A Strategy for Leading Innovation
VG is a master of taking the complicated and making it simple. Do not underestimate the power of the Three Box model. It applies universally to businesses small and mega. A common language within an organization can mean the difference between success and failure. Read this and incorporate it into your DNA. You will be a winner.”
As with VG's other books that I have read, Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation, takes what can be a very complex set of issues and simplifies them into a very crisp and thorough thought process. It provides a sound framework for thinking about how your organization is doing and whether you are taking the necessary steps to assure relevancy in the future. This is one worth reading more than once and I highly recommend it.”
Interesting read! The examples in the book provide a practical view on how companies have utilized the three box thinking, focusing on the core whilst creating the future through linear and nonlinear innovation. This concept has influenced my thinking and approach to augmenting the core of our business and investing in the future.”
The Three Box Solution is a simple, elegant and yet a powerful way of addressing the future. While it codifies practices from successful examples, it is the ambition and passion of the leader to grow despite challenges that provides the horsepower for change. As the book beautifully brings out, the passionate leader does not wait for a crisis to create the future. It is part of his daily management discipline."
The Three Box Solution offers a deeply practical and instructive framework to help businesses confront one of the key challenges in the global marketplace today: how to innovate and grow in a sustained way. Drawing on more than 30 years of teaching, writing, and consulting, Professor Govindarajan provides a winning combination of strategic insights and actionable steps designed to help virtually any business or organization build a better future."
It is very refreshing to read Prof Vijay Govindarajan's 3 Box Solution both because of its relevance as well as its simplicity. As you read the book you keep connecting with events in your own journey at the top as you grappled simultaneously with ideas such as learning from the past, living in the present and dreaming about the future. The simplicity of Prof. Govindarajan's model like all great ideas triggers the thought "Hey why did I not think about it this way?". I recommend this book and its approach to all CEOs both present and those aspiring to be one. Business schools will also find this approach worthy of teaching and last but not least Chief Strategy Officers will find it most useful."
CEOs and Boards increasingly struggle with the need to transform to be future ready and yet to "perform while you transform'. At last there is a roadmap that tells you in concrete terms how to do this systematically and successfully."
The three box solution is an essential read for any senior executive leading a successful company with a proud history. Vijay gives a clear path on how to create the environment and culture within a company to foster innovation that will make a difference in ensuring a bright future for an organization.
Vijay trains our senior executives at Thermo Fisher Scientific and our teams practice what he preaches."
In The Three Box Solution, Govindarajan offers a compelling framework for driving innovation while delivering current goals, without the constraints of past successes and failures. With powerful, international examples, he offers a clear guide to creating the sustainable, innovation culture needed to stay ahead."
At Thinkers50 we are passionate about the very best in management thinking. Vijay Govindarajan is a Thinkers50 Award winner and one of our highest ranked business thinkers. The Three Box Solution proves why: important ideas, accessibly presented and practical."
What a compelling piece of work – and its genius is in its simplicity. Leaders at all levels of the organization should find the three box model for innovation as a virtual “how to” manual for success."
The Three Box Solution is an extremely stimulating, encouraging, valuable and enjoyable read.
I've spent more than a decade leading and shaping organizations using a systemic, "future-back" approach to drive performance today - and consciously choosing what from the past serves the future (and what doesn't) - and this book resonated for me in a very vivid way.
VG brings to life so many real examples of how other organizations are doing this, framing it in the context of the simple, but hugely powerful, Three Box Model. I was also struck by the Hindu roots to the thinking which for me, added huge power and validity to the model.
The book's structure is also very helpful, with a small number of focused chapters and highly relevant, rich case study materials bringing the key points to life in a practical and vivid way. The Manager's Takeaways at the end of each chapter were extremely valuable, focusing the whole work in real-life application rather than another theoretical strategy book."
Adequately balancing today´s urgencies with tomorrow´s challenges is at the heart of every company's mission. However, we all know that accomplishing this goal is easier said than done. The Three Box Solution offers a simple but powerful framework guiding leaders to act swiftly and thoughtfully in the present while remaining vigilant regarding the challenges of the future. It offers pragmatic tools to help companies make those hard choices necessary to deliver sustainable results."
Leaders must attend to Box 1, Box 2, and Box 3 on a continuous basis. VG offers a simple but powerful framework to achieve Three Box Balance. Managers at all levels within the Godrej Group will find his ideas extremely valuable."
The unprecedented pace of change in today’s business environment necessitates nimble, brave, break-frame thinking to ensure significant and enduring success. As a long-time mentor to Hasbro, Vijay Govindarajan’s simple yet profound Three Box Solution has inspired our teams to create a culture of innovation, challenge the trappings of the past and create our future. In this book, VG concisely and bravely distills key insights applicable across varied industries and provides practical takeaways to facilitate execution. A must-read for any manager that values courageous leadership, adaptability and foresight."
If your company needs to stop doing what it's done and branch out in new and profitable ways, this is the book for you."
When VG introduced GE to the Three Box Solution a few years ago when he was our Professor in Residence at Crotonville, we embraced it immediately, because in it we saw a path to strategic fitness and innovation that was simple, powerful and purposeful. I am glad he has chosen to write about this framework now. Rich in research, storytelling, and perspectives from the field, the book will be a provocative and practical guide for anyone who has to build new muscle memory as they adapt and optimize for today while preparing to win in the future."
The Three Box Approach is not only an excellent read but a superb guidance manual for anyone formulating and driving a long term company strategy. The book is written in a simple, highly readable style with valuable and interesting examples of real world corporate experiences. At the end of chapter, there is a critical analysis of the key elements in the pre ending section, through probing questions and discussion of trade-offs. The book is an excellent resource for managers and leaders at all levels - it forces one to think hard about how to develop and execute a long term business strategy that will deliver sustainable success."
The three box framework is powerful. The first lulls you, the second is excruciatingly difficult, and most of us do not get to see the third—it’s too late. While status quo appears to be the easiest solution, Vijay uses examples—from sports to Hindu mythology—to drill and inject Three Box thinking into the organizational DNA. A true primer for a nonlinear business world riddled with discontinuities and constant change, where you slide to irrelevance in a blink. This book makes you think, think, think! And execute."
Exquisitely simple and compelling. This book represents a unique and important contribution by providing a framework that drives leaders to balance the delivery of results for today with creating value for tomorrow."
The automotive industry is changing faster than ever before and at Visteon we're transforming our business for sustainable success in this evolving landscape. I find the framework suggested in the 3-Box Solution to be very useful as a guide in balancing the demands of current performance while building the future at the same time. A must read for any CEO that is facing the challenge of transforming their business."
The Three Box Solutions brilliantly tackles the challenges of successful companies to continue to drive the linear innovation essential for today's operational excellence, while nurturing the nonlinear innovation necessary to create the company’s future. In describing how to escape the insidious traps of the past, the book clearly articulates how companies can leverage today’s strengths while building the capabilities needed to execute their vision for the future.
Vijay Govindarajan’s 30-year passion and experience effectively helps us identify the leadership behaviors, processes and metrics required by companies seeking to adopt balanced 3 Box solutions, and how this approach can create the change-ready culture required for sustainable leadership in rapidly evolving industries.
As the leader of a very successful company which operates in a rapidly changing marketplace, I will be able to leverage many of The Three Box Balance principles, as I drive our future agenda."
The elegant simplicity of VG's Three Box Solution provides a framework for enabling the Mahindra Group to balance the imperatives of the present with the demands of the future. It is a construct that permeates all our strategic thinking."
Vijay Govindarajan has the rare ability to filter out complexity to help leaders focus on the most salient issues. At its core, strategy is about the choices needed to establish a winning position. Too many organizations approach strategy in ways that magnify the periphery, obscure the fundamental choices, and paralyze breakthrough thinking. In The Three Box Solution, VG distills the choices organizations must make to insure long term success into clear categories that will help build strategic alignment at all levels. VG's second box crystallizes the unappreciated strategic principle that success is dependent on what you choose not to do. Letting go is what enables moving forward. Organizations that embrace the Three Box Solution will optimize the allocation of resources to leverage today's success factors while building the innovative platform for a long term winning position."
Vijay Govindarajan offers unique insights around the need to balance the demands of the present with those of the future. He highlights the importance of investing wisely in building the future while creating a sense of urgency about embracing change. I am sure many managers will relate to the caution he urges in the book about getting too caught up in the all-consuming demands of the present! For an over century-old organization like Tatas, his Three Box framework offers many important lessons."
In today’s world, organizations need to continuously innovate and demonstrate a high degree of learnability to stay relevant and ahead of the competition. Through real life cases and simple frameworks, VG provides insight and guidance on how leaders can make organizations primed for the future while balancing priorities of the present. The Three Box Solution is a must-read for leaders at all levels."
The three box approach is a pragmatic way to think through and balance the needs of existing business and crafting a future. Explained in a simple manner, it provides a framework that can be utilized by leaders to reflect on the dynamics of business and attain present and future goals. In todays' business environment, leaders are required to run both a sprint and marathon at the same time."
In The Three Box Solution, VG articulates a highly practical framework that helps everyone in the organization to balance the competing activities of running the current business while imagining and building a new one. He’s taken this a step farther, adding a third, often overlooked, but critical element to his model: escaping the traps of the past by abandoning practices and attitudes no longer relevant in a changed environment. At PepsiCo, we practice what VG preaches."
The three box solution offers a sound, strategic approach to ensure Caterpillar's long history of innovation -- developing, designing and manufacturing the machines and engines our customers want and need -- continues."
Dr. Govindarajan has defined a framework that brilliantly outlines our practices in his latest book Three Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation. At HARMAN, we strive to balance between Innovation (box 3) and Execution (box 1) while shifting our mindset from automotive supplier to technology leader (box 2). I strongly believe that linear innovation provides the daily fuel to drive the corporation, while exponential innovation is the jet engine that propels a corporation to sustained profitable growth. This framework is embedded in our culture and has enabled us to deliver above-market growth for a number of years."
Three Box Solution applies a deceptively simple framework that can help lead to the way to a more coherent strategy, by providing both stimulating questions and tools."
The topic of innovation can fall prey to some very tiresome treatments. Vijay offers a fresh perspective on innovation by introducing the concept of harmony - not just between the past, present, and future, but also between the equally important forces of creation, preservation, and destruction. Don't limit your application of The Three Box Solution to your business. Apply it to your life."
This thoughtful book is a must read for leaders and managers in today's fast changing and hyper competitive world. The Three Box Solution teaches how it is possible to successfully manage the present while systematically building for the future."
Unanswered Questions are better than Unquestioned Answered. Three Box Solution addresses both, remarkably and yet simply. A must read for personal as well as organizational reinvention."
Vijay helped our entire leadership team think differently about where to spend its time, simply by outlining the importance and inter-relationship of the three boxes. As he says, and insidiously, the more success you have in Box 1, the harder it is to devote time to boxes 2 and 3. The three boxes have become part of the team’s lexicon, and we devote real effort to balancing our time, attention, and focus.
I particularly found the parable of the four monkeys enlightening. Organizational forgetting (box 2), though indispensable, is extremely difficult.
Personally, I use Vijay’s three-box concept as a way to challenge myself and my team. I work very hard to push myself out of the “tranquil refuge” of Box 1 and squarely into the “difficult and painful” work of Box 2 and the often-languishing, but intellectually thrilling, possibilities of Box 3. I now constantly measure the amounts of time my team spends on each of the three Boxes and try to adjust in near real time to increase our focus on the future. It is not unusual to have one of my team members call me out publicly for spending too much time in Box 1!"
The Three Box Solution book presents a simple, yet powerful, framework to simultaneously optimize continuous process improvement and breakthrough innovation. This book will be inspiring for management executives since both operational excellence and innovation are critical for future."
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