Tirian: Innovation Consultancy and Facilitation

09/09/2025

Strategy often fails before it begins. This article explores why a Pre-Strategy Workshop can surface hidden tensions, align leadership, and set the stage for real impact. A must-read for anyone designing strategic offsites or innovation sprints. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrewgranttirian_strategy-often-fails-before-it-begins-this-activity-7370975165783916545-r-Ru?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGIXhoBv6qviSXqspIeLNGUjJI9ulCjPLM

02/09/2025

Innovative Leadership Session at HHP Law Firm: Why a Pre-Strategy Workshop Might Be the Most Strategic Move You Make.

Before launching into a full-scale strategy day, we recently partnered with a leading law firm in Indonesia (HHP Law Firm, member firm of Baker McKenzie International) to run a Pre-Strategy Workshop—and the results were transformative.

Partners were preparing to lead their own future-focused planning session. But before diving into visioning and roadmaps, we helped them pause and align. Using Tirian’s iCLi profiling tool, we surfaced each leader’s innovation orientation—revealing where they naturally lean toward exploration vs preservation. This wasn’t just interesting—it was essential. It allowed the team to anticipate where tensions might arise and where collaboration could thrive.

Many professional services firms face competing demands such as: balancing regulatory rigour with client-centric innovation, and managing internal governance while exploring new service models.

To navigate this, we introduced 2 tools:
A) A Competing Demands Collaborator Canvas - to define and explore the challenges, and then
B) an Innovation Racing Line Collaborator Canvas—a strategic planning tool that helps teams map the most effective route forward by identifying the “racing line” through complexity and paradox.

This enabled the group to:
- Visualize competing priorities without oversimplifying
- Strategically position themselves for both agility and stability
- Build a shared language for innovation and ex*****on

The Pre-Strategy session didn’t replace their strategy day—it supercharged it. By aligning leadership styles, surfacing paradoxes, and building strategic muscle memory, the team was ready to lead with clarity and confidence.
If you're planning a strategy day, consider what happens before the planning begins.

The right tools and conversations can make all the difference to see how your team can prepare to lead from the front:
- Article: Why a Pre-Strategy Workshop Might be the Most Strategic Move You Make- https://lnkd.in/gN4BdWAT
- Explore the Collaborator Canvases https://lnkd.in/gwtS8PMm
- The Innovation Racing Line Canvas: https://lnkd.in/g6PkS6m5
- The iCLi profiling tool: https://lnkd.in/gUfUGVVp
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01/09/2025

Igniting Innovation. Leading the Future.
In a world of constant disruption, innovation isn’t a luxury—it’s a leadership imperative. At Tirian, we design immersive programs that go beyond theory to spark real transformation.
From gamified simulations to validated leadership frameworks like iCLi, Tirian equips teams to navigate complexity, embrace ambidextrous thinking, and lead with purpose. Trusted by global market leaders for over 30 years, our work empowers organizations to not just adapt—but to shape what comes next.

Coming soon: The Change-Ready Capabilities Checklist (Dr Gaia Grant & Andrew Grant, 2026)—a practical playbook for preparing individuals, teams, and organizations for accelerated innovation and complex change. Designed to complement Tirian’s INNOVATE suite or stand alone as a powerful workshop tool.

If your team is navigating complexity or preparing for transformation, Tirian’s innovation programs offer the frameworks and tools to lead with confidence. Explore what’s possible at tirian.com.

27/08/2025

Title: Leading Through Complexity — Insights from Lenovo Accelerate 360
Last week, Gaia Grant and I had the privilege of presenting a joint keynote at Lenovo’s Accelerate 360 event in Sydney, where over 200 leaders and partners gathered to explore what it means to lead with clarity and purpose in a digitally complex world.
Gaia shared powerful insights from our research into innovation readiness—highlighting how organisations can build cultures that embrace uncertainty and foster sustainable change. I complemented this with strategic leadership frameworks designed to help executives navigate disruption and complexity with confidence.
What stood out most was the energy in the room: a collective hunger for practical tools, evidence-based thinking, and meaningful conversations about the future of leadership. From the breakout sessions to the post-event dialogue, it was clear that the appetite for purposeful innovation is stronger than ever.

03/07/2025

WARNING: Relying on Google during brainstorming may be killing our creativity.

A recent study in the journal Memory & Cognition highlights a study from Carnegie Mellon showing that teams with access to search engines during ideation sessions actually produced fewer original ideas. Why? Because they converged too quickly on the same predictable answers—falling into what’s known as the “fixation effect.”

This insight struck a chord with me. In our book 'Who Killed Creativity?' (Co-authored with Dr Gaia Grant (PhD), we explore how creativity is often stifled not just by fear or failure, but by subtle, everyday habits, like over-reliance on digital tools. When we default to search engines, we risk outsourcing our imagination and narrowing our thinking.

We've seen in our workshops how powerful it can be to step away from the screen and create space for ambiguity, curiosity, and divergent thinking. That’s where real innovation begins.

Here’s a simple shift I recommend:

1) Start ideation sessions offline—no devices, just dialogue.

2) Encourage raw, unfiltered thinking before refining.

3) Use digital tools later to build, not to begin.

If we want to lead creative teams, we need to design environments that protect and provoke original thought. Sometimes, the best way forward is to unplug.

24/06/2025

80% of AI projects fail due to a lack of staff engagement, training and good governance. Maybe it’s time we sent AI to it's own ‘Design Thinking retreat’—with Post-its, meditation breaks, and a hard look in the mirror. Because here’s the punchline: AI doesn’t boost productivity if it confuses the very people it’s meant to help. Trust isn’t built by automating over everyone’s heads. It’s built by inviting workers into the process: listening to their daily friction points, co-designing solutions, and acknowledging that humans are more than just “legacy systems.”
Let’s face it—if AI wants to be part of the team, it might need a little human onboarding itself.

Workers still know things that algorithms don’t. They’re essential to designing AI systems to enhance, not replace, jobs.

18/06/2025

We are thrilled to share this feature on Dr. Gaia Grant, recently appointed Chair of the For Purpose Alliance (FPA) Leadership Hub. With a career spanning 30+ countries and groundbreaking research into Purpose-Driven Innovation Leadership, Gaia brings a rare blend of academic depth and practical wisdom to the for-purpose sector. In the interview, she shares insights on navigating complexity, building trust-based peer learning environments, and why purpose-led leadership is more vital than ever.

Highlights include:
- Her global leadership experience and its relevance to Australian NFPs
- The development of the iCLi and PDIR tools for innovation readiness
- Her facilitative, energised approach to peer-to-peer leadership development
Gaia’s appointment signals a bold step forward for the FPA community—and
I’m excited to see the impact unfold.

💬 Would love to hear how others are approaching leadership development in the for-purpose space.

An Interview with Gaia Grant – our new FPA Leadership Hub Chair We’re delighted to welcome Gaia Grant as a new Chair for the FPA Leadership Hub Program. Gaia brings...

03/06/2025

We know we need to utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be competitive and effective. But how much AI engagement is optimal, and when is the best time to use it?

https://open.substack.com/pub/andrewgrant655178/p/ai-utilization-dial-creativity?r=o972c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

26/05/2025

Why your leadership team needs creatives, not just strategists. This great article supports what we've learned from working with hundreds of leadership teams: the most transformative breakthroughs don't come from better spreadsheets—they come from reimagining what's possible.

The leaders thriving in today's volatile landscape aren't just executing better strategies—they're creating entirely new playbooks. They're the ones asking "what if?" instead of just "how much?" and "why not?" instead of "why bother?" Your next competitive advantage won't come from optimizing what already exists. It will come from envisioning what doesn't exist yet.

Time to add some creative DNA to your leadership mix?

https://www.fastcompany.com/91337138/why-your-leadership-team-needs-creatives

The future of business won’t be managed into being. It will be imagined into being.

19/05/2025

We are now on Substack. You can access all our articles, posts and podcasts. Get the latest, first by signing up. CREATE+INNOVATE, is our go-to publication for cutting-edge research, thought leadership, and practical strategies in innovation, creativity, and leadership.

Exploring the paradoxes of innovation and creativity to help leaders unlock potential and drive meaningful transformation. Click to read CREATE+INNOVATE, by Andrew Grant | Gaia Grant, a Substack publication. Launched 16 days ago.

13/05/2025

Is AI replacing creativity or just reshaping it?
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (2025), creative and critical thinking remain top skills in the workplace — even in the AI era.
🔍 Back in 2015, negotiation was a top skill. But as AI took over data-driven decisions, negotiation dropped off the list — and creative thinking rose to the top, joined by curiosity, flexibility, agility, and resilience (all top skills needed by 2030).
- As AI evolves, it's enhancing human creativity, not eliminating it. Fast, flexible thinking is now essential for driving innovation.
The future belongs to those who can blend tech literacy with creativity and adaptability. Let’s stop asking how AI will replace us — and start asking how it can help us create better.
👉 What do you think: Is your job at risk, or ready for reinvention?
🔗 Check out the full article and the top 10 skills leaderboard from the past decade here https://lnkd.in/gKV5NYBE
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09/05/2025

Is AI-Artificial Intelligence Blocking Our Creative Thinking?
We are thrilled to introduce a fresh way to engage! If reading isn’t your thing, you can now dive into our Digestible AI Mini Podcast Series—quick, insightful, and made for busy minds. (See if you can catch the irony! Keen to hear your thoughts.) https://open.spotify.com/episode/17wtJjXtB3fvIvbUm05PG6