this part of the book, I also read about Anand Mahindra who needed mavericks to challenge the ways things were being done at the company, come up with new ideas of how to do things, and try ideas out.

I raccomand this book from Professor Vijay to any one who is interested in having real care about his business Professor VG is a master , ia already know as one of the best innovator thinker This book is really effective in understanding many key point about innovation Full of practical examples and easy to understand also for novice like me Really one of the best business related book i have ever read

Dicas de como fazer melhor o de sempre, ao mesmo tempo em que se prepara para um futuro inovador e melhor.

Being part of a business that is embarking on what I now recognise as a Box 1 & Box 3 journey, this was a great read. Box 2 was the part I had previously overlooked. I have used the Box 3 terminology at the start of some of my team meetings to create the space for creative thinking with great results, both getting excellent ideas out of my team but also a renewed energy in everything else they do. A truly interesting read and one I recommend to you and all my colleagues!

Una mezcla entre las técnicas actuales y los paradigmas de mercado relevantes... Aporta pautas ambiguas y ninguna novedad