Claudio Salvatore's Blog
May 11, 2025
INSIGHT-NAPKIN FRAMEWORK
The Insight-Napkin Framework is a powerful approach to thrive in a fast-paced world, based on two linked components: a source of competitive advantage and a consistent method to craft strategy that aligns with it:
Dynamic Reframing: This is the source of competitive advantage. It's the ability to "see what others don't see", capturing deeper insights or spotting opportunities slightly earlier to act fast.
STORI: A model for quickly and adaptably converting insights into a formalized strategy. It structures the strategy into five essential phases: Start, Target, Obstacle, Road, and Implementation.
This framework is described in the book How to See What Others Don't
The Core Idea: See What Others Don't.
In the modern world of rapid change and hypercompetition, the most significant competitive advantage comes from perceiving opportunities or shifts that others haven't yet noticed. This isn't about knowing everything, but rather seeing things with slightly more depth or noticing developments a few months before others do.
This early perception allows organizations to seize opportunities and gain a lead. It's the underlying capability that enables finding uncontested market spaces (like the "Blue Ocean" concept), identifying core strengths (core competencies), and effectively connecting with customers (client bonding).
The Process: Dynamic Reframing
This is the fundamental capacity to continuously revise and update your understanding of the world. It involves repeatedly capturing new insights and letting go of outdated ideas or perspectives.
Inspired by the idea of paradigm shifts, Dynamic Reframing applies this concept within an organization, constantly adjusting its view of reality. This process is closely linked to creativity.
The Outcome: Expanding Your Horizon of Possibilities
The result of Dynamic Reframing is the expansion of your "horizon of possibilities". This concept, drawn from philosophy, represents the limits of what you can perceive, understand, and imagine as potential options or realities.
By gaining new experience, learning, and engaging with the world, this horizon shifts and expands, revealing new avenues and possibilities. This expanded perspective itself is presented as the source of competitive advantage.
The Primary Engine: Strategic Conversation.
Strategy is understood not as a static plan but as a dynamic process built through collective human interaction. Strategic Conversation is a discipline of collective thinking and inquiry where teams engage in dialogue to make shared sense of observations, interpretations, and generate insights.
It's the mechanism specifically highlighted as generating Dynamic Reframing. The quality of this ongoing conversation directly impacts the quality of the strategy being developed. Key elements include listening effectively (Insightful Listening) and potentially integrating AI as an interlocutor.
Additional Pathways: Scientific Inquiry and Creative Exploration.
While Strategic Conversation is central, expanding the horizon and gaining insight also happens through two other complementary pathways. One is drawing on techniques from scientific inquiry for structured investigation, pattern recognition, testing assumptions, and seeking anomalies.
The other is through creative exploration, which involves cultivating openness, challenging assumptions, rejecting the status quo, and generating new ideas through divergent and convergent thinking.
The Structure for Action: The STORI Model
This is the framework used to translate the insights gained from Dynamic Reframing into an actionable strategy. Unlike traditional planning models, STORI frames strategy as a specific "play" or sequence of moves. The acronym represents key components of this play: Start (the initial situation based on insight), Target (the desired future state), Obstacle (the critical challenge to overcome), Road (the key decisions defining the path), and Implementation (the specific actions to be taken).
The Output Format: The Napkin.
The core STORI play is designed to be summarized concisely on a single page, referred to as the "Servilleta" or Napkin. This constraint forces clarity and ensures the strategy is easy to understand and communicate. The Implementation section must be written in the first person by the person responsible, fostering accountability and commitment. The Napkin format itself serves as a simple quality control mechanism.
The Execution Style: Continuous and Dynamic.
Strategy is not a rigid plan implemented after being fully formed; it's a continuous process of simultaneous design and implementation. Given that competitive advantage is based on potentially fleeting insights in a fast-changing world, implementation must be rapid and flexible, ready to adapt as plans evolve.
This requires constant coordination between long-term thinking and daily operations and distributing responsibility for parts of the "play" throughout a network of committed individuals.
Organizational Fit of the Framework
Many organizations lack a culture of dialogue, openness, and reflection. However, this isn’t a barrier to adopting the Insight-Napkin Framework, because it isn’t an all-or-nothing model. Highly cohesive teams and dynamic organizations may embrace its full potential, but any organization can adopt the concepts from the model that best align with their culture.
Every organization has its own process for writing its strategy, which can absolutely benefit from techniques in the Insight-Napkin Framework. These techniques can significantly reduce misunderstandings during deliberations, enhance observations, and support the creation of a clearer narrative for the future.
Scaling Insight-Napkin to the corporation
Insight-Napkin is highly effective at the team or initiative level, but can it be scaled to a corporate level? The answer is yes—and it comes in two forms.
First, you can use the framework to write the one-page core strategy for each department and for the corporation as a whole. This helps ensure that strategies are clear, focused, and actionable. Then, you can apply it alongside planning tools (like OKRs or OGSM), which are already established to manage portfolio coordination and financial targets.
If the corporate culture allows, the framework can go a step further. It views strategy as a collection of interconnected substrategies—like a fractal—each owned by committed executors. The enterprise is not primarily seen in terms of departments or functions, but as a team of people engaged in a shared conversation, each responsible for their part of the plan.
This reflects Steve Jobs' organizational philosophy and echoes his words in a 2010 interview, where he described Apple as “the biggest startup on the planet.”
Dynamic Reframing: This is the source of competitive advantage. It's the ability to "see what others don't see", capturing deeper insights or spotting opportunities slightly earlier to act fast.
STORI: A model for quickly and adaptably converting insights into a formalized strategy. It structures the strategy into five essential phases: Start, Target, Obstacle, Road, and Implementation.
This framework is described in the book How to See What Others Don't
The Core Idea: See What Others Don't.
In the modern world of rapid change and hypercompetition, the most significant competitive advantage comes from perceiving opportunities or shifts that others haven't yet noticed. This isn't about knowing everything, but rather seeing things with slightly more depth or noticing developments a few months before others do.
This early perception allows organizations to seize opportunities and gain a lead. It's the underlying capability that enables finding uncontested market spaces (like the "Blue Ocean" concept), identifying core strengths (core competencies), and effectively connecting with customers (client bonding).
The Process: Dynamic Reframing
This is the fundamental capacity to continuously revise and update your understanding of the world. It involves repeatedly capturing new insights and letting go of outdated ideas or perspectives.
Inspired by the idea of paradigm shifts, Dynamic Reframing applies this concept within an organization, constantly adjusting its view of reality. This process is closely linked to creativity.
The Outcome: Expanding Your Horizon of Possibilities
The result of Dynamic Reframing is the expansion of your "horizon of possibilities". This concept, drawn from philosophy, represents the limits of what you can perceive, understand, and imagine as potential options or realities.
By gaining new experience, learning, and engaging with the world, this horizon shifts and expands, revealing new avenues and possibilities. This expanded perspective itself is presented as the source of competitive advantage.
The Primary Engine: Strategic Conversation.
Strategy is understood not as a static plan but as a dynamic process built through collective human interaction. Strategic Conversation is a discipline of collective thinking and inquiry where teams engage in dialogue to make shared sense of observations, interpretations, and generate insights.
It's the mechanism specifically highlighted as generating Dynamic Reframing. The quality of this ongoing conversation directly impacts the quality of the strategy being developed. Key elements include listening effectively (Insightful Listening) and potentially integrating AI as an interlocutor.
Additional Pathways: Scientific Inquiry and Creative Exploration.
While Strategic Conversation is central, expanding the horizon and gaining insight also happens through two other complementary pathways. One is drawing on techniques from scientific inquiry for structured investigation, pattern recognition, testing assumptions, and seeking anomalies.
The other is through creative exploration, which involves cultivating openness, challenging assumptions, rejecting the status quo, and generating new ideas through divergent and convergent thinking.
The Structure for Action: The STORI Model
This is the framework used to translate the insights gained from Dynamic Reframing into an actionable strategy. Unlike traditional planning models, STORI frames strategy as a specific "play" or sequence of moves. The acronym represents key components of this play: Start (the initial situation based on insight), Target (the desired future state), Obstacle (the critical challenge to overcome), Road (the key decisions defining the path), and Implementation (the specific actions to be taken).
The Output Format: The Napkin.
The core STORI play is designed to be summarized concisely on a single page, referred to as the "Servilleta" or Napkin. This constraint forces clarity and ensures the strategy is easy to understand and communicate. The Implementation section must be written in the first person by the person responsible, fostering accountability and commitment. The Napkin format itself serves as a simple quality control mechanism.
The Execution Style: Continuous and Dynamic.
Strategy is not a rigid plan implemented after being fully formed; it's a continuous process of simultaneous design and implementation. Given that competitive advantage is based on potentially fleeting insights in a fast-changing world, implementation must be rapid and flexible, ready to adapt as plans evolve.
This requires constant coordination between long-term thinking and daily operations and distributing responsibility for parts of the "play" throughout a network of committed individuals.
Organizational Fit of the Framework
Many organizations lack a culture of dialogue, openness, and reflection. However, this isn’t a barrier to adopting the Insight-Napkin Framework, because it isn’t an all-or-nothing model. Highly cohesive teams and dynamic organizations may embrace its full potential, but any organization can adopt the concepts from the model that best align with their culture.
Every organization has its own process for writing its strategy, which can absolutely benefit from techniques in the Insight-Napkin Framework. These techniques can significantly reduce misunderstandings during deliberations, enhance observations, and support the creation of a clearer narrative for the future.
Scaling Insight-Napkin to the corporation
Insight-Napkin is highly effective at the team or initiative level, but can it be scaled to a corporate level? The answer is yes—and it comes in two forms.
First, you can use the framework to write the one-page core strategy for each department and for the corporation as a whole. This helps ensure that strategies are clear, focused, and actionable. Then, you can apply it alongside planning tools (like OKRs or OGSM), which are already established to manage portfolio coordination and financial targets.
If the corporate culture allows, the framework can go a step further. It views strategy as a collection of interconnected substrategies—like a fractal—each owned by committed executors. The enterprise is not primarily seen in terms of departments or functions, but as a team of people engaged in a shared conversation, each responsible for their part of the plan.
This reflects Steve Jobs' organizational philosophy and echoes his words in a 2010 interview, where he described Apple as “the biggest startup on the planet.”
November 18, 2024
The beer test and Keeping Readers Hooked
The key lies in understanding that when we write, we are actually telling two stories. The first is the obvious one: the topic we are addressing, which should provide value to the reader (and it better does).
But there’s also a second story, one that is implicit in the text—it tells readers who we are and reveals how we see ourselves as authors. Some texts make it painfully clear that their writer is pretentious, a know-it-all, or simply a bore. Other texts suggest the author is merely recycling what everyone already knows, without offering a single original idea. These are the kinds of things that push readers away.
That’s why, every time you write something, let it sit for a day. Then, come back to it and ask yourself this crucial question: Is the person who wrote this someone interesting?
The ultimate test is this: Would I invite the author of this text for a beer to chat, enjoy their company, and learn a bit more about them?
If the answer is no, go back and rewrite it.
But there’s also a second story, one that is implicit in the text—it tells readers who we are and reveals how we see ourselves as authors. Some texts make it painfully clear that their writer is pretentious, a know-it-all, or simply a bore. Other texts suggest the author is merely recycling what everyone already knows, without offering a single original idea. These are the kinds of things that push readers away.
That’s why, every time you write something, let it sit for a day. Then, come back to it and ask yourself this crucial question: Is the person who wrote this someone interesting?
The ultimate test is this: Would I invite the author of this text for a beer to chat, enjoy their company, and learn a bit more about them?
If the answer is no, go back and rewrite it.
