Nathan Furr

Anything new — any change, transformation, or innovation — requires that we first face uncertainty. Too often we miss new possibilities because of our fear of uncertainty. But there are concrete tools people can use to reframe uncertainty and turn it into possibility, says renowned INSEAD Professor and corporate advisor Nathan Furr, a global authority on leadership, strategy, digital transformation and disruptive innovation, and one of the world’s foremost experts on managing uncertainty. Drawing from his latest book, “The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown,” which uncovers how some of the world’s most skilled leaders and innovators successfully navigate the unknown, Furr teaches participants his framework and tools for developing “uncertainty capability” so they can become more resilient, creative, agile, fearless, and better able to strategically adapt to change.

Creating transformative change in big companies may be the hardest task leaders face, due to a combination of conservative corporate cultures and eternal human tendencies toward incrementalism, habit and fear. Yet, in the turbulent times organizations face today, innovation has become an imperative. The more a company clings to established methods and practices, the more it is at risk of destructive disruption. A central question of management is “how do we overcome the cautious habits of large corporations to bring about necessary change?” Nathan Furr’s co-authored book, “Leading Transformation: How to Take Charge of Your Company’s Future,” argues that the answer lies in opening parts of the human brain that can think creatively about the future, a process he calls “behavioral innovation.” Employing such tools as science fiction writing and comic books, Furr has nudged companies in the right direction by using data to create a compelling, forward-thinking narrative. Based on an applied and proven process with Google, Levi’s and Lowe’s, Furr describes how leaders can envision valuable new futures and break the decision bottlenecks that hold organizations back. He also provides a framework for anticipating and recognizing when new technologies pose a threat and how to respond in order to profit from them.

Developing world-changing ideas is only the first step toward making an impact. One must also be able to persuade others to commit resources, by convincing them that such ideas are feasible and truly transformative – as well as profitable. Nathan Furr calls this missing piece of the puzzle “innovation capital,” the ability of great innovators to marshal human and financial capital to implement and commercialize ideas. But even legendary innovators like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who consistently win support for even seemingly outlandish proposals, build up innovation capital over time. Creativity is just the starting point; they must also be great communicators and networkers capable of cultivating relationships with key players in their industry, and of successfully promoting their accomplishments to the public. These “innovation amplifiers” can be summed up as “Who You Are, Who You Know, and What You Do.” In this presentation, based on the book, “Innovation Capital: What Distinguishes the World’s Most Innovative Leaders,” which he co-authored with Jeff Dyer, Furr describes the process of leveraging these amplifiers in order to build up innovation capital over time, so that one’s ideas can go straight from the drawing board to reality without the painful process of rejection and financial failure.

As we undergo what Nathan Furr calls the “4th Industrial Revolution” – that of digital disruption and its related technologies – leaders are increasingly pressured to innovate as digital opportunities create new points of vulnerability, new competitors and new processes. Although disruption has long been a threat to some sectors, the rise of digital technologies has accelerated the pace of disruption in virtually every industry, creating immense uncertainty. But what does digital transformation mean and what do leaders need to know to succeed? According to Furr it starts with doing the things you do differently and doing different things. When advising organizations – whether through keynotes, workshops or confidential advisory meetings – Furr shows how this process is much less frightening and much more attainable than many realize. He points to the ways digital technology transforms a firm’s “back stage” (resources and activities) and “front stage” (products, services and interactions with customers) and shows organizations how to optimize three aspects of digital transformation: platforms, ecosystems and digital business models.

How do great innovators come up with new ideas and create opportunities in an era of increasing uncertainty and intense competition? Having identified behaviors of the world’s greatest leaders – from Amazon and Apple to Google, Skype and more – Professor Furr outlines the skills that distinguish the extraordinary from the ordinary. He also discusses how to create and lead a culture of innovation throughout an organization, an advantage that improves their innovation premium and spurs real growth. Drawing on his decades of research into collaborative innovation, Professor Furr teaches how organizations and leaders in any sector can apply these insights and tools to solve problems and create new opportunities.