Replicating best practices

Copying the best practices from other players in the field can improve efficiency. Replicating the ideas that work across the organization, can save time and other resources. Paying attention to the mishaps of other players and avoiding what does not work for them, is also usable information.

Improve existing tasks

In order to be innovative, one needs to ensure that all existing tasks are done in the most optimal way. Routine matters are often dealt with automatically and inefficiency often creeps in, eating into the profitability of the organization. The techniques of innovation see existing tasks as a vast area, with great potential for improvement. The Japanese are always looking for better ways of doing anything. They say in effect, “This is being done very well. Let us study how to do it better.” This is what drives them to amaze the world, incessantly, with their miraculous creations. While it allows the status quo to remain, they are constantly looking for ways to do existing things more efficiently. A well-known manufacturer of travel luggage in India was deeply concerned about the high cost of transporting bags. During a brainstorming session, one of the members asked “Why do you transport air? All the bags are just full of air.” In effect, a nesting system was created, where one bag sat snugly inside a larger bag. The reduction in logistics costs led to the company buying up its nearest rival and enjoying a virtual monopoly for many years.

Doing the right things

This concerns choosing the right way to do things by benchmarking with the best organizations in the world. The internet provides us with direct access to best practices from around the world. Once good and better ways of doing things right are discovered, they must be shared across the organization on a consistent and relevant basis. Unilever has Innovation Centers in every region that are dedicated to studying the best way of doing everything. These processes are then replicated across the globe

Doing things right

Mistakes can be expensive. The cost of rejection is a major source of concern in manufacturing. Doing things right is essential before companies can think of doing new things. Doing things right happens through: • Training • Retraining • Building-in quality consciousness • Reward and feedback systems • Process improvement • Communicating and affirming a culture of excellence • Building teams that co-operate rather than compete

Organizational Culture

Organizational Culture has the great Emphasis on Innovation. Without the oxygen of support and applause, ideas often die in infancy. The creativity improvement program can be the foundation that enables all other company programs to be effective. There are a number of steps to ensure that the program encourages innovation.

Necessity is the mother of innovation

A small bank, which did not have the funds to pay for expensive real estate, came up with the idea of using other people’s premises: schools, petrol pumps and super-markets. Then they moved seamlessly into a growth path, starting thousands of ATMs and mobile banks. Today, they are one of the largest banks in India. More recently, many banks have introduced the concept of 24-hour direct banking with business being carried out by anonymous people at the end of a telephone. This is neutralizing the competitive advantage, which established banks enjoyed by virtue of functioning from prime sites in Mumbai.

Appreciation for diversity

Innovation is more likely to occur in a melting pot of exotic diversity. Homogenous groups are less likely to spark off innovative ideas. Corporations that celebrate diversity and respect it are more likely to create a stable of innovators. Using an inexperienced outsider or a naïve resource can create major breakthroughs in traditional industries. In some cases, companies that network with competitors have benefited more in terms of innovation.

Interacting directly and consistently with customers

Tapping customer creativity is a tool to help negotiate new products with customers. It is the kind of process that reinvents the future. For instance, customers were not even aware of the possibility of a Walkman. Only an intense negotiation between top management, manufacturing and customers could have created it. Proctor and Gamble has a Connect and Develop hub (C&D hub), which helps to harness the creativity of consumers, employees, trade partners and others. Customer interaction can be induced by the following: • Management by Walking Around (MBWA) is the most appropriate way to ensure that the customer’s voice is built into products and processes. • Advisory committees of opinion leaders can be an effective method of keeping one’s finger on the pulse of public opinion. Focus group interviews enable customers to explore ideas with skilled facilitators, trained to go below the surface of suggestions and complaints.

Invest in Happiness

You can buy happiness by spending your money using these seven principles: 1. Spend on experiences instead of things: holidays instead of jewels, movies instead of curios 2. Spend on small every day pleasures, instead of saving till you are blue in the face, to buy the one, huge, dream house. Do not ignore the roses and the chocolates. Drink that great cup of coffee and wear great clothes. 3. Don’t spend a lot on long term warranties. 4. Pay now and consume later. Anticipation helps you enjoy the pleasure twice. Waiting for a time share holiday, planning your monthly movie or weekend getaway, adds to the joy. 5. Look into details before making big investments. A house on the beach, sounds good on paper. But if the traffic jams are terrible, you have to drive there, pay for the security and the caretaker and then think again. 6. Avoid comparison shopping and keeping up with the Joneses. 7. Spend on others. It will make you happier.

Exploring New Alternatives

Many management teams are involved in fire fighting and solving urgent matters that have developed into critical situations. Time needs to be set apart to study alternative solutions for the problems that lie under the surface of a running organization. ‘Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke,’ say the Americans, meaning, do not change something that is working well. This is disastrous advice in the present context of rapid change. Status quo is the gateway to overnight obsolescence. Innovation should be planned when things are going well. When things are going badly, when survival itself is an issue, no one has the time or energy to look for alternatives. Ashok Leyland has a YES program to harvest new ideas from young executives.

Energy and resources spent on creativity

Creativity needs time and energy. The 6Ms (Men, Materials. Machines, Methods, Markets and Money) should be made available to the initiative over the long-term. Sustained innovation requires that resources are set apart for practice of the innovation process. Innovation spirals should meet. A manager comments: “I m not sure I want my people to be more creative; they have trouble getting their work done on time and within the budget as it is.”

Benchmarking competitors

New ideas come to those who carefully and systematically study the methods of competitors. Opportunities for improvement can be identified by benchmarking against industry leaders. Stars are systematic in their methods of looking outside their companies, and of scanning their environment regularly for collaborative opportunities. For example, many Indian companies use ideas from foreign competitors, who then become collaborators.

Marketing practices

The marketing and sales departments are the eyes and ears of the company in the marketplace. They are part of the market intelligence system that keeps company officials informed about the rapidly changing conditions in the micro and macro environment. The gathering of this information is usually casual, depending on the individual’s own interest. This may consist of market gossip, newspaper and trade reports, clues from the field force and information from outside sources. The information is often random and sketchy. The company may learn too late about a dealer’s need or a customer’s changing aspirations or a competitor’s aggressive move, to respond effectively. Stars are able to excel due to their practice of the following: • Training sales staff in the process and systems of collecting information • Using the internet, media and contacts to gather all available information • Buying information from specialized market research companies

Benchmarking competitors

New ideas come to those who carefully and systematically study the methods of competitors. Opportunities for improvement can be identified by benchmarking against industry leaders. Stars are systematic in their methods of looking outside their companies, and of scanning their environment regularly for collaborative opportunities. For example, many Indian companies use ideas from foreign competitors, who then become collaborators.

Nurturing the Workplace

Gandhiji knew it when he filled the streets with people singing Vande Mataram. A national anthem celebrates nationhood, the blood, sweat andtears of creating a country. It aims to transcend logic and unleash the tigers of passion. The Americans stand there, hand on heart, before their flag and sing the Stars and Stripes. It creates a wave of national pride and primes people for leadership. The Japanese use this same force to create love for the company they work in. Vivekananda carried the message of India to the world with his matchless talk which starts, “Arise, Awake, stop not till the goal is reached”! Words absorb and radiate power because of their meaning and usage. Gandhiji created a few words, “bullets” of truth that turned a large passive lake of humanity into a tsunami, which forced the British to leave India. They were: • Quit India! • Do or Die! • Purna Swaraj! (Total freedom) • Vande Mataram! • Jai Hind! • Be Indian, Buy Indian! • Swadeshi! • Satyameve Jayathe! Mantras or brief prayer-words were created by ancient seers to enter the heart and regenerate the awareness of the soul.’ When you infuse a sense of pride and joy in what you do, it becomes a joyful experience, instead of a chore. To work at something you love, to be “self-actualised”, in Maslow’s terms, is to protect yourself against dying young.’ ‘People can be very happy if they love their work.

Factors that Drive Innovation

An over-emphasis on doing things right the first time inhibits innovation. • The way creative individuals are treated has a major impact on organizational innovation. Organizations must reward successes produced by innovations and keep encouraging people in the face of so-called failures. Rewards nurture creativity through affirming its value to the organization. While most Aspirants and Non-Starters had no reward for individual creativity, all Stars did. • Turf protection and barriers between different functional areas are major obstacles to innovation. Encouraging cultural, racial and gender diversity helps reduce these barriers. • Non-Starters choose to spend most of their time on making small improvements to existing products, while devoting very little attention to new product development. They need to focus more on breakthroughs and radical changes. • All employees should be involved in innovation by learning the tools of creativity and providing a positive, enabling field. Stars make use of a strategic planning approach that involves the whole team in not just executing strategies, but actually planning them. This approach creates buy-in from team members. • Top management should drive the process by providing a personal example. Management needs to talk less about innovation and do more on the ground. • Most Stars have an idea generation process, but not all of them use it. This shows that having information is different from using it. People may know a process theoretically; organizations alone can ensure that it is used. Top management commitment is critical to universal understanding and sharing of thinking tools. • Time and resources need to be allocated for learning innovation tools and processes. Stars studied more books on innovation than Aspirants or Non-Starters. Additionally, Stars attended more training programs on innovation. • Stars spend much less time in meetings. Additionally, the productivity of meetings for Stars was

Idea generation

Stars make extensive use of brainstorming to generate ideas. Idea generation is most productive when it is used to tackle a specific business problem. The rules for a successful idea generation are: suspend judgment, postpone reaction and extend effort. In addition to brainstorming, Stars make use of many other tools for the generation of ideas.

Celebrate Everyday

The poorest among mankind celebrate and give thanksgiving to the gift of life and the bounty of Nature. All over the world, harvest is a time for rejoicing. In early January, the whole village celebrates Pongal in Tamil Nadu. The four-day long festivities are like an island of joy in the midst of life’s stormy business. All old things are burnt in a huge bonfire. New clothes are worn. Overflowing joy and good fortune are celebrated by the Pongal pot of plenty which boils over with rice and jaggery that will be eaten at the celebration. The house is newly painted and decorated. A whole day is devoted to tending to cows. Their horns are painted and bodies decorated, and they are given rest and good food. The last day is devoted to going out and seeing friends and relatives, watching movies and generally celebrating life. The saying is that when the ‘Thai’ month (that starts in mid-January every year) is born, a way will be found to solve all problems. Celebrations lift you out of the trough of despondency. They fill you with the energy to make a new beginning with the help of God and the family. Why can’t we make every day an occasion to rejoice? It is up to each family to celebrate and enjoy life on a regular basis. A special movie on television can be celebrated with hot popcorn, dinners on Saturday nights can be an opportunity to dress up. We can make affirmations for the family a way of life

Consistent Innovation

Once the returns from an innovation start to pour in, the organization may begin to focus on maximizing the returns through routine implementation. Harvesting is a mechanical and essential process. Perhaps every organization requires a section of its people to focus on creativity and innovation. An Innovation Center could provide the foundation for a long-term initiative. Large, tradition bound, successful organizations, tend to prefer the stability that formalized procedures provide. Older organizations tend to become more bureaucratic. Large companies may have more resources, while smaller companies may find it easier to change course. Even though most companies accept the idea of innovation being important for success, most are not committed enough to practice it on a long-term basis. Most are not aware of the underlying process required to make it work on a consistent basis. In the Innovation Movement itself, there are not enough clearly defined structures and processes that a company could follow. There are few consultant organizations, which can handhold and support long-term innovation initiatives. There is a feeling that innovation and creativity is for intellectuals or geniuses. Innovation as a concept needs to be demystified for use across the organization. Management is bottom-line driven. They are extremely result oriented in the short term and lose faith in concepts very fast. Innovation is a concept that requires a long-term buy-in and takes time to be fully ingrained in the organizational culture.

Innovation in the various stages of organizational development

Innovation in the various stages of organizational development The metamorphosis model of organizational development, passing through the cycles of growth and decline, describes the organizational life cycle of companies: Emergence-Growth-Decay-Death Focus on innovation, may rescue an organization in the declining phase of the organizational life cycle. Re-innovation or renovation becomes important when an old, traditional company goes into decline. The first phase is often entrepreneurial and innovative with a sudden burst of energy capturing a new space in the market. This creative phase is terminated in a leadership crisis. It was Schumpeter who said, “It is rare for anyone always to remain an entrepreneur throughout the decades of his active life.” This cycle progresses from entrepreneurship to an organization that becomes slow and complacent.

Innovation Spirals

The word ‘spiral’ grew out of the MindsPower belief that an idea is like a stone thrown into the still surface of the lake. The ripples spread across the lake. Just as the flutter of a butterfly wing in the rain forests in Brazil can cause an earthquake in Indonesia, or when New York Stock Exchange sneezes, the Asian economies catch pneumonia, every new idea changes the company. Innovation spirals are cross-functional teams, created to design and implement corporate strategies. Kanter writes of factors that inhibit the culture of innovation. • Dominance of restrictive vertical relationships • Poor lateral communications • Limited tools and resources • Top-down dictates • Formal, restricted vehicles for change • Reinforcing a culture of inferiority • Unfocused innovative activity Building an organizational culture supportive of creativity is not something which can be done in a hurry. It takes time to build trust between individuals and to reinforce the beliefs and norms we wish to encourage. Despite the obstacles, continuous efforts must be undertaken to ensure the development and maintenance of a creative culture in order to ensure systematic innovation.

A Wish List for Innovation

1. The government could play a major role in making innovation a key factor in economic leadership. There should be a Department of Innovation in the Central government with units in all State governments. 2. Industry bodies like CII should set up innovation centers. 3. IIM Ahmedabad has a center for Innovation, Incubation and Environment. 4. Anna University in Chennai has an Innovation Centre. There is space and a need for hundreds of such centers, especially in academic institutions. 5. As an aid to formulating the research design for this study, the researcher visited the Society for Innovation and Development (SID) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for interaction with commerce and industry. This organization helps companies by providing them with incubators for new ideas. However much more needs to be done. 6. Innovators should be honored with national awards. Indian companies should have better facilities for filing patents for innovations and inventions. Many young inventors fall by the wayside because the procedure is so expensive, time consuming and complicated. Government should have a more enabling attitude to protect the nation’s wealth of ideas. 7. The educational system should be based on developing creative and innovative thinking. Thinking tools and methodologies should be part of the syllabus. 8. All technical institutions should have innovation and creativity taught as a subject. Companies should recruit innovative people and support them through the process of development. Textbooks on innovation and creativity should be written. 9. All induction programs in organizations should include creativity and innovation. 10. The new trend in business is that people do not stay in jobs over a lifetime. Most respondents in the survey had been in their jobs only for five years. An intensive program to awaken organizational innovativeness and the possibility of enrolling new employees as organizational change agents should be presented early in the process.

Celebrate the Beauty

Create opportunities for team mates to enjoy each other’s company in a great natural setting. Many companies have lovely campuses or parks nearby, which people hardly notice in their rush to meet deadlines - so schedule moonlight pot luck dinners. Families could be invited. This is a very useful, feel-good emotion. Welcome wonder into your life. Celebrate the beauty of the stars, and enjoy the wonder of the mountains along with team members. Greet the dawn and say goodbye to the sunset. The moonlight has been created to heal your wounds. Sleep on the lap of Mother Nature and become a child again. Go on excursions with your team.

Change is the only thing that is Permanent

This is the first of the Laws of Innovation: Everything changes - people, products, companies; Men, Materials, Machines, Methods, Markets and Money (6M). The decision to change is in your hands but there are challenges to growth. Innovation is about transformation. Imagine a block of ice. It is cold, solid, and transparent. But it is not a block of ice forever. It melts and flows across boundaries. Water follows its own logic which is very different from the logic of ice. Water goes to many places, has many adventures, but always comes back to its own nature – cool, beautiful and still. If you heat it, it boils; keep heating, it gets airborne by becoming steam, steam that knows the freedom of the skies, steam that cannot be held captive. Add pressure and it can rotate turbines to generate power. Transformation is what happens to a drop of water when it is touched by the magic of sunlight. It becomes a rainbow. It is what happens to a seed when it starts the journey to become a mighty banyan tree. The banyan tree is not an improved seed, just as a butterfly is not an improved caterpillar or a rainbow an improved drop of water. By definition, innovation is taking interesting ideas and transforming them into usable solutions for solving business problems.

Learn Breathing Exercises

Learn to breath perfectly is a practical, powerful pathway to better living. It is as simple as that! It is not some unattainable state that requires a lifetime of practice and sacrifice, but a potent source of energy that you can start taking advantage of right now today to dramatically impact your health, performance, and emotions. The top athletes and performers use breathing techniques to elicit the absolute best from their minds and bodies. Top Secret performance improvement program that taught Olympic athletes how to use breathing techniques to focus their minds and identify and eliminate the anxiety and tension that were holding them back.

Using Checklists to Develop Ideas

Checklists help to generate ideas in a systematic way. Once a problem is identified, teams can use checklists to explore all areas and issues that are associated with the problem. They help the team think and are often in the form of questions. Many of the mapping tools, like 6 M, are just like check-lists encouraging you to be systematic in your approach. The simplest tools include checklists like Kipling’s famous ‘5 good serving men’ - the questions which, why, where, when, how and who. Thinkers from Plato onwards have developed hundreds of thinking tools which are as easy to learn as the three Rs (reading, writing, arithmetic).

Sanctuary 3

Sanctuary 3 is a tool to generate alternativeness. When a system is working well, as a matter of routine this can be used to encourage you to think of alternative ways of doing it better. This is an important and interesting tool to prevent stagnation. Imagine a Company caught by high cost during a downturn. Now develop five ways to reduce costs. For example: 1. Ask people to work for three days a week. 2. Encourage people to take an unpaid subbatical. 3. Encourage working from home or telecommunicating. 4. Get customers to sell to other customers for a small fee. 5. Get vendors to deliver materials and parts on the assembly line.

Create a Sanctuary for ideas

Once a new product idea germinates, it needs time and space for participants to grow and develop that idea. The immediate reaction is to remove all elements that make the product new and different. Most groups will rush to protect familiar aspects of the product. If it is wild idea, there will be a concerted rush to domesticate it and retain its age old and familiar attributes. Fiercely protect the wildness of the idea by enclosing it in a sanctuary. Allow it to roam free in the sanctuary for a few days. Don’t touch it. Remember if everyone loves an idea, it is probably an old one. The Sanctuary is a tool that can be used to protect all germinal ideas. It involves inventing or shaping the future together in a protected environment. It is a radical new approach.

Survey To Increase Your Happiness

A recent happiness survey shows that hairdressers have the highest levels of happiness at work! The reason? They are in direct touch with their customers. Chris Humphries, Director General of City and Guilds U.K., says: Nowadays, job satisfaction and happiness is about fulfilling your potential, tapping into your own creativity and feeling that you can make a difference. Many are exchanging their desk-bound jobs for vocations that enable them to be hands-on, use their brains and be in change of their own destiny. In a Guardian article by Laura Smith, two out of five hairdressers described themselves as extremely happy. She gives two reasons: 1. Creativity 2. Contact with customers Blog - Necessity is the mother of innovation A small bank, which did not have the funds to pay for expensive real estate, came up with the idea of using other people’s premises: schools, petrol pumps and super-markets. Then they moved seamlessly into a growth path, starting thousands of ATMs and mobile banks. Today, they are one of the largest banks in India. More recently, many banks have introduced the concept of 24-hour direct banking with business being carried out by anonymous people at the end of a telephone. This is neutralizing the competitive advantage, which established banks enjoyed by virtue of functioning from prime sites in Mumbai.

INNOVATION IN LIVING SPACES

Peter Drucker in his classic work on innovation speaks of a real estate company which became a success in a depressed postwar market. It was in the aftermath of the Second World War. Nobody was investing in buying new houses. Young people, just married, were particularly averse to investing in a home. Till a young real estate genius became a runaway success in a depressed postwar market. He did not sell houses, he sold dreams. He sold a little 200 square feet studio apartment with a 2000 square feet blueprint of a dream house. “Build your dream home as and when you can afford it, in modules,” was the message. He used the concept that people invest in dreams rather than immediately visible, touch and feel products. The innovation tool, ‘Turn it upside down’ (TUD) helped me turn a major corporate hospital brand from a place of illness to a sanctuary of wellness. The same hospital taught me that the most important part of a place of healing, is not the floor, not the walls, not the counters. These things were important to caregivers who were on their feet, vertical to the floor. But hospitals are built for patients – most of whom are horizontal, on their back, lying on beds, looking at the ceiling. One of the hospitals where special care has been lavished on the ceiling is the Singhania’s hospital in Kota, Rajasthan. The ceilings are a blaze of color. Collages are created out of broken marble chips. What must have started as an attempt to practice economy, has resulted in a masterpiece to keep patients as happy and amused as the changing patterns of clouds in the sky!

The mind is the greatest resource needed for innovation

With mental capability, there are few limitations. Overload a machine and it can break down. Even computer chips have their speed limits. Resources can run dry. However, if we can help people make better use of their minds, the returns are immeasurable. The mind computer has the capacity to store an equivalent of 7550 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Critical Success Factors for Stars

o Improving efficiency o Training programs o Rewarding individual and team creativity o Pathbreaking activities o Reporting on what is happening

Innovation

Innovation deals with bringing in new methods and ideas resulting in required changes leading to successful innovation. The term innovate derives from a Latin word which means, ‘to renew’. Creativity and Innovation are different in principle. Creativity is the spark and Innovation is the fire in the fireplace which cooks and bakes. Planned innovation requires analysis, systems and hard work. Creativity is divided into four components: the creative person, the creative process, the creative product and the creative environment. Why Innovate? Innovation turns problems and inconveniences into profitable elements of a business. The mightiest of modern organizations have been built in a few short years through the power of information and the human mind. Helping to manage human imagination, to develop creative solutions, will be the secret of winners in the future. Innovation can be seen in every field and every sector. Corporations that adopt innovation as a way of life never need to compete. Theirs is the path where no one has gone before; the path which leads to untold success. ‘There are no limitations to the possibilities of the human mind. Microsoft’s only factory asset is the human imagination,’ Frank Moody.

Culture of Innovation

The culture of innovation in large companies is always a systematic long term process gradually involving all key players in the company through small commando teams of between 5-7 people. Beginning with building the intangible positive field, it involves the systematic practice of thinking tools, the formula for thinking out of the box. The tools are embedded like gems in the necklace of the positive field. Regular practice of the tools makes them a part of your mental software. It becomes as much a part of you as breathing. To think systematically, every day is not a normal habit. One has to make the effort. Involving others makes it easier because thinking as an interactive activity is far simpler than thinking alone. The ping pong of team interaction helps keep new ideas in the air, while developing them. As in weight watchers, the support of the team is critical for sustained innovation. Some people ask, how one can go through this whole process and get any work done. The answer is simple. While learning to drive one has to keep so many separate actions in mind. But once you have learnt to drive, most of these actions become automatic. Often, you are almost on auto pilot, as you think of the day ahead. The same thing happens once the process of Innovation and the thinking tools are internalized.

The Road Map to Transformation

 To create an initiative to be led by team leaders and their ideas, so that their youthful, proactive innovations can transform the organization creating a positive climate and using the 47 thinking tools.  The present system is geared to do the opposite: it seeks to fit them into the existing traditional system.  There is also a need to take senior and middle management along if this is to work. Mentors should be part of the process of innovation.  An Innovation champion will be chosen from the group, who will steer the Innovation Initiative facilitated by an Innovation Trainer.  Innovation Stars will be made responsible for innovative actions. This will be a part of individual KRAs with feedback and rewards systems.

Sub-problem statements

Each problem can then be broken up into sub problems. A problem is like a Jig saw puzzle, made up of many pieces which are the sub problems. This can help you create small teams around each sub problem. Allow each team to work using thinking tools. Create problem statements and sub-problem statements around each of the problems Actions  Team-work drives innovation.  Always encourage, do not discourage.  Ask for advice, do not be afraid to admit mistakes  Cut out all deep-fried foods from your diet.

Scouting other industries

Studying the methods used in other industries is a method of importing ideas from a totally different field. To proactively network with totally different industries can spark off extremely innovative ideas. In a very successful turnaround, an Indian scooter company borrowed ideas for its dealer outlets from high fashion retailers in Paris.

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.

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.  Make time for love, compassion, courage, laughter, wonder and peace  Include one green vegetable and one yellow vegetable in every meal.

Flexibility and adaptability is key to Innovation

Adapting to change and proactively responding to opportunities are daunting tasks. Top management needs to handhold teams through these risky processes. Failures need to be dealt with in a way that protects and encourages risk taking. Only CEOs can provide the time and resources required for companies to be outwardly focused, scanning the environment of competitors, customers, academicians, suppliers and even different industries. Such companies have a better chance of becoming innovation stars. CEOs can provide courage, zest, enthusiasm and speed to the whole organization. It is this energy that will drive an Innovation Initiative. Large, traditional companies have a tendency to become more bureaucratic. Bureaucracy produces politics, red tape and power struggles. People find a hundred rules to protect themselves from acting. This can repress the natural energy and enthusiasm of the organization. CEOs can prevent this deadening disease.

Course Correction

No innovative idea can be perfect when it is conceived. It has to be refined and perfected on the run. The only certainty in this endeavour is uncertainty. More than 80% of germinal, out of the box, ventures start off by following the wrong strategy. Like a kite adjusting to gusty winds, adjustments have to be made, based on customer feedback. Some companies spend so much time working on the ‘perfect’ product in their laboratories that all their funding runs out. Others find that the ‘perfect’ moment for the launch never comes. Remember? e-bay started with almost nothing. As Mag Whitman, CEO, e-bay put it: ‘Its better to put something out there, and see the reaction and fix it on the fly…….we are better off spending six days in the lab, putting it out there, getting feedback and then evolving it…….’ Ideas shaped in the market, in response to changing customer aspirations and fashions are very difficult to copy because of their dynamic changing character. The best time to do this is of course when everything is going really well. Organizational energy is high and innovation is like a kite we fly just because we are in high spirits and want to know if we can be even better than the best.

Suggestions for the facilitator

 Become familiar with what discourages creativity and speculation and what encourages it.  Listen to team members. Encourage, nurture and paint any picture they wish in their own words. Avoid making judgments, tuning out, listening to your own thoughts or not really understanding the speaker. Work on improving listening skills, especially the non-verbal ones.  Be vigilant, and deal with members who try to dominate with immediate and endless details. While they are brilliant, they can ruin a meeting so try to steer them away without alienation. Avoid the compulsive speaker’s eye during the discussion.  Keep the energy level high. Use your alertness, intensity and enthusiasm to improve the field. Your attitude is contagious. Your body language can stimulate the group to greater enthusiasm.  Use visuals, excursions and dynamic movement to avoid slothfulness. Changing the location renews the group especially when people are tired. It is often like an actual vacation from the problem and people return with fresh ideas.  Keep the pace fast, but not hurried.  Use humour, laughter breaks and laughter exercises.  Surprise the group. Have a plan to shake things up for post lunch sessions, or low energy times.  Make sure the problem owner is getting what he wants.  Let everyone learn the demanding role of the facilitator.  Keep an eye on the climate. Be gentle but firm. Be in charge of process. The facilitator is like the conductor of an orchestra. Minute to minute he is responsible for getting the best out of team members in a meeting.

Action Teams

The problem owner should identify the team members. This could be done by choosing those keenly interested and involved in solving the problem. It may be a good idea for all members to go on a retreat to understand the problem in detail and to get know each other better. The best teams are small commando teams, where everyone is critically important. Set up ‘3S’ teams – Swift, Small and Strategic.. Here there are no ‘outsiders’, no passengers. Everyone becomes engaged in a small team and becomes completely involved. Each becomes a participant, there are no spectators. ‘How to create a small company mind, in a big company body?’ asked Jack Welch, on the eve of his revolutionary project to make GE, swift and profitable. The best teams are commando teams with 5 – 7 people.’ Within a positive field, genuine team work and collaboration is possible. In commando innovation teams, each one cares about the other, as in a close knit family. They give credit to others who contributed. If Devarajan receives a compliment, he says ‘Thank you. Shivakumar gave me this idea.’ Someone is not available, but when an outsider calls, the person answering says ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Everyone has a helpful attitude, whether the problem is official or personal. There should be a constant flow of positive communications among team members. A great team shares many characteristics with the human circulatory system. All feelings of exhilaration, celebration and satisfaction are shared. When the mission is in trouble, ideas are shared and joint action mobilized. A genuine absence of rank in solving problems is required where every member of the team does not hesitate to cross over lines of responsibility and correct what is wrong. All are on the same journey.

Owning a Problem

Call for problem owners. It is essential for every problem to have a problem owner (PO). It is this problem owner who will choose the solution that suits his resources map (6Ms and time). The PO is critical because otherwise the teams will have not have the necessary momentum to reach the finish line and side step hurdles. A problem without an owner is a baby without a mother. The Problem Owner Owner • owns the issue • describes it • directs the content of the meeting by: contributing wishes and ideas, selecting the avenues to explore, paraphrasing ideas to check understanding before evaluating • evaluates constructively • decides when a solution has been reached • commits to next action The team is working with and for this person. The problem owner is responsible to get as much as possible from the team. How the problem owner interacts with team members and their ideas will have a profound impact on the productivity of the group, so it is important that interaction with the team members is designed to increase their involvement.

Working with Wild Ideas

A germinal idea requires the sanctuary of a mindspace that is totally nurturing. It requires a space to grow so that its wildness is not nipped in the bud. Who knows what weed will become the coffee bush? Develop sanctuaries for wild ideas. Let the wilderness flourish in a totally non-threatening atmosphere. Let the ideas grow high and tall. Leave all pruning for later. New ideas need to play freely, like crawling, naked babies with no discipline. Suspend judgment, postpone reaction, extend effort. Hindustan Lever has its innovation centers. Cognizant has budgets for its mavericks and no stop signs within those budget allocations. Ask all participants to make an impossible wish – zero cost, zero rejections or doubling productivity. Then proceed to tame them bit by bit by using the innovation tools already learnt, like 6M. This process can be extended as you learn all the tools. So, go ahead and spend time setting impossible goals and developing wild ideas.

Idea generation

‘For every problem there is a solution that is simple, attractive... and wrong’. Beware of obvious solutions!’ Arthur Clarke It is worth remembering here, that the rules for thinking are totally different from the rules for doing. You can set up a 100 million dollar factory in your mind, study the mathematical implications and destroy it without losing a single dollar. However, as soon as the first brick is physically laid, or the first employee hired, you start losing money. Do not analyze your thoughts during idea generation. Remove all boundaries. Apply analysis only in the fourth stage of the creative thinking process. It is ideal to train trainers in the thinking tools and then encourage them to deliver training to the teams.

Product Development – in the marketplace

When you take the germinal product into a protected test market observe the way it is used by the customer. Try different versions of it, if possible. For example, Godrej are carrying out hands on experiments with customers in different retail formats whilst developing furniture that customers can accept as easily as the furniture made by the local carpenter. Use the following map to recreate your product. This map can help you identify key elements in product development. Use existing facilities to refine products in the market place. Once a new product idea germinates, it needs time and space to grow and develop that idea. Insist that unfamiliar, strange, unusual elements are developed. Support the Champion, tone down the attackers. Work on taking it to market fast on a small investment with the possibility of a profit. Don’t try to create the perfect product in the lab. The immediate reaction is often to remove all elements that make a product new and different. Most groups will rush to protect familiar aspects of the product and if it is wild idea there will be a concerted rush to domesticate it and retain its old and familiar attributes. Fiercely protect the wildness of the idea by enclosing it in a sanctuary. Allow it to roam free in the sanctuary for a few days. Don’t touch it. Remember if everyone loves an idea, it is probably 200 years old!

Service is the differentiator

Whilst the product or service may be quite similar it is possible to differentiate your product by offering a unique service. Airlines may be the same, but Kingfisher Airlines differentiates itself with the way helpers take care of your luggage -- the way the passenger is treated as a ‘guest’. Hospitals may be the same, but ‘Our working is an offering to God’ motto at the Satya Sai Hospital in Whitefield Bangalore differentiates it from more commercial institutions. Use this diagram to revisit existing product service packages and explore how you can further differentiate your product or service. Action: Explore services that can make your product unique.

Relationships – Revisit, Review, Relate

Building relationships, with suppliers, customers, press and other stake holders, is key to the success of your innovation initiative. They cannot be built overnight, only when we need help. Relationships have to be a carefully nurtured 365 days a year exercise. The web of relationships creates the networking required for success in problem solving. Great relationships with your stake holders make the process of achieving ‘stretch’ goals interesting and exciting. So make this day for the 3 Rs - Revisit, Review, and Relate. Revisit the mission statement of your company and review the progress of the projects with special reference to building and enhancing relationships : • Within the commando teams • Between Innovation spirals • Between the steering committee and the spirals Make sure that there is no turf protection.

Know the customer: Face to Face

Knowing the customer is a long term process. Keeping your finger on the pulse of customer trends can ensure consistent profits. Here are some of the systems that could help build and understand lifetime relationships with the customer. Encourage the teams to go out and meet customers. Let them get a hands on experience of how customers really think. Let them organize in-house interviews and focus groups with customers. Interviews and focus groups can give a lot of information. They can help customer’s participate in reinventing processes and products. Management by walking about (MBWA) is the hands on way to find out what the customer feels day to day. Research and surveys give you information. But customer aspirations and fashions change. Those who are not in close touch with their customers may be too late to react to new trends. Barrack Obama became President of the United States by contacting 5 million people on the internet. He collected far more funding than powerful old timers like Senator Mc Cain and Hillary Clinton. Raw data needs to be interpreted in terms of customer needs. The way McDonald’s responded to change in the attitude to health and concerns about obesity by providing low fat and salad meals shows a proactive attitude to change in customer needs and tastes. This naturally leads to protecting profits. The concern for the environment is another issue where the auto industry has to take customer focused decisions. During an economic down turn does a big gas guzzling car become almost vulgar? Are people ready for electric cars? Is the Rs. 1 lakh Tata Nano poised to grab world markets? Study the needs hierarchy. Is it true that on the brink of the economic precipice, people are more concerned about surviving, than about impressing the neighbours? There is a whole new economics of recession. Study the emerging trends and get advice from experts. Reflect on your findings. Study broad demographic changes and question where a global major should invest? In India with its largest number of young people or China with its aging population? How should Indian companies change their strategies to deal with the explosive youth power? Will inexpensive luxuries become more popular?

Volunteer to Change Your Life

You can experience someone else’s life with minimum consequences by watching a movie or a play. A great book helps you swim in the life stream of a writer and literally becoming someone else. Empathy, the ability to feel my pain in your heart, the ability to understand and relate to other people’s feelings has been severely compromised by the increasing use of digital media while reducing face to face communications. For true empathy to develop we need to walk in the other person’s shoes. Being in Rotary I have been of many volunteer programs with people from distant and different countries coming to India to administer Polio drops. They say that this helped them experience India like never before. They could travel in 5 star comforts, but being part of the interior lanes, the tiny primary health centres, meeting and holding. We too have touched the life. If in slums which we would rarely encounter otherwise, I remember volunteering in Siberia with two American trainers. Spending time in the dormitories with Russian teenagers and teaching them Yoga nidra under frigid Siberian skies is an impossible to forget experience. When you volunteer you discover your own stores of love, empathy and rediscover your quality human roots. Spending time with your old parents can help you prepare better for the years ahead, whether your want to grow old or not. So on this day devoted to volunteering by the following journey: 1. Immense yourself in the story of an accident victim you is now a paraplegic 2. Visit the local cancer hospital 3. Travel to an African country and spend a few days in an African village clinic 4. Get your children to share their toys with children in an orphanage on Diwali day. 5. Get neighbours together create a happy street link 6. Conduct a toy drive for children in a local balwadi Research shows that happier people give more: time, resources and talent to others this also lowers stress. Social relationships, what Maslow Hierarchy describes as creating emotional belonging are probably the biggest reason for happiness. Volunteering also extends empathy which increases life satisfaction creating new friendship and spending time with local people are said to be among the most powerful gains of volunteering in new communities.

Innovation mind bytes

 Be willing to test ideas in the market and correct them in the market place. Don’t wait for perfection on the drawing board. An idea is like a kite. Fly it, to test it in the wind.  Keep a low key. As the Zen thinkers say, be like an underground stream, not like a rocky mountain face. Competitors are alerted and more likely to attack a mountain.  Co-operate instead of confronting.  Keep initial budgets small.  Reach out for low hanging fruits. Be hungry for results.  Be impatient for profits.  Learn in the ruthless university of the marketplace.  Reach for the untouched and the unreached. As first mover, make full use of your advantage.  Be patient with teething problems. De-bug as you go along.  Good is the enemy of Better.

The Power of CEO

CEOs can ensure a culture of innovation that highlights the importance of harnessing the talent of the entire organization. Only CEOs can lead such quantum shifts in strategy. They alone can create an organizational climate, where fundamental assumptions are open to question. A real gap in Indian companies seems to be CEOs who nurture companywide innovation. While many CEOs are ‘visionary leaders,’ most are not enthusiastic champions of company-wide innovation. Both financial and psychological support from top management is critical for the culture of innovation. One of the main inhibitors of innovation is the attitude of the ‘Do it my way.’ Leaders need an effective communication system to share their business vision with the grassroots. This helps to empower all levels of the organization.

The Power of CEO

CEOs can ensure a culture of innovation that highlights the importance of harnessing the talent of the entire organization. Only CEOs can lead such quantum shifts in strategy. They alone can create an organizational climate, where fundamental assumptions are open to question. A real gap in Indian companies seems to be CEOs who nurture companywide innovation. While many CEOs are ‘visionary leaders,’ most are not enthusiastic champions of company-wide innovation. Both financial and psychological support from top management is critical for the culture of innovation. One of the main inhibitors of innovation is the attitude of the ‘Do it my way.’ Leaders need an effective communication system to share their business vision with the grassroots. This helps to empower all levels of the organization.

Flexibility and adaptability is key to Innovation

Adapting to change and proactively responding to opportunities are daunting tasks. Top management needs to handhold teams through these risky processes. Failures need to be dealt with in a way that protects and encourages risk taking. Only CEOs can provide the time and resources required for companies to be outwardly focused, scanning the environment of competitors, customers, academicians, suppliers and even different industries. Such companies have a better chance of becoming innovation stars. CEOs can provide courage, zest, enthusiasm and speed to the whole organization. It is this energy that will drive an Innovation Initiative. Large, traditional companies have a tendency to become more bureaucratic. Bureaucracy produces politics, red tape and power struggles. People find a hundred rules to protect themselves from acting. This can repress the natural energy and enthusiasm of the organization. CEOs can prevent this deadening disease.

Innovation champion

An innovation champion, accredited to be a Four Ace MindsPower trainer with the necessary training and attitude, is critical to the success of the Innovation Initiative. The champion should have Innovation facilitators in every department. In addition, leaders of innovation spirals hold together the structural network required for the process to work. Top management support and empowerment of the champion are needed to provide autonomy and delegation, which are key to innovation.

BRIDGING THE INNOVATION GAP

Innovation turns problems and inconveniences into profitable elements of a business. The mightiest of modern organizations has been built in a few short years through the power of information and the human mind. Helping to manage human imagination to develop creative solutions will be the secret of winners in the future. Innovation can be seen in every field and every sector. When the first pre-paid telephone cards were released in Japan, it was heralded as the best innovation of the year. It was an example of a simple innovation offering tremendous benefits, both to the consumer and the telephone companies. There are no limitations to the possibilities of the human mind. “Microsoft’s only factory asset is the human imagination,” wrote Frank Moody. Corporations that adopt innovation as a way of life never need to compete. Theirs is the path where no one has gone before; the path which leads to untold success. Consistent innovation leading to profitability is what corporate India needs. This will not happen through mere rhetoric. An Innovation Initiative, which embraces everyone from the doorman to chairman, will create a culture of Innovation. This initiative is for those who are willing to dive in and stay the course of a long-term organizational development intervention. The gaps in achieving this goal for Indian companies are clear. There is a lack of interest in investing resources to build a culture of innovation, a certain reluctance to install the innovation thinking tools.

Valuing Human Effort

Young and handsome Ananda become the leader of a monastery when Buddha left his physical body. The townsmen were skeptical. They felt he was too young and frivolous. They went in a group and asked him what the old bed sheetswere to be used for as the monastery had just been given new ones. Ananda said, ‘I had them cut into towels for the monks. ‘When those get worn out, what will you do?’ they asked. ‘I will fold them, stitch them and use them as doormats for monks coming in from the rain.’ Still they persisted. ‘What will you do when those too get worn out?’ ‘I will have them cut into strips to use in the kitchen to handle hot vessels.’ ‘Why do you take so much trouble over old bed sheets?’ they asked. Ananda reflected for a while, then he said, ‘The life blood of some mother, some human being has been poured into making those sheets. That human effort should be treated with respect,’ he said. The townsmen left satisfied that Buddha had chosen well.

Innovation in the various stages of organizational development

The metamorphosis model of organizational development, passing through the cycles of growth and decline, describes the organizational life cycle of companies: Emergence-Growth-Decay-Death Focus on innovation, may rescue an organization in the declining phase of the organizational life cycle. Re-innovation or renovation becomes important when an old, traditional company goes into decline. The first phase is often entrepreneurial and innovative with a sudden burst of energy capturing a new space in the market. This creative phase is terminated in a leadership crisis. It was Schumpeter who said, “It is rare for anyone always to remain an entrepreneur throughout the decades of his active life.” This cycle progresses from entrepreneurship to an organization that becomes slow and complacent.

Customer-Centric Processes

Customers need to be engaged and involved in the process of constant innovation. Market research alone cannot do it. Here are a few suggestions: • Involve everyone in the quest for ideas • Involve customers in your process of generating ideas • Involve customers in new ways. • Focus on needs that customers don’t express • Focus groups provide feedback only on existing ideas. • Seek ideas from new customer groups Harvesting ideas is good. But using them is critical. Tapping customer innovation is a process that can help customers give creative ideas.