Heroine journey: Innovation as a rousing corporate story

Many people know the heroine journey from storytelling for emotional marketing - but it can do so much more. As a driver and companion in innovation processes, it promotes courage and energy in the company and creates a focus on success. German companies often want more of this.

Briefly explained: What is the Heroine Journey?

The hero's journey is a tried and tested narrative pattern that characterises us all: The hero responds to a call to adventure by crossing the threshold into the unknown, has to pass tests , finds allies and reaches the desired destination after a test of endurance. Applied to the topic of innovation, this means recognising opportunities, making a commitment, experimenting and learning, developing, testing the business case - and celebrating the solution.

We know from studies and surveys: Innovations rarely fail due to a lack of ideas - instead, idea providers are unable to inspire superiors or colleagues. Or the ideas come to nothing because teams lose direction and motivation in the face of uncertainty. The Hero's Journey offers a common language for this challenge, making it easy to structure complex projects and ignite passion for the cause.

Why does the journey work?

Stories create meaning, focus attention and make progress narratable. Managers can share challenges ("What magic elixir are we bringing to the market that will change everything?") and address work statuses in the innovation process ("What test is coming up next?"). In the team logic, the story becomes a platform for collaboration - with clear roles, rituals and decisions.

Keyword collaboration: The heroine's journey is no longer just a challenge for an individual, but is understood as a collective journey of a team. Heroism is spread across several shoulders: Interdisciplinary teams take responsibility, share knowledge and make decisions. This strengthens the resilience of the team, intensifies openness instead of silo thinking and fundamentally increases the speed of the process.

This is what it can look like:

The journey starts with a call to adventure: a market impulse, new technologies or regulatory requirements challenge you. Formulate the opportunity as a concise "quest". Now it's time to cross the threshold: An interdisciplinary core team creates agreement on hypotheses, goals and resources. Allies are brought on board and tests are tackled in the form of idea and prototype development and the early collection of customer feedback. The acid test will show: Is the business case viable? Can the result be ready for the market? The aim is to return with the elixir that will change everything: The result of the team effort will be realised and positioned in the market (hopefully with much success).

Fancy embarking on the journey?

You can ask yourself these three questions for your team right now:

• What "call" are we hearing right now - and how do we formulate a clear quest from it?
• What initial "test" can we carry out within two weeks?
• Who outside our industry could provide crucial help as an ally?

One thing is certain for us at the Cross Innovation Hub: a modern heroine story is particularly successful when knowledge and perspectives from a wide range of areas come together with strong external support and a lot of creativity. We are convinced that this diversity opens up unusual solutions, reduces blind spots and accelerates results. That's why we curate cross innovation processes in which companies open the door to adventure together with our creatives.