Effectiveness in action also relies on our capacity to think beyond the immediate and into the longer term.
This perspective allows us to distinguish different forms of innovation. Some innovations are radical and surprising and have the effect of disrupting ‘business as usual’ systems. Others are simply absorbed by existing systems to extend their life a little longer, working against the grain of longer term changes in the operating environment.
If we take a longer view there is also a third form of innovation – transformative innovation – that intentionally shifts existing systems fundamentally towards a new sustainable way of operating in a changed environment.
Without this longer term, transformative perspective, all innovation inevitably tends to improve and prolong existing systems – which are inherently unsustainable in today’s changing world. This ‘innovation’ props up the past rather than investing in the future.
IFF practises and encourages transformative innovation and pays special attention to the challenge of introducing the new in the presence of the old.
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