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How to establish knowledge sharing from the very first moment in critical and risky Business Model Innovation project

Peter Lindgren* Department of Business and Technology Aarhus University. Birk Centerpark 15, DK-7400 Herning Danmark E-mail:peterli@auhe.au.dk

Lena Uldall Uldall Consult Aps Hroarsvej 5, DK- 8370 Hadsten Danmark

E-mail: Lena@uldallconsult.dk

Anna Beth Aagard Department of Strategy and Management University of Southern Denmark Sdr. Stationsvej 28 DK-4200 Slagelse Danmark E-mail: aaa@sdu.dk

* Corresponding author

Abstract Joint action and knowledge sharing are fundamental aspects of business model innovation (BMI) for businesses to meet the complex BMI agenda of today; for example, think about 12 independent businesses jointly innovating on the establishment of a new concept of a balanced energy plant project where the businesses have to work in symbioses from the very first moment and further 8 independent business collaborative innovation on the establishment of a new BMI incubator platform.

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Yet, cognitive science and best practice tools have had little to say on this topic because for many years perception, action, and cognition have been studied without taking their role in social interaction related to BMI seriously. However the establishment of a “room” for social BMI interaction is essential at the very first moment of the meeting between the involved participants – who often are different and unknown to each other. It lays the fundament for knowledge sharing and learning to the BMI project – and the ground for whether the BMI project will succeed and even be implemented. The paper aims to understand the cognitive mechanisms “at the very first moment of the BMI process” supporting participants’ ability and motivation to act together with each other in the BMI projects. The paper address knowledge sharing and learning in high risk and sensitive areas of BMI - where business open their core business, core BM and core competences – and expects trust. Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides 2 case studies in 2 different BM projects and BM ecosystems. The research methodology was case research carried out from 2007 to 2015.

Originality/values

This paper puts in evidence different understandings related to cognitive mechanisms “at the very first moment of the BMI meeting” between business in BMI projects. The paper seeks to give more understanding of how to support BMI participants’ ability to act together with each other in BMI projects addressing the question

How to increase and “speed up” the first moment motivation to achieve knowledge sharing in critical and risky BMI projects?

There has not been much research on the cognitive processes and how to establish “room for BMI knowledge sharing” at the very first moment of complex and risky BMI project. This study extends recent stream of BMI research indicating that facilitation and the ability to establish a trusted and

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secure knowledge and learning sharing BMI platform at the very first moment may be a useful tool for managing BM risk and improving speed in BMI projects. Moving fast along the learning curve in the first moment seems to require some very special arrangement especially when BMI takes place in strategic critical areas. Although initial adoption of early involvement was intended to reduce costs – both in short and long term perspective, results indicated that early involvement serves to reduce perceptions of BMI risk at the businesses involved.

Practical implications

The paper illustrates what is at stake and needed for business to exchange knowledge in BMI projects that are complex, are risky and that involves BM´s that are core and strategic to their business. Keywords – Business Model Innovation, Critical and risky business model innovation, Critical Processes in Business Model Innovation action

Paper type – Academic Research Paper

1. Introduction Global BMI is pushing dramatically the reductions in the time-to-market cycle of BM´s, along with the increase in demand of finding new solutions with high quality and low costs to complex BMI projects. 2. Research question The paper bridge the gap between BMI science and social, cognitive sciences in the domain of joint action in BMI. Three processes seem to be critical for joint action (Sebanz 2006) and thereby to address: How can task co-representation (the ability to form a mental representation of co-actor’s task in a BMI project) be constructed? How can Joint attention (the ability to attend to objects, knowledge or events created together during the BMI project) be established?

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How can temporal coordination (the ability to adjust the timing of one’s own actions and BM´s to others’ actions and BM´s in the BMI project) be managed? The paper seeks to increase knowledge on how to establish joint action and motivation in interdisciplinary BMI groups and address knowledge sharing in interdisciplinary Network based BMI (NBBMI) projects . 3. Empiric illustrations and data analysis We have chosen to illustrate from 2 different research projects investigating the three focus areas by using a combination of cognitive and behavioural studies. These studies will allow for a preliminary understanding of the mechanisms involved in joint action in critical and risky BMI projects. Consequently, we have in this research been going from praxis to theory in order to identify potential links which makes sense. Such methodology doesn’t however verify any theory. However, the indications tell us that we might have some results which in future could give meaning for the search for a research program in the Lakatos (Lakatos 1970) sense. 4. Defining a critical and risky BMI project When studying BMI risk literature many researchers take their point of entry from a “risk to whom” perspective. BMI involves always a certain level of risk – high, medium or low. To Innovate a BM in a complex and uncertain world only increases the risks and doing this with network partners, where some are even unknown increases often even more the risk. Consequently, leading businesses are looking for ways to handle the complexities, uncertainties and consequently risks involved in innovating BM´s in network (e.g. ERM survey, 2008). Risk can be said to be a function of the uncertainty, complexity and new to whom related to innovation. Boer (1992) has addressed uncertainty and complexity as: - Uncertainty - Some authors use the term predictability (e.g. Mintzberg, 1979); others prefer to call it uncertainty (e.g. Thompson 1967, Galbraith 1973, Mowery and Rosenberg 1979). Uncertainty is inevitably connected with innovation, and refers to the extent to which individuals, groups or organizations are informed about the future (Galbraith, 1973). The level of

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uncertainty, which may vary along a continuum of certainty, risk, uncertainty and unstructured uncertainty, is generally assumed to be highest at the initial stages of the BMI process, and should tend to decrease in the course of time. It may concern the objectives to be pursued, the functions to be performed in order to achieve desirable value propositions, the competences to perform the functions, the arrangements regulating the network based cooperation, and the influence the businesses ‟s context exerts (Galbraith 1973, Simon 1964, Mintzberg 1979, Kickert 1979, De Leeuw 1982). Typical symptoms of uncertainty are failures being made, setbacks and surprises occurring, unforeseen barriers needing to be levelled, goals and objectives requiring redefinition during the process, formerly elaborated ideas and accepted solutions being rejected and exchanged for new ideas leading to alternative solutions, implemented solutions appearing to be less effective than anticipated, and/or schedule and budget overruns (Galbraith 1973, Sayles 1974, Schroeder et al. 1986, During 1984). Given that uncertainty decreases in the course of the innovation process, it can be assumed that more formal arrangements can be relied upon the further an BMI process progresses. However, one bothersome property of uncertainty is that it is difficult to predict whether, when, at which level and with respect to what this dimension is going to manifest itself. This means that the involved business may have no prior knowledge of what will be the best coping BMI strategy. In addition, therefore, businesses should be able to respond flexibly to circumstances and apply the BMI strategy most suitable for handling the uncertainty presented to them. In other words, by embedding flexibility into the NBBMI processes, the businesses would be able to cope better with varying degrees of uncertainty. There is little doubt that uncertainty is one of the most pervasive characteristics of BMI, and a difficult one to cope with – as anybody and any business looks different to uncertainty. The bounded and subjective rationality, and limited information processing capacity, of businesses will make them stop searching once they have found a satisfying solution (so-called satisficing behavior – see Simon, 1964), which, however, is not necessarily the most effective and efficient one. As a result, the BMI process will produce an outcome – a BMI project or even a BM - which is not performing to the best of its potential. Due to uncertainty, the NBBMI process will always have the character of a search process together aimed at finding realistic goals, ways to achieve these goals together and supportive BM´s most conducive to performing these NBBMI processes (inspired by Taran 2012).

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Complexity - This factor has been referred to using different terms, such as comprehensibility (Mintzberg, 1979) and analyzability (Perrow, 1967). In this paper we will use the term complexity to refer to the difficulty with which the BMI project and work can be understood (cf. Mintzberg, 1979). The extent to which the BMI process is complex or, contrarily, easy to understand, depends on features such as the newness and radicality of the BMI. Furthermore, the greater the gap between the knowledge and skills required from the businesses involved in the BMI Project, and the competences these businesses have on the others – “AS IS BM´s”, the more the businesses have to rely on unanalyzed experience, intuition, chance and guesswork, rather than well-known, standard BM´s, BMI methods of designing, developing and implementing “TO BE BM´s” to the BMI problem (cf. e.g. Perrow, 1967). Considering this observation, one BMI strategy is to allow for trial-and-error learning about the BMI goals, process and BMI organisations (cf. Simon 1964, Schroeder et al. 1986, Shrivastava and Souder 1987). As a result the businesses involved are more likely to produce a qualitatively sufficient output, albeit at the cost of time incurred in learning – the “raw material” for any NBBMI project. A possibly less time-consuming NBBMI strategy aimed at reducing competence gaps is to increase the NBBMI projects business members‟ BMI competences by means of opening up their businesses BM´s in a wide range of fields, including technical, business issues, BMI leadership, BMI motivation and communication – in beforehand and in the very first BMI moment. Also, the NBBMI project may try to recruit competences from other businesses on a permanent basis or for the duration of (part of) the BMI process – which was the case in both the BMI projects of this paper. Risk appetite – how hungry are the businesses involved? Risk appetite is “the total impact of risk a business is prepared to accept in the pursuit of its strategic BMI objectives” (KPMG 2009, p. 3). In order for a business to meet its risk appetite, it needs to determine its business risk appetite preference first – this means related to the NBBMI project. Through that process, it is important to take into account not only the initiator of the BMI project, but also all other businesses involved perspectives, since the risk appetite of e.g. the initiator of the BMI project, is not necessarily the same as that of e.g. the other businesses involved (KPMG 2008, HM Treasury 2006, Barfield 2007).

The individual businesses risk appetite in a NBBMI project is therefore a challenging matter to harmonize, but nonetheless a crucial one to identify and agree upon, before and during the BMI process. According to Barfield

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(2006), there are considerable benefits in taking the time to articulate the risk appetite properly, mainly due to the fact that it can provide the basis for consistent and open communication to different businesses by explicitly articulating the risk attitudes of each individual businesses. HM Treasury (2006) developed a risk appetite scale, which asks the businesses to determine the businesses risk appetite level of their business opposite to the individual BM´s. By mapping various possible impact categories (e.g. reputation and credibility; operational and policy delivery; financial and legal/regulatory compliance) the businesses would be able to determine its business risk appetite on a scale ranging from “averse” to “hungry”. How [risk] hungry is the business? Description

Averse Avoidance of risk and uncertainty is a key objective.

Minimalist Preference for ultra-safe options that have a low degree of inherent risk and only have a potential for limited reward.

Cautious Preference for safe options that have a low degree of residual risk and may only have limited potential for reward.

Open Willing to consider all options and choose the one that is most likely to result in successful delivery while also providing an acceptable level of reward.

Hungry Eager to be innovative and to choose options based on potential higher rewards (despite greater inherent risk).

Table 1 Risk Hungry Adapted from Taran 2012 inspired by Treasure 2006 The risk appetite scale is a useful tool for BMI project managers to consider, since the identification of the risk appetite level of each network partner can assist in generating and implementing attainable NBBMI projects that reside within the risk appetite zone of each business.

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Nonetheless, risk appetite is a complicated concept, since it is determined by the eye of the beholder (Barfield, 2006) or the context the NBBMI project is present. In most NBBMI cases it is difficult to quantify it into concrete numbers (e.g. Lecky 2008, HM Treasury 2006), and in many NBBMI cases a qualitative risk-benefit analysis will have to take place in order to determine a business risk-benefit balance. BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATIVENESS SCALE The next issue concerns the question: when can we call a change in a BM incremental or radical BMI? Three approaches have been proposed. The first approach, associated with BMI radicality, “defines” BMI as a radical change in the way a Business does BMI. The second approach defines BMI in terms of reach of the BMI (e.g. Rogers 1983, Olsen et al. 1995, Green et al. 1995, Garcia et al. 2002). A suitable scale to measure the degree of reach of a NBBMI is to consider the question “new to whom” which could be one ranging from new to the business, via new to the market, new to the industry and new to the world (Taran 2010). The third approach considers measuring the NBBMI through its complexity, where any change in any of the 7 BM dimension (Lindgren 2010) could be considered as a form of BMI and in line with Abell (1980) and Skarzynski and Gibson (2008), NBBMI could also be considered in terms of the number of BM dimensions that are changed simultaneously: any change in one of the BM dimensions would constitute a simple BMI, while simultaneous changes – also incrementally - in all of the BM dimensions would be a more complex form of NBBMI. When we combine these three approaches, a three-dimensional space emerges, which helps in qualifying the NBBMI innovativeness and then the risk of a “TO BE BM” illustrated in the figure 1

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Figure 1.: BMI project risk related to complexity, radicallity, reach and time. Source.: Lindgren inspired by Lindgren and Taran 2011. As the research is focused on a “TO BE BM” BMI project carried out in network and at the same time looking at the very first critical moment of the NBBMI project we added the time of the NBBMI process in the figure - now continue to classify each of the two BMI projects related to the approach presented in figure 1. 5. BM case research Both NBBMI cases are context based related to topic, time, involved businesses, BMI risk and viewers. The cases shows that there are some critical processes affecting the quality of relationships in “TO BE BM”NBBMI at hefist moments and hence are critical for joint action. Recent findings in the cognitive and neurosciences imply how people manage to predict each other’s actions, which is fundamental for joint action. Joint action is a fundamental aspect of human life – hence also – we propose - for NBBMI. Understanding the cognitive and neural mechanisms support increase our ability to act together with other (Sebanz 2006). There seems to be three critical processes involved: Task co-representation: Which is the ability to form a mental representation of co-actor’s task in a NBBMI project. It’s a way of predicting the kind of action the other will perform and the intention that drives the action. It is the ability to predict the outcomes of other’s actions and knowing what others are going to do which is crucial for joint action in NBBMI. This also requires an awareness of emotions and their impact on how we perceive other people (Goleman 2013) – other businesses.

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Joint attention: Which is the ability to attend to objects, knowledge or events created together during the NBBMI project. Studies on joint attention show that a person’s ability to direct one’s attention to where an interacting partner is attending, gives a basic mechanism for sharing representations of the same objects and events (Sebanz 2006). Also, getting a shared vision play a critical role when forming new coalitions and establishing a vision of the future that is shared. The shared vision becomes transformational and allow people to interact in a new way. (Russell et.al. 2012). This is where the NBBMI System Relationship Intelligence is essential, transforming the event and vision into a part of a whole. Temporal coordination: Which is the ability to adjust the timing of one’s own actions and BM´s to other’s actions and BM´s in the NBBMI project. Actors will need a common space they can inhabit together. And, they will need the “when” aspect for all joint actions requiring close temporal coordination. Interacting partners must plan and execute their plans in relation to what they predict the other person – business - will do rather than respond to observed actions. So, action planning is based on the prediction of what the joint effects of all the actor’s actions – businesses - will be. 5. BM case research Two cases was studied – Greenlab Skive that is under construction and ICI that have been constructed and operated for about 6 years.

5.1. Greenlab Skive (GLS) The ambition of GLS is to invest about 70 mill. Euro and build in a energyproduction site, that develops, uses, and demonstrates green energy production in symbiosis. Most businesses involved in the project wanted GLS to become a producing plant on commercial terms However - some others wanted the possibility for having a robust set-up for the production and at the same time being able to establish a “testbed” of new technologies, BM´s, interoperability of different BM´s and many more issues.

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Figure 2 BMI Riskmapping in GLS

The challenge of this risky BMI set-up is the different thoughts on which BM´s should be applied:

1) It could be one where all activities take place in the individual businesses which have bilateral trade agreements with each other. ( A single business BM)

2) It could be the establishment of a joint development business that is responsible for all coordination and development of the site and the area for the community. The consequence of this model is that there are several of the business who has to involved themselves as investors and board members of the new business - GLS (A NBBM)

3) There is a single business established for GLS that sits in the driver's seat and is a prime driver in ensuring the development (Primus Motor A / S model).

Skive Municipality have together with some local businesses initiated the BMI project. However Skive Municipality has some constrains to be involved in a commercial business due to the Danish national regulatives of Municipalities involvement in business. Therefore, the projectmanager established a Vision seminar for Greenlab Skive with interested businesses, consultancies and researchers. The purpose of the 2 day vision seminar was to discuss how GLS might be organized in the future (Vision 2019). 5.1.1. The first critical moment – GLS

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The early involvement and early establishment of trust served to reduce perceptions of BM risk and to be open in the BMI at the businesses involved. The method at the vision seminar was inspired by Organization and Relationship System Coaching (Center for Right Relationship), which amongst other things builds upon Systems Intelligence theory (Senge et.al. 2007; Hämäläinen & Saarinen 2007) and Emotional intelligence (Goleman 2013). In the vision seminar we found the following critical processes:

5.1.2. Task co-representation, process 1 - GLS

The first process was to define common ground in order to support and

activate relationships and collaboration amongst people. As a means to this, participants of the vision seminar was interviewed beforehand – one by one - about their “AS IS BM´s” and “TO BE BM´S” related to GLS together with their intentions and hopes for the project and process. They were also ask to mention the barriers and challenges they saw to carry out GLS and how open they really would like to be on their BM´s in the vision seminar. The businesses had very different approach to how to work and open up to core BM´s with networkpartners. ”CEO DEIF” “We see GLS as our opportunity to have a test bed and learning platform in our backyard” “Chief responsible Business area energy and Business Developer EON” We see GLS a possibility to establish a Biogas commercial based production site. “Chief Engineer and Business developer HT” We see GLS as a possibility for us to develop and test some new technology”

The purpose of the interviews was also to begin Designing a Partnership Alliance (DPA) with all involved participants in GLS about the methods and process needed to stablish a flourishing atmosphere. The DPA is important because it:

x Creates alignment within the system by creating common agreements

x Creates conscious and intentional relationship x Starts to develop behavioral norms – how can we be together? x Trains the group that THEY are responsible for the climate of

Emotional Field of the team (CRR 2014)

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Through the interview, the first relationship of trust and co-representation was created between participants and project manager/researcher. Before the seminar, participants were asked to present themselves shortly in a shared folder regarding who they were and how they saw their role in GLS. This created the first emotional reaction of the participants as to their feelings towards the whole project. Recent research implies (Goleman, D. et.al. 2013) that the ability to work well with other people in a group depends on our ability to appreciate our own and other individuals’ emotions. Analogically we find that GLS group work together was based on their appreciation of their own and others individual emotions. More research however needs to be done on this.

At the beginning of the seminar, each business was again asked to give a short presentation of themselves and their role in the project. They were also asked to visualize their role in GLS, putting their business name on a post-it on a whiteboard showing firstly the technical flow and afterwards the Business flow of GLS. These visualizations and outspoken roles in the project commenced a as shared representation of co-actor’s technical and BM task – interest in GLS. Picture 1 shows the technology mapping.

Picture 1 Technology and Business Model mapping by the GLS network The technology mapping was quiet easy and non-critical to carry out the businesses involved. However when the BM mapping was carried out some of the business had to come out of their comfort zone – which

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seemed not easy to them. However as there had been build up a kind of trust in the room they eventually becan to map their BM´s interest on the GLS sketch. 5.1.3. Joint attention, process 2 - GLS The main purpose of the seminar was to create a common vision for GLS – Vision 2019. The participants were therefore asked to work in groups according to their role in the project; the technology track, the business model track and the financial track, making a cover story for a published international magazines anno 2019 about GLS - exploring and sharing their visions and thoughts for GLS with each other. The aim was to transform single business perspective into a shared business perspective, and also to build alignment and teamspirit into the future work in GLS. The outcome of the event was 3 presentations of the cover story anno 2019 and a sense of shared vision to build on. Also, a sense of being part of a bigger whole and the system relationship intelligence needed to further that feeling was evolved (Hämäläinen, R.P. & E. Saarinen, 2007). The vision process in smaller groups created a safe zone, where participants could get out of their comfort zone and align with each other by sharing their points of view, values, beliefs and feelings around GLS. Also, it created an experience and context so that people could relate to one another as part of a bigger system.

5.1.4. Temporal coordination, process 3 - GLS With the shared vision in mind, participants worked with a back-casting process, naming the various activities needed for the vision to come through until 2019.The time-line was physically drawn on the floor of the seminar room, and the participants could then lay and move the written tasks on the line for everybody to see and align.

Picture 2 “Timeline” drawing of the vision of GLS by GLS network

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Working from the assumption that in joint action, bodies and minds move together (Sebanz, N. 2006), the participants were asked to place themselves physically in the room as to if they saw themselves as part of the future GLS steering board committee, a partner in the project or as having a different role – like the role of not wanting to join the GLS any longer on the set conditions. This process made it visually clear who was in the project and who saw themselves as just suppliers to GLS, or more in the periphery of GLS, hence giving participants the possibility of temporal coordination. The seminar ended by concluding, what to do next – the consensus reality part of the temporal coordination, asking “when”, “who” and “what” to do next.

5.2. International Center for Innovation (ICI)

ICI in the North Denmark Region was rooted at the Center for Industrial Production (CIP) and was frequented by a number of professional milieus, deriving from all three faculties at Aalborg University. ICI received 5,1 mio Euro in European funding at December 2007 with the purpose of creating fifteen different NBBM in North Denmark, networks that aim to transcend traditional lines of business and national boundaries in an effort to innovate NBBM´s for the global market. ICI was a regional initiative which was supported by Growth forum in the North Denmark Region and carried through in collaboration with Business Link North Denmark. With their thorough knowledge of North Jutland’s business life, these institutions played an instrumental role in the co-operation with the participating businesses. The regular staff of ICI was composed by the secretariat, researchers, a governing body, and in 2009 also an international advisory board. Individual projects within ICI were given the research funding and workforce needed, as well as access to the ICI LAB, making it possible for the networks to successfully complete their NBBMI projects. ICI was a globally minded initiative and it made its international debut in September 2008 in Silicon Valley. ICI was in close co-operation with CTIF (Center for Tele-infrastructure – www.ctif.aau.dk ). 5.2.1. The first critical moment – ICI ICI followed the same process as GLS before establishing. Formally each interested business was visit and interview about their “AS IS” and “TO

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BE” BM´s related to ICI. The interview showed clearly that to some of the involved businesses ICI was a complex and risky BMI project.

Figure 2 BMI Riskmapping in ICI In spring 2007 all interested partners meet at a vision workshop at Klitmøller in North Denmark. The method of this process was however a little different to GLS, based upon the social constructionist theory of Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider & Shivasta 1987), where the ground assumption is that the future is defined and reconstructed by our expectations, values, plans, convictions etc. This implies a.o. working with the business as a heliotropic system, that grows towards the sun (helios) and what the participants nurture. The critical processes of the ICI Vision seminar were:

5.2.2. Task co-representation, process 1 - ICI

The first process was in the Vision seminar to define common ground in order to support and activate relationships and collaboration amongst people and the different businesses. As a mean to this and as earlier mentioned, participants of the vision seminar was interviewed beforehand – one by one - about their “AS IS BM´s” and “TO BE BM´S” related to ICI together with their intentions for ICI and the BMI process. They were also asked to mention the barriers and challenges to carry out ICI. The purpose of the interviews was to begin Designing a Partnership Alliance (DPA) with all involved participants in ICI about the methods and process needed to stablish a flourishing atmosphere. However the

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interviews showed very clearly that there was difference in the vision of methods and wish to the BMI process in the network. There was also difference to the vision and outcome of ICI. The DPA therefore was prolonged to be finally agreed upon at the first vision seminar. Through the interview, the first relationship of trust and co-representation was however created between participants and project manager/researcher. At the seminar, participants were asked to present themselves shortly regarding who they were and how they saw their role in ICI. Then the participants were asked to walk and talk with each other and pick up things from the west coast beach that could be used to build up vision sculptures of ICI. The purpose of this was to start envisioning what might be in the future - ICI. This created as in GLS the first emotional reaction of the participants as to their feelings towards the whole ICI project – however with a different “physical expression method” – 4 different “scultures” - as in GLS.

5.2.3. Joint attention, process 2 - ICI As with GLS, the main purpose of the vision seminar was to create a common vision. In and nearby an old fishermans house with guidance from a sculturist and painter the participants were divided into 4 groups who build up sculptures of the vision of ICI. The participants were asked to work in groups according to their preferred role in the project making a sculpture for ICI anno 2013, and hence exploring and sharing their visions and thoughts for ICI with each other.

Picture 2 “One ICI group” building a vision sculture of ICI. The outcome of the event was 4 different sculptures of ICI anno 2013 and a first discussion of sense of possible shared vision to build on could then begin. Also, a sense of being part of a bigger whole and the system

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relationship intelligence was evolved (Hämäläinen, R.P. & E. Saarinen, 2007) in this first discussion. The vision process in smaller groups had created a safe zone, where participants could get out of their comfort zone and align with each other by sharing “their sculptures” points of view, values, beliefs and feelings around ICI. Thereby the discussion on common vision for ICI became more easy to carry out and lead.

5.2.4. Temporal coordination, process 3 - ICI

With the shared vision of ICI in mind and almost settle in the first critical moment, participants worked with the biggest challenge and biggest barriers of their mind related to the process of establishing ICI, naming also the various activities needed for ICI to come through. The challenges and barriers were drawn up on a white board, and the participants then discussed in open forum how to overcome the barriers and challenges. The result was that risk and fear of the project was taken out of their mind set and a common agreement was established to how ICI could really happen. A gameplan and an action plan was formulated with responsible partners addressed to these actions at the end of the workshop.

6. Discussion Innovating BM´s in network is a complex and risky venture, but however more and more critical for the survival of many businesses today. Critical and risky NBBMI projects have not widely been researched. A key challenge concerns the very first moments of the NBBMI process, where the network partners’ very different BM´s and success criteria “meet” and are related to the vision of the BMI process and “wanted” outcome of the BMI project. The network partners’ different demands for value or outcome in a NBBMI is complex to understand but important to know about to drive and lead the BMI project from idea - through the BMI process - to eventually the market – fast and resource effective. In both cases a sense of momentum was created during the very first moment - this initial critical moment of the BMI process, meaning to “establish” a shared feeling of being part of something bigger. An important and essential feeling larger than, what the single businesses

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could create alone. It is the place of a network based vision and inspiration, the feeling of a common ground, like “we are one”. Some key findings and learning points from the 2 cases can be drawn up:

x Time and pace – Be aware of holding on tight to the energy in the process, involving participants closely and quickly in new set ups and meetings.

x Structure and organization - make a clear DPA for the future and establish clarity about roles – outer and inner roles (CRR Global 2014).

x Leading from a Systems Intelligence perspective, involves: o Regard and hold the system as being more than the sum of the

individuals. As the participants in the system express themselves, they become voices of the needs and state-of-being of the system. Theses voices can generate information that is different and separate from what is experienced by individual participants.

o Working with the Emotional Field (EF) of the group when the businesses and their participants meet again, helping them to overcome difficulties by naming the EF, being transparent about what is going on, and intervening with them and the process when necessary.

o Every relationship system is considered naturally intelligent, generative and creative. This means that every disturbance or change is an ally, meaning that something is trying to happen, and the system has resources to find its own answers – just ask the system.

Important learning from the two cases are “How to hold on to momentum” in a BMI project, so that it doesn’t fade or slip away?

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Critical processes GLS ICI

Task co-representation

Pre - Interviews Creating relationship

Designing the Partnership Alliance Presentation and roles in the project

Pre - Interviews Creating relationship

Designing the Partnership Alliance

Presentation one-to-one

Joint attention

Vision process Writing a Cover story in future Magazine

Visison process Building a sculpture of the future

Temporal coordination

Consensus reality Who does what and when?

Consensus reality What barriers must be overcome and how?

Table 2 Critical Processes in the first moment in complex and risky NBBMI projects

7. Conclusion In the paper we study two complex and risky BMI projects – the GLS and the ICI BMI project were studied. Risk related to BMI projects were defined as BMI projects that:

- aimed at changing several BM dimensions

- aimed at changing the BM dimensions radical or in combination incremental several of the BM dimensions

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- aimed at creating BM or more BM´s that would be new to the business, market, industry, or the world.

However due to difference in competences and risk appetite the risk and complexity of the two BMI project were found to be regarded as very different related to the view point and businesses involved. This was also present in the GLS and ICI cases we studied and shown in 2 diagrams mapping the different network partners risk profile. All in all both BMI projects could be classified in this framework as complex and risky BMI projects. A BMI Risk can change over time of the BMI process related to creating, capturing, delivering, receiving and consuming phase. However our focus was on the first moment or phase of the BMI project.

Our research aimed to understand the cognitive mechanisms “at the very first moment” of the BMI process – where, when and how business open up to their core business, strategic BM´s and even core competences.

We found especially 3 critical processes to focus about at the first moment of the BMI process related to these questions.

1. Building trust towards the process - Where trust towards the BMI process is established.

2. Creating a safe zone and relationship between involved businesses 3. Designing a Partnership Alliance, so that participants are willing to

step in to the Vision process of the critical and risky BMI project. Businesses expects and needs trust in these first moments - ” supporting participants’ ability and motivation to act together with each other.. Visualization of the BMI project seems in both cases to be a way to lay down technical, business and not least mental barriers to a complex and risky BMI project. The establishment of the visual object and the working process to establish the vision makes the social construction of a shared vision to the BMI project vital and important to release ctritial and strategic knowledge and thereby establish knowledge transfer and learning in the first moment.

Consensus reality – naming barriers and challenges, ways to pass barriers and challenges together with formulating next steps in the BMI project is important to keep momentum in the BMI project.

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8. Further research

New methods and more research to better encompass how BMI can release more Intellectual Capital and hidden knowledge in especially risky and complex BMI projects is highly needed. Digitalization of businesses and peoples tangible and intangible relations inside and outside BMI projects will give a better understanding about what relations and relations to IC in different BME´s really exists. The digitalization of the BMI process will also give possibilities for BMI leaders to apply and see different BMI scenarios – “BM Panoramas” related to releasing IC from different BMI´s – especially in critical and risky BMI projects. This work is still in progress.

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