Inventor of The Six ‘I’s® and Author of Yes, You Can Innovate

OUR CLIENTS INCLUDE

What are the Six ‘I’s®?

WATCH THE VIDEOS BELOW AND DISCOVER THE Six ‘I’s®

What Makes The Six ‘I’s® Unique?

 #1  AGILE (Non-Linear) Journey

Innovation journeys are commonly represented by an assumption that innovation starts at the same place, ‘the beginning’. The Six ‘I’s® provides a trailblazing perspective on this, by representing the journey as an inter-connected whole. In reality, innovation efforts can start at any stage, cycle back into PURPOSE, cycle back out, moving backwards and forwards at any time; to eventual value creation.

 #2  PURPOSE at the Centre

Many processes and models suggest jumping into a challenge (the ‘WHAT’). The Six ‘I’s® breaks the mould by starting at the heart of a challenge …with an exploration of the WHY? The Six ‘I’s® is an innovation MODEL for the 4th Industrial Revolution that encourages sustainability and PURPOSE at its core.

 #3  More than just a robust PROCESS

Many innovation models focus only on the process and miss out the equally important component of building systems and policies to support innovation efforts. The two triangles that link PURPOSE to the six stages, symbolise this connection, as innovation efforts often fall apart if they don’t take into consideration culture and ways of working.

 #4  PROFILING TOOLS - Leveraging

         Strengths, Building Capabilities

Most innovation efforts are focused on addressing a challenge or seizing an opportunity. Sometimes, innovation efforts fail because the individual or team does not possess the requisite skillset to make an idea work. The Six ‘I’s® profiling tools allow organisations to discover individual and team collective strengths, which enable targeted interventions to leverage strengths and provide support where needed.

 #5  MINDSETS for Innovation

The Six ‘I’s ® is the world’s only Model which incorporates the various mindsets required to innovate. This is a radical breakaway from the idea that a separate, singular mindset is required.

 #6  FLEXIBLE ARCHITECTURE

Adopting The Six ‘I’s® does not require a rejection of other systems and approaches. It is a flexible architecture that seamlessly incorporates other tools, methodologies, and ways of working e.g., lean, agile, sprints, design thinking, stage gates, business model canvas, lateral thinking, pitching, and so on….

  • As an IDENTIFIER, my team and I questioned our own mindset towards what we were doing and uncovered an opportunity to try something new. Through applying the 6 'I's®, we grew our market share from 1% to 15%.

THE IDENTIFIER PROFILE

  • Innovation Role – Providing vision, direction and a sense of new possibilities 
  • Mindset – Curiosity

  • Visualising and imagining the future

  • Making sense of trends and patterns and thinking about what they might mean for opening fresh opportunities

  • Being forward thinking, strategic and noticing and seeing things that other people don’t

  • Being curious and having lots of different interests and a huge appetite for learning

  • Having a positive outlook on life and seeing opportunities where others see problems

  • Outward looking and interested in the world around them

  • They often seek to add new people, whom they believe will bring new thinking, to their networks.

The swirling image illustrates the mindset of Curiosity. It is open-ended, dynamic, explorative and able to generate momentum.

As with all strengths, particularly if they are overdone, there can be challenges.

  • As IDENTIFIERS are usually big-picture thinkers, they can often miss the detail

  • They can get easily bored if not stimulated by new things, new ideas and new ways of thinking

  • If intellectually driven, they can sometimes be too abstract or conceptual in how they explain things to other people.

THE IGNITER PROFILE

  • Innovation Role – Providing novelty, freshness and energy for new ideas and a sense of new possibilities

  • Mindset – Creativity

  • The first to come up with new ideas

  • Good at seeking new knowledge outside their current areas of interest

  • Not afraid of challenging their own thinking as well as that of other people

  • Original thinkers

  • Can see connections between different and unrelated ideas

  • Good at creating a culture where people feel free to contribute their ideas

  • Skilled at motivating and inspiring others.

The swirling image illustrates the mindset of Creativity. The swirl moves backwards and forwards. It is open ended and explorative.

IGNITERS love to come up with new ideas. Lots of them. But, as with all strengths, there can be challenges:

  • They can become distracted with too many ideas that take them into multiple directions. This can dilute their energy and effectiveness

  • They can get attached to their own ideas and not think through whether they are feasible

  • They can enjoy jumping into action and implementation too quickly

  • They can generate lots of ideas and not see them through into fruition.

THE INVESTIGATOR PROFILE

  • Innovation Role – Providing analytical thinking and objectivity

  • Mindset – Critical

  • Systematically researching, analysing and assessing ideas

  • Making sure ideas are useful, not just novel

  • Understanding the importance of testing and validating ideas before moving into implementation

  • Being willing to test their thinking with customers and stakeholders

  • Creating a culture where exploration and questioning is encouraged

  • Encouraging other people to think things through carefully and systematically.

The image illustrates the mindset of Investigate, Critical. The swirls, whilst still exploratory, start to converge and be more analytical in approach.

Being analytical is one of the strengths of an INVESTIGATOR, but sometimes their strengths can backfire.

  • They may continually search for more validation before they are willing to make a commitment. This can lead to a new initiative getting immobilized or stuck

  • They can get lost in the detail and lose sight of the bigger picture; why they are innovating and the overall PURPOSE

  • They can be dismissive of ideas if they don’t think they are feasible, being too quick to judge something that is untried or tested.

THE INVESTOR PROFILE

  • Being good at taking into account complex information and being able to make decisions

  • Understanding whether a business model might work

  • Being able to keep cool and make decisions despite difficulties

  • Can sense where and when resources should be provided

  • Influencing other organisations and people to create partnerships

  • Having the courage to take a risk.

The image represents the mindset of Courage. Swirling inwards to make a decision to act, to move forward, to go ahead.

INVESTORS need a good combination of logical and pragmatic thinking, with a willingness to follow their hunches and take a risk. These are often difficult skills to combine. Some barriers can include:

  • The need to ask for information that might be hard to quantify, which can slow down decision making

  • Not allocating separate funds outside normal day-to-day business requirements

  • Having too many conflicting demands on limited resources

  • Failing to help others grow in their ability to influence and becoming a ‘bottle neck’ in making things happen.

THE IMPLEMENTER PROFILE

  • Innovation Role – Providing management, focus and discipline

  • Mindset – Commitment

  • Being good at planning and organising

  • Making things happen

  • Managing risks

  • Motivating others to achieve results

  • Building alliances and partnerships

  • Allocating and managing resources

  • Building and managing strong teams.

The image represents the mindset of Commitment. The swirls start to form a shape, they converge in on themselves to direct energy into focused activity.

IMPLEMENTERS like to get things done, and tend to be practical and focused, and action orientated but they can:

  • Sometimes jump into action too quickly

  • Not allow time for investigating the feasibility of an idea

  • Lose sight of the innovative aspect of what they are trying to achieve

  • Get caught up in operational issues and lose sight of the bigger picture.

THE IMPROVER PROFILE

  • Innovation Role – Providing fresh perspectives, the ability to optimise and learn

  • Mindset – Clever

  • Being good at generating many ways to make an idea better

  • Being open to gathering feedback from customers, people, or stakeholders

  • Reviewing and assessing what has worked and why or why not?

  • Capturing learning

  • Learning from failure

  • Scaling an idea into other areas of opportunity.

The image represents the mindset of being Clever. The swirl starts to open up on itself again to start seeking and exploring how it can do something better.

As IMPROVERS largely work with what is, rather than what could exist, they may:

  • Find it difficult to imagine completely new possibilities, and may need the support of an IGNITER

  • Rely on continuous improvement

  • Miss opportunities for more radical ideas

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The 6 'I's® is a brand of The Entheo Network. Registered Address 75, High Street, Singapore, 179435. Company No: 201016398E