Management systems and implementation : Steering Committee

Create a steering committee to lead and co-ordinate the Innovation Initiative. The Chief Innovation Officer is usually the chief executive. He is supported by the Innovation Champion and at least two members of top management. This committee will conduct monthly reviews. They will ensure smooth process flow while inspiring the teams to deliver results. The duties of the Innovation Champion will be as follows. • Ensuring that innovation spirals meet regularly. • Organizing training of the trainers and others on an ongoing basis. • Regular follow up to ensure that tasks agreed are carried out. • Facilitating collection of monthly reports and preparing a consolidated report. • He will handhold teams, encourage and promote innovation across the company. The steering committee meets once a month to review and take corrective action. Footfall in the working areas and daily workplace meetings can encourage greater commitment and engagement. The launch should keep the whole organization informed and excited about the plan. The floor should be kept open for those who would like to participate. All teams can meet to gather forces for implementation. The management of innovation depends on the structure created to institutionalize it. Sustained innovation should be recognized as a critical element in organizational structure. Large companies have now finally begun to recognize this. They should ensure that support is provided for innovative projects with potential.

IMPACT ANALYSIS

It is now time to prioritize problems to be solved. Make sure no time is wasted on non-critical problems. Team members can critique and analyze each problem ruthlessly. Put them up on white boards in your Innovation Centre so that people live amidst them, feeling free to add their thoughts. Choose problems which are high value, big ticket items for the company. The four key issues which you may like to consider are – increasing revenues, reducing costs, improving customer satisfaction and improving employee participation. Analyse each of the problems using the following format Impact Analysis - Outcome Time Increasing Revenues Reducing Costs Improving customer satisfaction Increasing employee participation 1 Month 3 Months 6 Months 1 Year 3 Years 5 Years Reflections and actions  Motivation of employees and innovation complement one another.  Organize a movie screening.  Have a long term goal and stick to it through difficult times.  Kick the old coffee habit. Have a glass of fresh fruit juice instead.

Revisit the problem bank

Consider the following types of problems in addition to the obvious ones. • Problems that might arise in future in each of the 6M areas. • Problems that can be avoided if identified. • Problems which can be prevented with condition monitoring. • Problems which may arise when there is a change in any of the 6M areas. Create problem banks around the initial problem statements you identify. A good company maintains a problem bank on its intranet to solicit comments from its workforce. As problems keep getting solved, they can be replaced with new unsolved problems. Reflections and actions  The lack of collaboration between departments stifles innovation  Have a well-decorated office.  Throw out negative emotions like you do thorns in the flesh  Go on a ‘juice diet’ for a day. Start with vegetable juice, and sip fruit for lunch and dinner.

Living Lakes

Thousands of fish lay belly up dead in Ulsoor Lake in India’s garden city, Bangalore. There was a bund separating sewage from fresh water. With the degradation of that bund, the oxygen levels fell and the fish died. Environmental degradation is destroying water bodies. There were 1000 lakes in Bangalore in the 80’s. Now there are only 200 lakes remaining. People go boating in the lake. They throw garbage into the lake. Apathy is the cause. How do we clean our water bodies of micro beads of plastic which enter our bodies through the food chain? Health, economics and ecology are all connected. People sometimes feel they have nothing to do with the environment. But we are interconnected. What we do to water we do to those we love. Take responsibility. Lake authorities are pumping in oxygen to help solve the problem. You start watching the lake. A Lake is an asset. Monitor the health of the lake in your neighbourhood. Gujarat has made lakes difficult to encroach. There were so many warning signs on the lake: Water hyacinth, higher temperatures and now the fish dying. Lakes are converted into residential localities, untreated chemicals, cause irreversible damage. We cannot afford this. Dissolved content in water oxygen is below 4mg/litre. Over six hundred million litres of sewage flows into 3 lakes. Drains open into lakes. Increased untreated sewage from 14 industries around the lake and fast urbanization are obvious threats. We need the environment more than the environment needs us, let’s do something about it. The Detroit River which serves as a link between Lake Huron and Lake Erie was estimated to dispose off more than 700 million gallons of waste water daily and 150 million pounds of toxic polychlorinated biphenyl’s yearly, into the Detroit River. Steps have been taken to manage this pollution because the source point has been identified. But there are non source contaminants that seeÆp in through small diffuse sources like agricultural fertilizers, pesticides and manure. Even tougher is acid rain and leaking from septic tanks. This is far more difficult to handle. The world’s largest fresh water Baikal Lake, in Siberia, has a volume of 5523 cubic miles of water (23,000 cubic kilometres) or approximately 20% of the earth’s surface water! Lake Huron is the largest fresh water lake in the world with a total surface are of 45410 square miles (117,611 square kilometres). But in terms of volume, it is much smaller: 2030 cubic miles. The 25million year old Baikal Lake, is inhabited by over 2000 plants and animals. Over 40% of those life forms have not even been described yet! No wonder it is called the Galapagos of Russia. Over the last four decades the lake is becoming increasingly polluted. Pollution of fresh water bodies not only makes water unfit for drinking, but also reduces recreational activities and reduces land value in the vicinity. Each of us as individuals needs to be aware and willing to spread the information about pollution. We also need to be aware of how our activities are affecting the landscape and all the millions of living creatures in that environment. We are responsible for our lakes and other water bodies. Rekha Shetty Water Warrior

6M Map for Problem Analysis

Every problem can be analyzed by looking at the 6 Ms – Men, Materials, Machines, Methods, Markets, Money. Get the team to study all 6 aspects of the problem past, present and future. If the group is working on new ideas for marketing a product, say, they could review the past and draw up an action plan for the present and future on a three year scale. The 6M Map provides an elegant format to help understand the underlying structure of your company together. It enables you to dissect all parts of your organizational anatomy. ‘Men’ for instance, involves employees, suppliers, customers and encompasses all stake holders. Markets could also include internal customers. Each of the 6 Ms should be thoroughly studied for problems. It is important to involve everyone in identifying the real problem. What is a problem for the worker need not seem like a problem for the manager. Mr.Ramesh, H.R. Director of Hyundai, once recounted the case of an absentee worker. He was constantly absent because of backache. Everyone thought he was malingering, until it was found that he was shorter than the other workers, and was straining his back by stretching it. Increasing the height of the platform on which he stood solved the problem and eliminated his absenteeism. Reflections and actions  Vision and leadership are necessary to inspire a widespread commitment to innovation  Eating together during lunch, especially for a weekly treat. A monthly moonlight, pot luck dinner with families or colleagues can be planned.

The Feminine Principle

Many men question the need for empathy in a bottomline- oriented workplace. Toughness is respected and empathy is considered a sign of weakness. Goodness and kindness are rejected as ‘older person’ feelings.’ I would like to propose the installation of the so called feminine qualities into the workplace. This would probably make the workplace more creative and right brained. And, as we generally fear our fathers and love our mothers, the concept of a mother-Goddess appeals more to our hearts than that of a father-God. Women are trained to be lovingly supportive, of listening to a child struggling to say his first word. Patience is a culturally celebrated feminine virtue. “As patient as the earth” is the phrase used for a good mother. Unconditional acceptance is ordained in a verse, which says, “Whether he is hard hearted as a stone or useless as a leaf of grass, he is to be loved and supported as a husband, within the circle of a lifetime relationship like marriage.” Empathy becomes easier in such a relationship, protected by the possibility of a lifetime bond. Traditionally, women are comfortable with the care of the old and the infirm. They are patient with stumbling or lack of competence. Today this is changing because women have to operate in the workplace where the rules are different. Can the feminine principle become part of the charter of human hood in the workplace? Here are the new rules for holistic humanity for managers, including women managers: The Mind is central to success in business today. Carl Segan wrote of the Mind: “Every human being has the capacity to store the equivalent of 7550 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Women managers like men need to develop the powers of their mind. The Indian ethos gives us key answers in this journey towards having a razor sharp mind, that can cut through all that is superfluous to the heart of Truth. Develop the ability to wipe your mind clean through silent meditation, because great concepts can be created only when the mindspace is clear of mindless static. 2. Managers must conquer fear and overcome the need for instructions or guidance. Pursue the ability to adapt and be a leader of proactive change. The New World is not for those who are what Nehru called, unwilling victims, dragged to be sacrificed on the alter of change. It is for the promoters of change. Those who dictate the unknown future. Managers must be leaders to be accepted as such. They need to banish forever, their fear of being centerstage, their reluctance to accept that they are where the buck stops. 3. Relearn and reinstall the ultimate software of the human heart that our mothers embodied. The matchless Navarasa of emotional intelligence, explored by Bharata’s 2000 year old Natya Shastra, predates Daniel Goleman by several centuries. The New Human of the past decade has often forsaken her heritage of loving, caring and affirmation for the tough, hard bitten, so called “male boss model.” Both men and women managers need to put the human being at the center of all business processes. Substance is winning the battle that style has waged on corporate battlefields. 4. Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Women managers need to appreciate that it takes heroic energy to rock the cradle and rock the corporate world. First pin a badge for bravery on yourself for attempting it. Then, promise you will not even begin to tread the path that leads to the joyless land of being a Super Woman or Super Mom. Enlist your men and families as willing accomplices in the challenging task of reconstructing a corporate workplace that lovingly accommodates the needs of humans, for families, for music, poetry and time for just standing and watching the world go by! 5. Health is the car you are given to complete life’s journey. The body too needs preventive maintenance. Look after your health. As group Vice President of the Apollo Hospitals group, we tried to launch the Well Woman Check Up in the same way as the predominantly male Master Health Check Up. “Is your wife overworked, tired, stressed out? Bring her for a Well Woman Check Up,” our advertisement said. The marketplace administered a sharp rap on the knuckles, when not a single woman responded.