Innovation Pathways

How we work with leadership teams.

From a single workshop to a multi-year transformation arc. Four core services, one methodology underneath, and a set of tools you can take home today.

Pillar 01 · Services

Four ways to work with ILG.

Each service is anchored in the InnSPIRE methodology underneath. Pick the one that matches the moment you’re in — most engagements end up combining two or three.

  • 01

    Future Roadmapping

    A four-module workshop sequence that builds a future roadmap anchored in real signals, not guesswork. Teams leave with a populated Four Horizons Map and a 90-day action plan.

    4 modules · 6–10 weeksBook a roadmap
  • 02

    Short Courses

    Self-paced, cohort, and enterprise tracks built on ILG’s method canon. Each module ships with a hands-on artifact and a Credly micro-credential.

    Half-day to multi-weekBrowse courses
  • 03

    AIM Assessment

    Continuous measurement of innovation capability across 45 Innovation Levers and five readiness dimensions. Pulse surveys replace the annual review.

    Weekly or monthly cadenceRun the AIM
  • 04

    Wargaming for Foresight

    Strategic dialogue adapted from military wargaming. Teams stress-test the innovation thesis against adversarial scenarios seeded by real grand challenges.

    90–120 min · 4 teamsRun a wargame

The methodology

InnSPIRE

Innovation meets the spire — the tallest fixed point you set on the horizon. Five steps, run as a loop, that take a leadership team from signal to embedded capability.

01

Step 01 · Future-readiness · 0–18 mo

Scan

We read the long horizon and the weak signals — across regulators, technologies, ecosystems, capital, and culture. The point isn’t to predict; it’s to surface what your strategy currently ignores.

02

Step 02 · Stress-test · against the cohort

Probe

We benchmark what we’ve found against your AIM readiness profile and your portfolio. Where you over-index, where you under-index, where the gap between vision and capability is the most expensive.

03

Step 03 · Vision · 7+ years out

Imagine

We build the long horizon visions you can defend in front of your board. Press Release from the Future. Wargaming for Foresight. Anchor in the almost impossible. Specific, dated, defensible.

04

Step 04 · Portfolio · with consequence

Rank

We prioritize across Four Horizons — near-term cash, adjacent bets, emerging opportunities, beyond-imagination experiments. Then we put a budget number next to each row.

05

Step 05 · Capability · permanent

Embed

We activate the rituals, governance, and review cadences that keep the capability alive after we leave. The next decision is easier than the last — that’s the test.

Pillar 03 · Solutions

Take something with you today.

Programs, books, and downloadable tools that work even before our first conversation. The Playbook is a 264-page open-source resource. The worksheets are run-it-tomorrow.

  • PDF · 264 pages

    Strategic Foresight & Innovation Playbook

    The full playbook — methods, step-by-step instructions, case studies, and worked examples for moving from foresight to innovation. Free under CC BY-NC-SA.

    Download the playbook
  • Worksheet · video lesson

    Context Maps

    A 60–90 minute method for collaborative ideation that surfaces hidden assumptions and reframes the problem space.

    Get the worksheet
  • Worksheet · video lesson

    White Spots

    A two-axis matrix for finding the innovation opportunities your competitors haven’t mapped yet.

    Get the worksheet
  • Worksheet · video lesson

    Pathfinders

    A strategic project planning tool that surfaces decision points and pre-mortem conditions before kickoff, not after.

    Get the worksheet
  • Programs · enterprise

    Culture Change Program

    A 3+ month engagement that diagnoses, activates, and sustains innovation capability across an enterprise. Embedded measurement on the AIM Platform.

    See the program
  • Programs · executive

    Strategic Planning · 10-year roadmap

    Convert leadership vision into a 10-year roadmap with decision rights, review cadence, and metrics tied to the AIM Platform.

    See the program

Pillar 04 · Vision

Anchor in the almost impossible.

Most strategy work optimizes for the next quarter. The work worth doing is the seven-year horizon nobody else has the discipline to commit to. JFK at Rice. DARPA soliciting the unsolicited. XPRIZE. The Apollo program was not a roadmap — it was an anchor.

We build the long horizon you can defend in front of your board. Press Release from the Future is the method: write the announcement you’d publish in 2031, dated and specific, then work backward to the FAQ that explains how. If the FAQ is wishful thinking, the headline is theatre. If the FAQ is honest, the headline is a strategy.

Wargaming for Foresight is the stress-test. We put adversaries, regulators, and an unpredictable public in the room with your team. The thesis that survives the wargame is the one worth funding.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

John F. Kennedy · Rice University · September 12, 1962

Pillar 05 · Mindset

The philosophy underneath all of it.

The methods only work if the disposition behind them does. Five things ILG holds onto when the methods get noisy.

  1. 01

    Innovation is a capability, not a project.

    It lives in the daily decisions a senior leader makes about which signals to take seriously, which experiments to fund, and which conversations to keep having until they become real.

  2. 02

    Anchor in the almost impossible.

    When most strategy work optimizes for the next quarter, the work worth doing is the seven-year horizon nobody else has the discipline to commit to.

  3. 03

    Stress-test, don’t review.

    A review checks the work against itself. A stress-test checks the work against an adversary, a regulator, and a public that hasn’t shown up yet.

  4. 04

    No transformative, no synergy, no leverage.

    When we mean ambitious, we say "almost impossible". When we mean review, we say "stress-test". The words have to do work or they get cut.

  5. 05

    Capability outlasts the engagement.

    The test isn’t whether the workshop went well. It’s whether the next decision the team makes — six months later, without us in the room — is easier than the last one.

Pillar 06 · Additional · Contact

Let’s work on your project together.

It starts with a conversation. We listen, ask, and understand your situation before we recommend a path. No deck, no pre-baked program — just thirty minutes to figure out if working together makes sense.

Headquarters

Silicon Valley

California, USA

Delivered globally via

Stanford · Tata Management Training Center · trained partners across five continents.