ambidextrous
organisations
april 2026

In April 2026 at Innovated by Design, we explored Ambidexterity—the critical capability that allows organisations to exploit today's advantages while exploring tomorrow's opportunities. In a world where competitive advantages are increasingly transient, the most successful companies don't choose between efficiency and innovation. They excel at both, simultaneously.

Ambidexterity is about mastering duality: refining and scaling your core business while discovering and developing the innovations that will define your future. It's not about balance—it's about creating distinct but complementary capabilities that allow your organisation to thrive in both the present and the future.

This series examined how leading organisations design structures, processes, and cultures that enable both exploitation and exploration to flourish. What does true ambidexterity look like in practice? How do you protect exploration from the gravitational pull of the core business? And how do you ensure that today's experiments become tomorrow's growth engines?

PAST WEBINARS APRIL 2026

Working With Futures With Mathias Bern Bjornhof

Explore how strategy and innovation interact in ambidextrous organizations, introducing a typology of Corporate Innovation teams. Examine distinct strategic logics for exploration and exploitation, and the conditions enabling their coexistence. Apractical guidance for positioning innovation teams and strengthening long-term renewal.

Detectives of the Future: From Signals To Trends with Lourdes Rodriguez

This session explores how large corporations unintentionally stifle innovation through systems designed for predictability, turning exploration into "theatre." Jaco Fok offers a practical blueprint to build a scalable exploration engine without destabilizing the core, drawing on 25+ years of global executive experience.

Working With Futures With Mathias Bern Bjornhof

Fintech startups face the challenge of scaling efficiently while innovating continuously. This webinar explores practical strategies, using a real-world case, to show how startups balance short-term performance and long-term growth.

Working With Futures With Mathias Bern Bjornhof

Roel’s talk uses Pirates of the Caribbean to explore entrepreneurial (pirate) behavior in established organizations, highlighting the mindset, skillset, and toolset needed for ambidexterity—delivered as a visually engaging, inspiring keynote.

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Making Sense
of AMBIDEXTROUS
ORGANISATIONS

The average lifespan of S&P 500 companies has dropped from 67 years to just 15 years. In this era of transient advantage, organisations must master the art of ambidexterity: the ability to exploit current strengths while exploring future opportunities.

Our latest white paper, "Making Sense of Ambidextrous Organisations," is your practical guide to building dual capabilities that drive both short-term efficiency and long-term reinvention. Based on our April 2026 webinar series featuring Jako Fok, and Roel Vries, this paper synthesises decades of experience into actionable frameworks.

Why download?

  • Understand the three distinct types of corporate innovation teams and their relationship to strategy
  • Learn how successful companies avoid the "success trap" that doomed Kodak, Nokia, and Xerox
  • Access practical frameworks: strategic bucketing, stage-gate funding, innovation councils, and dual governance models
Innovated by Design White Paper 2 - Making Sense of Digital Transformation

>>Download white paper

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