PREFACE

Reciprocity and advantage—long thought of separately—will become increasingly synergistic. The next competitive advantage will be reciprocity advantage. This book shows you how to create a reciprocity advantage for your business.

The disruptions of the next decade will require organizations to think about and practice reciprocity on a massive scale. Now is the time to move, to ride the coming disruptions to your own benefit—and to the benefit of others.

Reciprocity will be key to business growth in the future. If you can create a reciprocity advantage, you will be able to grow your business in new ways. You may not have to do so right now, but you will within a decade. This is a future you cannot avoid.

Reciprocity is a means for disruptive business innovation and growth. Developing a reciprocity advantage will require intelligent giving that will lead to discoveries of how to make money in new ways. Think: give to grow.

The concept of reciprocity is rising and is going to work in new ways. It makes good business sense and is a better way to live. Having a reciprocity advantage will be essential to thrive in the coming world.

The goal of this book is to seed a transformational yet practical conversation about both reciprocity and advantage—simultaneously and from two very different perspectives. Bob Johansen is a practicingfuturist, while Karl Ronn is a product innovation practitioner. Mapping the territory of reciprocity advantage requires both visionary foresight and practical innovation, combined in new ways.

Bob has more than 30 years’ experience at Institute for the Future (IFTF) in Silicon Valley as a ten-year forecaster, with remarkable accuracy. Bob helps top leaders and rising stars draw insight from external foresight.

With more than 25 years of experience with a wide range of companies, Karl is an expert on disruptive innovation, which lies between insight and action. Karl was a key innovator behind new billion-dollar businesses like Swiffer, Febreze, and Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, for example.

Procter & Gamble has long been a supporter of IFTF. Karl met Bob when Karl was at P&G, and they have known each other for many years. Karl was one of those IFTF clients who managed to translate foresight into insight and action in order to grow P&G’s business. After Karl left P&G to start his own businesses and advise others, he got the chance to work with Bob on innovation strategies that take into account the external future forces of the next decade.

Together, Bob and Karl have created a formula that looks ahead ten years but also outlines an action plan for the next 90 days so that you can begin to create your own reciprocity advantage right away. Themodel introduced here not only helps corporations discover their own reciprocity advantages, it can also be applied to individuals.

We look to the future, but this is a future that leaders can begin making today. We invite you into this conversation.

Bob Johansen & Karl Ronn
Palo Alto, 2014