How does the Socratic approach make your business model successful in Innovation? Solution Innovation seems to be regarded as a cure-all for businesses, and even whole countries and economies (such as Europe), to return to the so-called \"growth track.\" Not a week goes by without media news items on this topic. At business schools, increasing numbers of executives anxiously ask us to help them design innovation processes and practices. Given this constant pressure, our first question ought to be \"Is innovation even necessary?\" To answer this question we should first specify what we mean by \"innovation.\" Innovation was traditionally the preserve of laboratories and company R & D departments. It was a matter of developing new technologies, patterns and processes, which, with a bit of luck, could be launched on the market. Even today, this is the predominant vision of innovation, the \"lab coat\" paradigm. From the customer experience standpoint, this picture of innovation only partly explains what innovation involves. When we look at the customer\'s relationship at all its points of contact with the company, and we think about the full measure of value we can create for the customer, there emerges a new kind of innovation, which has nothing to do with laboratory work, and arises at any time and in any situation where the customer is in contact with the company. Let\'s think, for example, of a restaurant, which is highly suited to explaining customer experience. Here, \"lab coat\" innovation happens in the kitchen when the chef creates new dishes, using new combinations of flavors, colors and aromas. While non-laboratory innovation happens in the rest of settings where a customer comes into contact with the restaurant: from how we communicate with customers, through dealings with the ma .