In Chapter 3, Strategic conversations in the wild, we documented seven different types of strategic conversation as they are currently practiced. But we’ve waited to fully describe the last one: innovation communities. Of all of the different types of strategic conversations – innovation days, competitions, challenges, sensing and operationalizing platforms, T-shaped, strategy reviews, chaordic – innovation communities may be the most potent at both engaging employees in strategy and business model innovation and in creating connections with senior management so that the ideas are implemented.

Recall that we defined innovation communities as:

Innovation team members can be from anywhere in the organization – participation in the most successful teams tends to span the hierarchy. Whatever their source, membership in successful innovation communities is determined by who is taking a leadership role on the issues, people who have the knowledge, energy, and skill to successfully pursue solutions, not by the hierarchy.

This type of strategic conversation is so powerful precisely because the connection between senior management and the team is so close. As we’ll see from the cases presented in this chapter, innovation communities can be an outgrowth from other types of strategic conversations – such as innovation days or competitions. One can say that innovation communities are where big ideas go to become deeply embedded in the business model.