Taking India to the World - Excerpts from the book Innovation Secrets of Indian CEOs

It all started thirteen years ago when Ms. Ranjani Manian met a young American mother with an active two year old baby, thrust into the heat and dust of Chennai. Joanne Grady Huskey, wife of a US diplomat, was happy and relieved with the help I could extend in a strange new place. I had been a foreign language instructor after a liberal education at Elphinston College, Mumbai and the University of Sorbonne, Paris. That is when I realized the need to help strangers to become friends in a new city. Global Adjustments was started with just two women helping eighty families in a giant automotive plant. Today it is a pan-Indian Company which makes the company a one stop shop for expatriate relocation needs in India. I love simplifying India’s rich and complex reality for the world. I really enjoyed writing ‘Doing Business in India for Dummies’. Now, with our portal globalindian.com, I love being part of the plan to help Indians do well on the global stage. I would like Global Adjustments to become a world leader in the field. ‘It’s been fun. Everything from teaching Americans to say “Namaste” to telling Indian professionals that frying an appalam in a US apartment may set off the fire alarm’. Our expansion into realty and magazine publishing has been very satisfying. ‘At a glance – understanding India’ is our cultural magazine for expatriates. Our teams of trainers and personal relocation experts have also been well accepted. Both my parents were General Managers of large companies. I am happy that I wandered into the world of entrepreneurship. There are no text books here, no trainers, and no manual of procedure. That’s why it’s been so great to blaze a pioneering trail that makes India proud.

Give Generously, Live Abundantly

Laila Alva, a fifth grader sent US$ 20 to RBI Governor Rajan during the September foreign reserves crisis . “I saved this on my last trip abroad with my parents. I thought I could use it but the country needs it more than I do!” she wrote. The Governor, while appreciating her gesture, promised better times. This attitude of giving and sharing can have viral impact on the community. During, the season of harvests, Apostle Paul says whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Giving he says, “Should be cheerful and not motivated by guilt”. He says that if we sow generously we will reap the ultimate blessings - a bumper crop of righteousness! So what can you give this year? • You can give your time – the most precious of human assets. Give time to those who need it: lonely people who have lost hope, and are troubled. • Give your talent, whether it is playing cricket or music or dance, teach it to youngsters, educate a child out of school. • Give your ideas and thoughts to create clean, green streets. • Give your treasure, your money, to the extent you can, help others to develop skills. Giving generously is a blissful, joyful activity. “Give others all that is alive in us – our interest, understanding, knowledge, humor, everything in us that’s good. In doing so, we enhance the sense of aliveness in others while enhancing our own. When we give, we get a “heightened vitality” of what it means to be human.” – Erich Fromm Give laughter, smiles, blood, a gift, an invitation, share a meal, offer good advice when asked, give forgiveness, love and caring unconditionally, especially to those who deserve it least.

The Innovation Spiral

The first step in developing an environment that nurtures creativity is to separate idea generation from analysis. Most business sessions do not yield too many breakthrough ideas because managers are too busy shooting down each other’s ideas. Such meetings produce boring, safe and often useless suggestions. So create an Innovation Spiral where members will feel safe to be open, inventive, and even silly. Playfulness and fun define this positive climate and is critical to the emergence of creative ideas as the new ideas being developed should be challenging. If all the emerging ideas are ones that you feel comfortable with, then these ideas are old and the team should challenge themselves further. Here are a few self-limiting obstacles to creative thinking: * The habit of self-censorship. * A lack of respect for others. * Adopting the status quo. * Assuming limitations, instead of possibilities.

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In the creative thinking process, incubation is followed by ‘Analysis.’ During the process of analysis, apply left-brain thinking – logical, statistical and mathematical. Solutions have to be carefully discussed and the optimum one chosen. The solutions are analyzed against the parameters chosen by the problem owner. Some prevalent parameters are: a) Time b) Budget c) Convenience d) Human resources e) Goodwill and impact on staff motivation levels f) Aesthetics g) Saving lives h) Political capital

Creating Positive field

Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing. The positive field is created by tools and behaviours that may be verbal, tonal and non-verbal. Ø A common prayer or mantra. Ø A mental process which draws a magic circle around all those who are participating. Ø A common exercise, a common company song, common goals. Ø A handshake, a friendly look, an encouraging word. Ø Thinking, believing and acting in a positive manner. Ø Laughter, commonly shared jokes. Ø Meditation, practiced regularly, helps develop the capacity to be analytical, positive and disciplined, and eliminate negative fields. Ø Affirmations, the most important constituent of the positive field. It is a verbal, tonal or non-verbal act of appreciation. The energy field around a person is most affected by positive, soul-level motives or ‘sankalpa’. If the gut-level motives are positive, the mere lack of skill in verbal, tonal and non–verbal transmissions can be overcome.

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The ‘reality test’ should now be ruthlessly applied. Once implementation starts, every move costs money. This is the last step in the thinking process and all ideas should be carefully studied. Implementing creative ideas and turning them into innovations is a special challenge. It is a process that requires a clear road map and the organizational will to stick to the path. This is where many organizations fail. An ounce of action is worth tonnes of e-mail, paper and speeches. Implementation is the key to innovation.

Apply Logical Analysis

During the process of analysis, logical, statistical and mathematical solutions have to be carefully discussed and the optimum one chosen. Some prevalent parameters are: a) Time b) Budget c) Convenience d) Human resources e) Goodwill and impact on staff motivation levels f) Aesthetics g) Saving lives h) Political capital During the process of analysis, apply left-brain thinking – logical, statistical and mathematical. Solutions have to be carefully discussed and the optimum one chosen. The solutions are analyzed against the parameters chosen by the problem owner.

Stock Your Ideas

Idea generation is a powerful tool that can be leveraged to drive innovation. In order to be successful, the idea generation program must be clear and consistent, reaching down to all levels of the organization. However, not following through on an idea generation program dooms it to failure, as can be seen in suggestion boxes that are never opened and exit interviews that are not analyzed. Successful idea generation programs are long-term and transparent. Good ideas are immediately and publicly rewarded. These programs have a greater chance of success when creativity tools are taught in advance.

Innovation for Success

The first step in developing an environment that nurtures creativity is to separate idea generation from analysis. Most business sessions do not yield too many breakthrough ideas because managers are too busy shooting down each other’s ideas. Such meetings produce boring, safe and often useless suggestions. Today is the age of knowledge. Innovation can take companies forward at the speed of thought. The list below outlines the process: • Identifying and Creating a Problem Bank • Idea Generation • Analysis : the gateway to solutions • Implementation: The Final Stage of the Process

Entrepreneurship needs innovatio

* Entrepreneurship needs innovation. It is creativity that will fuel this emerging revolution. Over 18% of India’s workforce is into entrepreneurship. Compare this with the 10.2% in USA. India has moved from being a brand that stands for imitation to a name in innovation. * India has filed 4,000 patents in five years. Over 100 top MNCs in India and Indian research labs are fuelling the innovator’s dream. Multinationals have even tried to patent basmati rice and 2000 year old ayurvedic drugs, while we keep dreaming of our glorious tradition. We need to wake up. * India’s youth want the world and they want it now! 54% of India’s population is now under 25. The ‘core competence of India’ is her brilliant young people. Our intellectual capital or MindsPower is our Unique Selling Proposition (USP), provided we put it to productive use. * Labor is a far more important factor of growth than Capital.