Outpace Change. Outthink Competitors. Outperform Your Industry.

The FAST Innovation® Mastery Program equips leadership teams with a proven system to accelerate innovation, align priorities, and turn change into lasting competitive advantage.

Enrollment is limited to a select number of organizations each year.

FAST Innovation in Action

Does it feel like the world is changing faster than your organization can keep up?

Markets shift overnight. Competitors launch faster than you can respond. Teams generate ideas but struggle to deliver results.

The cost? Missed opportunities, wasted resources, and a shrinking competitive edge.

How can your organization keep up with the increasing pace of change? How can you efficiently meet today’s needs while proactively addressing future challenges? How can you accelerate the way you innovate?

The FAST Innovation® Mastery Program gives your leaders a field-proven system to cut through the noise, align priorities, and deliver innovation that drives measurable business impact.

Cut through the noise and focus on what matters most.
Align efforts across teams and functions.
Accelerate innovation that drives measurable, lasting results.

Why Typical Approaches Fail

Why Over 80% of Innovation Efforts Fizzle Out

Episodic, not sustainable — they create a flurry of ideas but rarely lead to lasting business results.

Teams leave energized, but old habits return. Knowledge fades, and business impact is minimal.

Expensive advice and endless slide decks. The moment you need fresh thinking, you’re forced to re-hire them. No lasting engine is built.

Bottom line: These approaches create ‘innovation theater’ — activity without impact. FAST Innovation installs a lasting engine that drives real results.

What’s Possible with FAST Innovation

Imagine Innovation That Actually Sticks

A system that continuously delivers results, not just short-term bursts.

Rapid Problem-Solving” — Solve today’s and tomorrow’s business challenges faster than your competitors — without outside dependency.

Teams motivated, focused, and committed to driving innovation forward together.

This is the promise of the FAST Innovation® Mastery Program: Don’t just dabble in innovation. Install it. Master it. Apply it. And get measurable results.

The FAST Innovation® Engine: How We Build a Scalable Culture of Innovation

Most organizations treat innovation as a one-off event. FAST Innovation® embeds it into your culture — creating a system that scales naturally across every level of your company.

The Model:

Leadership: Senior leaders reinforce and champion the system, ensuring innovation remains focused on strategic priorities.

Masters: We begin by developing deep mastery in a select group of leaders who become catalysts for measurable business results.

Ambassadors: Those Masters then mentor and equip dozens more, spreading expertise and accelerating adoption across teams.

Extended Network: Over time, innovation becomes embedded throughout your entire organization — thousands of employees aligned and capable of solving real business challenges.

This creates a self-sustaining innovation engine — one that continuously fuels growth, eliminates dependence on outside consultants, and delivers repeatable, predictable results.

This model has been successfully implemented in Fortune 500 companies across industries — from technology to healthcare to financial services.

The FAST Innovation® Process

A simple system that turns innovation from random activity into a predictable source of growth.

Innovation rarely fails for lack of ideas—it fails for lack of a repeatable system. FAST provides that system:

Focus

Direct innovation toward your most critical strategic priorities.

Ask

Frame the right questions to cut through noise and unlock better solutions.

Shift

Challenge assumptions and generate options designed for real business impact.

Test

Rapidly pilot, validate, and scale what works—reduce risk, accelerate results.

Result: a repeatable engine that delivers faster decisions, stronger alignment, and measurable growth.

How the FAST Innovation® Mastery Program Works

The Goal: Deliver real‑world ROI while embedding a culture of innovation that sustains results long after the engagement ends.

Who It’s For

Need to accelerate innovation without wasting time, money, or energy.
Want to be self‑sufficient instead of dependent on outside consultants.
Expect a return that is 10×+ their investment in measurable outcomes.
Have leaders ready to move beyond incremental change to transformational results.
Want multiple teams equipped to solve complex challenges consistently and at scale.

What You Get

Tailored Engagement: A roadmap built around your strategic priorities.
Mastery Coaching: Direct guidance from Stephen and structured mentorship for your internal Masters.
Scalable System: A framework that empowers Ambassadors and extends across the workforce.
Quantifiable ROI: Scorecards and metrics that track progress against business outcomes.
Lasting Self‑Sufficiency: Teams continue innovating long after the engagement ends.
Optional Integration: Personality Poker® Mastery for deeper cultural alignment.

This isn’t a training program. It’s an exclusive transformation experience that leaves your organization faster, stronger, and more resilient — with a measurable return on investment.

What Are The Results?

You expect training, hands-on work, apprenticeship, and mentoring. However, the true value of this program is so much more.

A Self-Sustaining Innovation Engine

Your teams gain the capability to repeatedly solve high-value business challenges—without dependence on consultants or endless training cycles. The result is an engine that runs long after the program ends.

Tangible ROI, Fast

Solving just one meaningful problem often pays for the program many times over. With a repeatable system, you don’t just get a one-off win—you unlock a pipeline of measurable results that compound quarter after quarter.

An Engaged, Aligned Culture

Innovation stops being an isolated activity. Leaders and teams align around a shared system, employees feel empowered to contribute, and your culture shifts toward collaboration, accountability, and sustained performance.

The Author of Invisible Solutions® & PIVOTAL, and the Creator of Personality Poker®

About Stephen Shapiro

Stephen Shapiro is one of the foremost authorities on creating a culture of innovation that delivers measurable results.

During his 15 years at Accenture, he founded and led the firm’s 20,000-person innovation and process improvement practice, giving him firsthand experience building transformation at global scale.

Since then, Stephen has become the author of six books, including the acclaimed Invisible Solutions® and Pivotal. He is a sought-after advisor and keynote speaker who has worked with organizations such as Microsoft, 3M, P&G, Marriott, Nike, and NASA.

What sets Stephen apart is his belief that innovation isn’t about chasing ideas—it’s about installing systems that help leaders and teams repeatedly solve high-value business challenges, unlock growth, and build cultures where people thrive.

Praise for Stephen Shapiro

Steve’s passion for innovation is infectious. His mandate to focus innovation relentlessly on well-articulated problems has caused an internal shift in mindset and approach for our innovators. Steve delivers both in a way that is truly inspirational and actionable.

Steve exemplifies innovation in his personality and how he approaches life, work and others. I would strongly recommend him to any person or organization looking to instill these attributes in their life or work.

Steve brought incredible energy and highly relevant messages that made it possible for us to rethink our innovation principles and extend them to our customer-facing functions … Steve has a fun and highly infectious style and could be an asset to any organization trying to make innovation a reality.

Enjoyed working with Steve and found his knowledge of innovation, conversational style, and delivery smooth and effective. He’s a great evangelist for innovation gifted at simplifying complex principles so they are easily assimilated and put into practice.

Steve Shapiro shows the innovation community how they can solve important problems using commonsense solutions hidden in plain sight!

Steve Shapiro's knowledge and delivery remind us that oftentimes we look at all of our issues through the wrong lens. When you change your perspective, you are better positioned to ask better questions, and thus change the paradigm leading to solving better problems, but doing it faster and in ways never thought possible.

Book A Discovery Call With Stephen

Want to learn more? Book time with Stephen. If you don’t see any time slots that work for you, please email him at inquiries@stephenshapiro.com. He often blocks off time for writing and other activities. And if the calendar does not fully display, please click here to directly access his online calendar.

Frequently Asked Questions

What skills will The Masters and Ambassadors develop and apply?

One key skill is problem-solving, more accurately problem-framing. Everyone will be given tools which will assist in refining problem statements so that better and more valuable solutions can be developed. Note that I use the word “problem” synonymously with issue, challenge, or opportunity. Quite often, teams want to tap into important opportunities rather than solve a problem. But this is only one of the capabilities we can build. For some, the practical development and leverage of the company’s differentiator might be of interest. Or maybe finding solutions through open innovation could be of value. The content for each program is customized to meet your specific needs. With the Mastery Level program, the entire FAST Innovation model is applied, including Personality Poker®, an assessment tool, and guidance on measurement, motivation, and organization strategies.

How can we scale this to the rest of the organization?

Although The Masters and Ambassadors are a start, we also have a self-paced e-learning version of the program that anyone in your organization can take. Because it works best when the individuals taking the e-learning program are mentored by someone in The Ambassador network, it is only available for those who invest in the Apprenticeship or Mastery level programs (Levels 2 and 3). We also offer speeches and workshops for larger groups that more people in your organization can learn about the process. In addition, we offer workshops for Leadership so that they have a greater appreciation for the value of innovation.

Are there additional licensing fees?

With the Education-level program, only The Masters have access to the materials (videos, tools, templates, etc). The only exception is the 25 Lenses Cheat sheet which can be shared with everyone in your organization (a non-exclusive, revokable, limited license). With the Apprenticeship level, the Masters and Ambassadors get access to all of the materials, while only the 25 Lenses Cheat Sheet and the Differentiation Cheat Sheets can be shared with the entire organization. For the mastery level, you have the option of licensing all of the content for the organization for an additional fee.

What would be ideal business challenges to use in your program?

The process works with any type of business problems/opportunities. Ideally, it is something where you have struggled in the past to find a solution and is meaningful (i.e., solving it would be valuable). Although technical problems can be applied, it is typically best to start with process or people-related challenges. Complex technical problems sometimes require additional methods to find solutions. Regardless, we work with you up front to determine the most valuable and effective path forward.

What are the steps of the FAST Innovation Process?

The FAST Innovation Model drives tenfold improvements in ROI over traditional methods. FAST is an acronym for the four steps of the process:

Focus
Innovate where you differentiate.

Clarify your differentiator and use it as a framework for prioritizing innovation investments. We have a wide range of tools including our 5Ds of differentiation and The Innovation Targeting Matrix.

Ask
Don’t think outside the box; find a better box.

Leveraging the Invisible Solutions® tools, reveal hidden solutions to your difficult problems by asking better questions. The primary focus is on the 25 lenses.

Shift
Expertise is the enemy of innovation.

Your teams will find breakthrough solutions faster through effective collaboration and by looking beyond their areas of expertise. Here we explore open innovation and other methods such as Personality Poker®

Test
Don’t fail; experiment.

Don’t glorify failure. Instead, test hypotheses. We help teams create small, scalable experiments that reduce the risk of failure.