TRANSFORMATIVE INNOVATION

This inspiring book was launched in Edinburgh in April at a reception to mark the 15th anniversary of the International Futures Forum (www.internationalfuturesforum.com) and it represents an excellent summary of many of its key insights into social and learning processes over this period. Transformative innovation represents a 'fundamental shift towards new patterns of viability in tune with our aspirations for the future.' This contrasts with sustaining innovation that fixes the existing system and disruptive innovation that shakes it up. Following the introduction, the book consists of six chapters on knowing, imagining, being, doing, enabling and supporting.

It outlines 10 characteristics of transformative innovation derived from IFF praxis: balance, in terms of operating in both the old and the new world; inspiring and hopeful; informed by a longer term perspective; pioneering a process rooted in discovery and learning; grounded; personally committed with our full self; responsible; revealing hidden resources; maintaining integrity and coherence of means and end; and maintaining a pioneering spirit even in the face of success. At this point, the reader will find a useful analysis of the evolution of a more adaptable way of providing care and support to old people. One tension is the need to measure outcomes on a short-term scale when the effects are slightly longer term and the project is not yet ready to be scaled.

Given our world of boundless connectivity, information overload and rapid change, we need flexible approaches to knowing. Here there are five principles: seeing ourselves as subjects and participants in a relational universe, expanding what we consider to be valid knowledge and therefore our context of learning, respecting a dynamic pattern of relationships and the emerging integrity that it brings about, taking a cyclical view of time enabling us to complete and close processes so as to make space for the new, and moving from fragmentation and separation to wholeness and connection - summarised as holism with focus. Then there are the two loops of fear and love, which the reader will find in my account of our Rome meeting.

Imagination comes next, and here the reader is introduced to what I consider a crucial conceptual tool, the three horizons framework. The first horizon – H1 - represents current dominant systems and business as usual; the second – H2- is a pattern of transition activities and innovations, some of which may prop up H1, while others enable the transition to the third horizon – H3 - embodying our deeper aspirations for the future. These are represented respectively by the manager, the entrepreneur and the visionary. The beauty of this framework is that it can be used to set up a creative conversation of potential scenarios and patterns without people becoming too attached to a single perspective. H3 provides some imaginative space and may help resolve dilemmas in the present as we seek to attain the best of both worlds. The whole process is encapsulated in one of the 'prompt cards' encouraging us to 'develop a future consciousness to inform the present' (attractors pull from the future).

Being involves the human system and its patterns as we seek to embody a transformative response by bringing together what the IFF calls a creative integrity configured around personal commitment and expressing wholeness and relationship. Its principal axes are being and doing and it moves between autonomy and integration, focus and holism, creating a distinctive culture. Social learning is an iterative process involving action and reflection. Importantly, this is not just an abstract technique, but is embodied in learning from experience – hence the learning journey as an essential component of the IFF process. The chapter on doing also explains Jim Ewing's strategies of Impacto and Implemento, which have been used successfully in a schools' project. This involves a sequence of steps to consider purpose, urgency, destination, success path and commitment, with an emphasis on clarity of purpose that can then be reflected in clarity of communication.

Enabling entails a compelling vision of the third horizon while supporting pioneers trying to implement the process. This also involves a realistic view of policy landscape and new forms of evaluation - how does one flourish in the presence of the old? Finance has its own challenges due to the nature and timing of transformative innovation and the ever present fact of continuous change and evolving contexts. If these insights resonate with your own challenges, then you might like to consult a further set of resources at www.iffpraxis.com.

Finally, we can give ourselves permission to get going, and Graham provides a nice framework for this based originally on Al Gore's reinventing government programme. The permission slip gives us authority and responsibility to help shift our systems towards an aspirational third horizon vision of the future after we have asked ourselves a series of pertinent questions. If we are able to answer yes, then we don't need to ask for permission, we just need to do it. Pioneers in every field will find this book a rich resource