Ten questions for innovation

"Innovation is not in technology. It is in the point of view", writes Xavier Marcet in his book "Esquivar la mediocridad" (Avoiding Medicocrity), and he is right. But changing perspective is challenging because the inertia of day-to-day activities, the accumulation of routines and urgencies, makes it difficult to lift our heads to imagine the company we could become. One way to achieve this is through innovation questions.

Questions that force us to think about the future and act as keys that unlock new possibilities. Here are ten such questions to start the innovation path:

1. What could kill our company? We are better at thinking about disasters than positive possibilities, and this question takes advantage of that weakness. Let's imagine our company has died in three years; let's perform a postmortem and ask ourselves what happened to prevent it.
2. What if customers don't want what we think they want? What if we don't really know what they want? What if they are willing to pay more? What if a part of our product or service doesn't add value to them and only adds cost to our offer?
3. What if we created our own competition? We know our weaknesses better than anyone. What would be the perfect competition that would harm us the most? Let's become that competition and change before it arrives.
4. How could we surprise our customers? Customers pay us to meet their expectations, but if we exceed them, we will gain loyalty and enthusiastic publicity. How can we exceed them and turn them into advocates for our company?
5. How could we help our customers reduce emissions? Reducing CO2 emissions is increasingly a priority for customers and a legal obligation. Helping reduce emissions is more than contributing to sustainability; it's a way to generate value.
6. What things we do today could soon become obsolete? Technology changes, and the market moves. Some of our products, services, or processes could lose relevance, and detecting it in time is key to adapting successfully.
7. How would other companies within and outside our sector do it? What would some of our excellent competitors do if they managed our company? How would some major benchmark companies do it? How would Google, Amazon, or Apple do it?
8. Who could we partner with to enter new markets or offer more to our customers? Adding up to grow. What experts, consultants, professionals, or companies could help us grow ambitiously? What other products or services could we jointly build winning value propositions with?
9. If we started over, how would our company be? The past conditions and traps us, but we can imagine how we would like to be if we could start again. Without limits, commitments, or ties. How can we resemble that company?
10. How could we multiply our revenue by ten? And by a hundred? Read Ivan Bofarull 's Moonshot. Wanting to reach the moon is the first step to achieving it. Imagining how to multiply our sales by a hundred requires crazy ideas, and one of those ideas could be a winning concept.

The answer lies in the question, says the old wisdom. A good question can have more value than many mediocre answers. Ask to innovate, now.