perspective

Five Circles Framework

Evaluate innovation readiness across five interdependent dimensions: business, market, technology, future, and organization.

⏱ 60 min (assessment) + 90 min (debrief)

When to Use

In an annual strategy review. When a leadership team senses they are strong in some dimensions and weak in others but cannot agree on which.

Materials

  • Five Circles assessment (one per leadership team member)
  • Whiteboard for the consolidated view

Common Pitfalls

  • •Self-scoring optimism — calibrate against external benchmarks where possible.
  • •Treating the five circles as independent. Weakness in organizational readiness will undermine technology readiness.

Examples

Bank of the West readiness baseline

"ILG has helped us lay fertile ground for our company's innovation journey — both in practice and building strong culture." The Five Circles surfaced an organizational-readiness gap that the team addressed before scaling new programs.

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