July 2018
TELLING A GOOD INNOVATION STORY
Appealing to people’s emotions helps new ideas cut through the clutter.
by Julian Birkinshaw
Among corporate innovators, the travails hit rate (see “Accelerating product
of James Dyson and the unlikely insight development: The tools you need now,”
of Art Fry are iconic. Dyson’s bagless on McKinsey.com). We know that much
vacuum cleaner was perfected only after of corporate innovation travels along
a staggering 5,127 tries. Fry’s inspiration, well-orchestrated pathways—a neat tech
interestingly enough, came during a breakthrough, a product owner, and an
church service. Pieces of paper he had orderly progression through stage-gate
used to mark hymns kept falling out of his and successful launch.
choir book, which led the 3M scientist to
think about the materials chemistry that Occasionally, though, it’s a “crazy”
eventually produced Post-it Notes. idea that bubbles up through a lone
World-changing products, yes, but also entrepreneur battling the system,
great stories. overcoming false starts, and surviving
against the odds. While such instances
Companies today are fixated on are by their very nature idiosyncratic, one
innovation, to say the least. Many have thing many have in common is that good
reorganized so that ideas can move storytelling helps them break through.
forward faster and with less internal Storytelling has always been important
friction. A recent McKinsey Quarterly in business, of course, but in today’s
article describes how companies environment, with executive and investor
are experimenting with virtual-reality attention stretched thin by information
hackathons and “innovation garages” overload, the softer stuff is ever more
to step up their product-development important for getting ideas noticed.
Q3 2018
Innovation storytelling
Exhibit 6 of 6
Over the past three years, my colleagues
Story line: Master of reinvention
and I have been researching how people
frame their innovation stories to create
Say this …
differentiation and attract attention. Our
“We reinvented ourselves for a
project started with the creation of an changing world”
innovation award—officially, “The Real
Innovation Awards”—at the London
… not this
Business School in 2016. The award had
“We cannibalized our old business”
a number of provocative and unusual
categories (see exhibits), nominations for
which were determined by a mix of expert Role models: Amazon, David Bowie
Key qualities: Rediscovery, self-awareness
judges and crowdsourced voting. Over
the three years, we have had more than
1,000 nominations1 from companies or
individuals, of which 54 were shortlisted
and 26 awarded prizes. Based on our companies are doing to innovate and
analysis of the stories of all nominees reinvent their business models. We had
so far, here are three lessons for senior two categories that spoke to these terms,
managers as well as entrepreneurs, in and 20 percent of the nominations fell
organizations large and small, on what into either one or the other. Significantly,
makes a compelling and emotional story. though, many nominees either refused to
accept their nomination in that category
The disconnect between academic or expressed discomfort with the terms.
labels and good storytelling As a result, we recharacterized them
as “best beats first” and “master of
“Fast follower” and “self-cannibalization”
Q3 2018 reinvention.”
are terms long-used
Innovation by academics like
storytelling
me to describe,
Exhibit 5 of 6 clinically, what some A “best beats first” innovator takes the
measure of a competitor who may be
dominating a market with an acceptable
product, and then leaps to the front
Story line: Best beats first with something even better. It’s about
winning through cunning, instead of
Say this … using the conventional playbook of
“We did things differently; we saw
scaling a similar product with heavy
an opportunity they missed”
investment to maintain share. Many
innovators told us that the “fast follower”
… not this
meme is bereft of emotion: no one ever
“We copied and improved on
their idea” wins people over by talking about their
capacity for imitation. “Best beats first”
Role models: Facebook, Virgin celebrates doing things in a new way and
Key qualities: Novelty, distinctiveness, tackling a challenge vanquishes the competitors by seizing an
2
opportunity they missed. A great example with sufficient emotion. Companies often
among our award winners is Vivino, disrupt themselves by cannibalizing their
which created a leading wine-rating and legacy products before their upstart
-recommendation app, based on the use competitors do so. However, nominees
of mobile devices to take a photo of the told us that this understates the essence
bottle label. of what they had achieved, and they
didn’t want to position themselves as
If employing this story, make sure to aggressively killing off declining product
emphasize the points of difference, lines (despite that fact that it’s often a
and downplay the similarities, with the valid strategy for coping with disruption.)
incumbent’s offerings. It isn’t so important
how you got there, but it is important to Master reinventors bear in mind
show what makes you distinctive. that people want to hear about the
emergence of the butterfly rather than the
The “master of reinvention” story line has demise of the caterpillar. Acknowledge
a twist. Instead of the innovator taking on your declining products and the external
the establishment, this one is about the changes causing you to reevaluate, by
establishment challenging itself. It’s the all means, but don’t linger on the internal
classic tale of transformation or rebirth, struggles you have gone through to kill
where the archetypical protagonist them. Instead, focus on the forward-
gets into trouble, goes through a near- looking reinvention story with its new
death experience, and does some soul array of potential successes. Investors will
searching to reinvent himself as a better relate to this: it suggests you’re in touch
person. It’s a common occurrence in with both the company’s past and its future.
business—take Ørsted, the erstwhile
Q3 2018
Danish fossil-fuel producer that now gets The enduring power of serendipity,
Innovation storytelling perspiration, and underdogs
about 40 percent of its revenues from
Exhibit 2 of 6
wind energy—but rarely is it captured
Approximately 30 percent of the
nominations fell into these “classic”
innovators categories, which still enjoy
Story line: Serendipitous discovery
broad resonance.
Say this …
Serendipity involves stumbling over
“We were astute enough to see the
opportunity when it happened” something unusual, and then having the
foresight or perspective to capitalize on
… not this
it. What makes that such an attractive
“We made a lucky discovery” story? It’s the juxtaposition of seemingly
independent things. In a serendipitous
flash, one recent winner, an engineering
Role models: Alexander Fleming (penicillin), Art Fry firm, realized that the gear it designed for
(Post-it Notes)
Key qualities: Surprising connection, curiosity
scallop trawlers could also be used to
3
Q3 2018
Innovation storytelling
Exhibit 3 of 6
In the underdog, or “the unreasonable
Story line: If at first you don’t succeed person,” category, the innovator is
fighting the system—the executives
Say this …
and internal procedures that block
“We undertook a process of discovery;
we pivoted cleverly” progress. Unyielding creators such as
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are the role
models. They pit themselves against
… not this
mere incrementalism and me-too
“We made a lot of mistakes”
products, while rejecting the usual idea-
development pathways and timetables.
Role models: James Dyson, Thomas Edison Underdog innovators take on the mantle
Key qualities: Tenacity, diligence of the fighter who thrives in battle
and relishes proving someone wrong.
“Unreasonableness” means not pivoting
recover hard-to-get-at material in nuclear- to get to victory but sticking doggedly to
waste pools. Surprising connections such your vision. So you’ll need to convince
as these set off a chain of events that the world how your idea challenges
culminate in a commercial opportunity. orthodoxy, takes on vested interests,
So to build this story line, think about the and—after many struggles—has been
quirky combination of ideas that got you proved right.
started and remember that serendipity
is not the same as chance—you were The persuasive power of riding trends
wise enough, when something surprising
happened, to see its potential. Valuable as all the storytelling approaches
above can be, it’s worth emphasizing
The perspiration story theme (or “If Q3 2018
that nearly half (45 percent) of all the
at first you don’t succeed . . .”) is all nominationsstorytelling
Innovation were for “the winds of
Exhibit 4award—essentially
change” of 6 about
about hard work and tenacity. Things
don’t go according to plan, but you
conscientiously refine and adapt your
idea, and eventually, like Thomas Edison,
Story line: The unreasonable person
you wind up with a working lightbulb
after a thousand failed attempts. How
Say this …
could this not be compelling to investors,
“She or he had a clear vision and won
customers, or an R&D committee? Just others over through persistence”
remember that to close the story loop,
perseverance needs to show progress. … not this
Better not to dwell on mistakes and “She or he was incredibly stubborn”
go around in circles. Emphasize how
“learning” and “experimentation” and
“pivoting” made the perseverance pay off. Role models: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk
Key qualities: Vision, stubbornness, resilience
4
Q3 2018
Innovation storytelling
Exhibit 1 of 6
unpredictably change direction, and
Story line: The winds of change ideas crash to the shore. So let everyone
know you’re aware of how creative
Say this …
destruction can be cruel and that today’s
“We saw the confluence of trends;
we positioned ourselves accordingly”
disruptive innovation can be tomorrow’s
outdated technology.
… not this
“We were lucky—in the right place
at the right time”
There may be other story lines we haven’t
Role models: YouTube, Tencent thought of, but we’re confident the ones
Key qualities: Timing, going on a journey highlighted in this article will attract
attention because they are enduring
harnessing external forces. This notion and tap a range of emotions. The ability
of riding trends is incredibly powerful, to frame ideas in an attractive way is
so much so that an award category we important for reaching customers and
created for its polar opposite (“before its employees, too, but it’s particularly so in
time”) received so few (weak) nominations the world of innovation because of the
that we discontinued it in the second year. enormous levels of uncertainty involved in
creating something new.
The story line of external forces propelling
things forward at a unique point in history 1 There is an increasing amount of interest in using these
typically credits the idea originator for types of “crowd”-based judgments in social research.
For example, see Tara S. Behrend et al., “The viability of
being in the right place at the right time, crowdsourcing for survey research,” Behavior Research
while deftly navigating the economic or Methods, September 2011, Volume 43, Number 3,
pp. 800–13; and Geoffrey Rockwell, “Crowdsourcing
political currents that have combined to the humanities: Social research and collaboration,” in
make success almost inevitable. YouTube, Willard McCarty and Marilyn Deegan, eds., Collaborative
in the classic example, rode the winds by Research in the Digital Humanities, New York, NY:
Routledge, 2012, pp. 135–55.
capitalizing on the emergence of simple
video-editing technology and the massive Julian Birkinshaw is a professor of strategy and
entrepreneurship at the London Business School.
rollout of broadband internet access.
Copyright © 2018 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved.
In this story framing, don’t tell colleagues
and investors you were simply lucky, but
instead position yourself as the expert
surfer who caught the wave at exactly
the right moment: “We were smart
enough to see how these trends were
coming together, and this is what drove
our success.” Beware, however, that the
story arc of protagonists getting swept
up doesn’t always point forward. Winds
