4-FIND OUT HOW TO GET THERE _Six Paths Framework

FIND OUT HOW TO GET THERE At this point team members have come to have a visceral understanding of how the process and tools enable them to see what they haven't seen before, to build their collective confidence, and to develop a new level of awareness and openness. Now they are ready for the process to shift, from broadening perspectives and imagining what could be, to generating practical, real-world, new growth options. This framework demystifies and structure the work of seeing opportunities where others see only competition. This stage of the process is where team members dive head-on into the market, get their hands dirty, and do the field-based research that can generate actionable insights for changing the strategic playing field. If you want different answers, you need to ask different questions and listen to different people. People are as insightful (or not) as the questions you ask them. Ask questions that force people to think in fresh and innovative ways, and you'll gain insights into new market creation. Boundaries do not define what must be or should be. They merely define what is. None of them is a law of the nature. All of them are product of people's minds, and such, they are open to change. But over time people come to take them as eternal truths and become a conceptual cage that organizations lock themselves into. Just as people created and organizations created them, so they can change them if they are prepared to think in a different way. The six paths framework, provides six systematic ways to shift the lens and open up a new value-cost frontier. Path one: Look Across Alternative Industries - Action Steps 1. Identify the major problems or needs that your industry's offering or your target industry's offering solves or addresses from the buyer's point of view. 2. Next ask, what alternative industries solve the same problems or address similar needs for buyers?

Here we encourage people to role-play and ask, \"if I were the buyer, what other alternative industries would I consider before even deciding to patronize our industry\"? That helps people shift from a supply to a demand perspective. 3. Among these alternative industries, which capture the greatest catchment of customers? Focus Here. Interview buyers from each relevant alternative industry. 4. Probe why buyers traded across your industry or target industry and this alternative, including what they see as the chief negatives of the industry they rejected and the chief positives of the alternative industry they choose. 5. Record all the key insights gained. Path two: Look Across Strategic Groups Within Your Industry: Focus here is NOT on why buyers choose one particular organization over another, but on why they trade up or down across strategic groups. 1. Identify the strategic groups in your industry or target industry. 2. Focus on the 2 largest strategic groups. (we recommend to zoom in on the one that captures the largest share of customers, and the one that has the largest share of profitable growth, if different.) 3. Interview buyers from each group. Probe why buyers traded up for one strategic group or traded down for the other. Focus on identifying the distinguishing factors that led users of each strategic group to patronize it over the others. Ask the same people what they saw as the dominant negative or turn-off of the strategic group they rejected. 4. Record all the key insights gained, noting specifically the reasons buyers offer to explain their decisions. Path three: Look Across the Chain of Buyers: 1. Identify the chain of buyers - users, purchasers, and influencers - in your industry or target industry. 2. Identify the main buyer group your industry or target industry currently focus on. Then shift your focus to those of the industry has largely ignored. 3. Interview buyers from the \"untargeted\" buyer groups. Probe for their different definitions of value. Drill down to the biggest blocks to utility and costs the industry currently imposes on them. 4. Record the insights from each \"untargeted\" group and group like-minded responses together. Path four: Look Across Complementary Product and Service Offerings: 1. Look at the real context in which your offering is used by identifying what happens before, during and after its use. 2. Observe buyers as they actually use your product or service. In recording the insights gained, group insights you uncovered so that patterns in the frequency or criticality of observed blocks to utility can be discerned. 3. Use the buyer utility map and the noncustomers tool to guide your observations. 4. Record all insights gained. Path Five: Rethink the Functional-Emotional Orientation of Your Industry. 1. Identify the industry's current orientation. Is it predominantly functional or emotional?

2. Listen to customers and noncustomers characterize your industry and target industry. Probe the top characteristics that reflect why they see it as functional or emotional. 3. Look for commonalities across their responses and group like-minded comments. 4. Explore what the offering would look like if you flipped the orientation. 5. Record all insights gained. Path Six: Participate in Shaping External Trends Over Time. 1. Identify the 3 to 5 trends that are seen as having a decisive impact on your industry or target industry. Give people the option of doing secondary research online to complete this. 2. Discuss and assess the relevance of these trends to your industry. Focus on those that are commonly seen to decisively impact your industry or target industry. 3. Discuss and assess the extent to which each trend is irreversible. 4. Discuss and assess whether each of the trends is evolving along a clear trajectory. 5. Lis the implications of all the trends that are decisive to your industry, irreversible, and evolving in a clear direction. Detail how each will change what buyers value and how that would impact your business model over time. 6. Record all insights gained. Applying the Framework: Athletes often remind \"no Gain without Pain! The same is true when it comes to using this framework. Generating results take time and effort in the form of multiple one-to-one interviews and observational fieldwork. This is the most time-consuming part of the process and is the work that team members cannot delegate to anyone else. The insights are empowering and build conviction. Do not be tempted to short-circuit the process! If you do, you will undermine the initiative. Here is how this step unfolds: 1.Start with Big Picture a) Explain that the objective remains the big picture! The team is looking for insights that will provide clues as to how they might reconstruct industry's boundaries and open a new value-cost frontier. They are not yet looking for final answers. b) Avoid team of becoming discouraged when answers do not jump out at them. Remember, this process is very different from what organizations do to develop innovation strategy. c) Team members must continue being inspired and inquisitive as they meet the market. d) Make this fun, and let everyone know that now is the time to be a detective and uncover clues! Reassure them that feeling a bit uncomfortable is to be expected and they're not alone in feeling that way! 2. Divide the team into two subteams By having each subteam explore only three paths, this step becomes much more doable and creates a healthy sense of competition. Expect high quality-work. 3. Walk the team through the entire framework

Explain what the subteams will be exploring along each path. It's key to everyone to have a good overview so that they can respond to others in the organization who ask about what's happening. It creates more commitment, less fear and keep the rest of the organization in the loop. 4. Explain how the process will unfold Subteam members should agree on which path they will tackle first, and move on the next path only after that one has been completed. Then should develop work plans for their assigned paths. Review the logic of each step and the associated action steps. Templates will provide direction on the right questions to probe, as the subteam members go into the field to interview noncustomers and customers. Members should begin working individually, then come together to synthesize their insights. This sequence uncovers key patterns and identify interesting anomalies across their insights. For path one, for example members will first develop their own list of key alternative industries and only then get together as a team to agree on the most relevant one(s) to explore. Then each of them will individually interview customers and noncustomers before coming together to compile the findings. You don't want members interviewing and observing the same people. As part of the fieldwork, take photos, video what you observe, and visit shops. GET real in the Field! Think of yourselves as detectives. Have fun and stay focused on the task at hand. How many people interview per path? Typically, the number is 10 to 12. The first interviews for the first path are usually the toughest, as most team members will be learning a new skill set. So remind them not to get discouraged and just to carry on. Ask them to persevere. Observe, follow, and ask with due humility. Members must stay open, and not get defensive as noncustomers and customers start to convey honest responses to their questions. If negative comments come back, probe deeper to extract the most learning. Stress to the team that negatives are opportunities in disguise. Remind members to record and capture all the insights! Objective is to see the world with new eyes.