Innovation and Exercising

This weekend, when I was on the treadmill exercising away, I realised how much of similarities there is between exercising and innovation as pursued by different companies as part of their corporate strategy. Here are some quick similarities that I could think of:

• Both needs discipline and patience to implement.


• Both don’t produce any quick results and it is very simple to find excuses why we can’t do it.


• The biggest challenge is sustaining a routine and doing it regularly. It is very simple to start and stop and do it irregularly but that does not produce the desired results.


• We all know the truth about the importance of this but still somehow manage to avoid it or find excuses not to do it.


• There is no point in overdoing it and trying to do it at the last minute. Miracles cannot be achieved overnight and the only thing that counts towards good results is regular sustained effort.

I can go on but I think you get the drift.

So the question is – What can be done about this and how can companies make innovation as part of their regular agenda.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Invest in an innovation platform – This will help you in setting up the infrastructure to do this on a regular basis. This will also make it simpler for you to run innovation programs and popularise this throughout your organisation.


2. Celebrate Milestones – This is true whether it is for an innovation program or exercise regime. Learn to celebrate small achievements which will encourage, motivate and keep you focussed on your targets.


3. Find company – Identify partners who will help you with your innovation efforts. This will serve 2 purposes. First it will allow you to bounce ideas and get an outsider view which is very helpful for innovation programs. Secondly it will help your discipline since you will find that your partner is sometimes pushing you when you lag in your innovation effots.


4. Constant feedback – Continuously monitor what is working for you and what is not and make any corrections accordingly. The constant feedback mechanism ensures that lethargy and boredom is avoided. It also helps you to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are and fine-tune your future programs accordingly.


5. Keep the end goal in mind always – It is very easy to forget the end goals in such programs since they are typically long term by their nature. Hence these programs need to be monitored and reinforced by somebody from the executive team who will ensure that the program is kept on track.

So, is it worth the effort? Experience and history will tell you time and again that innovation is not only important but in fact a survival technique for organisations and their best chance to be ahead of their competitors.

Unfortunately as all good things in life, it does not come easy and there is no short cut to success. It requires sustained effort and patience to make an impact.

In Summary – as regular exercising helps your body in the long run from falling to illness, innovation helps organisations remain nimble, focussed and well ahead of their competitors. All it requires is dedicated effort, patience and constant reinforcement.

So clearly the choice is yours – would you invest in the long term success of your organisation or look for reasons or excuses why you can’t invest in innovation this quarter?

Think about it.

The future of your company depends on this.

How do I discover my true potential?

Human beings have always been innovative. But they need a trigger or cue to get the best out of them - Think of Sir Isaac Newton whose thinking was triggered by the apple falling on his head or the Wright brothers who were inspired by watching birds fly. My point is that all of us have some talent but unfortunately, it needs some effort to find out what our true strength or talent is. The ones who truly discover this use it to their advantage and achieve greatness. However this article is about the majority of us who are still to discover our true potential.

So the question is - what stops employees from finding their true strength and more importantly - what can organisations do to facilitate this process?

Well, the reasons could be plenty but I can think of at least 3 strong reasons:

1. Stereotyping - Organisations are quick to stereotype employees and make them fit to their defined job definition or requirement. This only results in increasing the frustration levels of both employer and employees and in the worst case - lead the employee to quit. I know employers have reasons for this but still the fact is - each individual is different and the quicker they try to work out the strengths of the employee and map it to the job requirements, the better. Many a time the unique view of the employee gives a different perspective to the job requirement which can still be leveraged. But that requires maturity and an ability to deal with ambiguity from an employer perspective. Both these are rare skills especially in today's fast world.


2. Bad Performance Rating - Performance Planning at work was initially intended as an exercise to identify strengths and work out ways on how it can be improved further to develop win-win relationships. Unfortunately in most organisations, this meaning no longer holds. It is used as a weapon to force employees to fall in "line" - so getting a bad rating is seen as a failure and no genuine effort is made to analyse and take preventive action. In most cases, getting a bad rating means that maybe that person is not cut out for that role. That is not such a bad thing - it just means that his actual strength could be elsewhere and some effort is required before the organisation discovers his potential. But this honest evaluation is possible, only if employers have time and interest. In today's world where results are everything, both of these are a luxury and so ignored.


3. Ability to move within the organisation - Ideally all employees should be thought of as champions and potential CEO material. So the question becomes - how can they be leveraged and how can their unique innovative skills be tapped? If this means that they may have to try out 10 different roles to discover this - so be it. End of the day, once the employee discovers his true strength, there is no holding him back and he/she needs minimal attention after that and the results will be truly amazing. So it is an investment, yes - but I would argue - a worthwhile one at that. But this cannot be achieved without active encouragement and also guidance especially during the initial stages. Question is - do you care and are you willing to do it for the long run?

In absence of these, employees just drift in and out and never discover their true potential. Organisations also ride on the success of few employees and accept that the majority of their employees are not innovative. But is that really true?

How can organisations solve this problem?

I would suggest these initiatives:

1. Expose the majority of the employees to the organisations problems (regardless of the area) and encourage participation - A simple step but a good beginning. You may be surprised by the results!! This may be a quick and painless way to discover hidden potential but important to make sure that there is an incentive, encourage and be persistent. Remember that this could be a new territory for some of your employees and they may hesitate. Employers need to reinforce and encourage to get the best results.


2. Encourage diversity within your teams - Diversity teaches employees to be more tolerant of people who have different thoughts or ideas and also brings unique perspectives. Use this to define job requirements and keep it flexible rather than defining everything in clear terms and using that as a measure. This also helps to groom your future generation of leaders who will have to deal with ambiguity in tomorrow's world.


3. Celebrate Successes - Nothing breeds like success. So celebrate your successes and use it as an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment. Over a period of time, employee will realise the benefits of being their true self, let go of their inhibitions and work out win-win relationships. This will also increase your employee engagement levels.

In summary, this blog looks at how organisations can help their employees to be their innovative self and also identify a few reasons why employees don't innovate as much. Once these road blocks to innovation are removed, ideas should definitely flow through and then the sky is the limit!!

Are you ready to discover the next Einstein amongst your employees?

Innovation - What does it mean to you?

I decided to catch up on a movie this weekend. So went to the local theatre web site, selected my seat, went ahead and entered my credit card details for payment. Under normal circumstances, this should have completed fairly quickly but, this time, it seemed to take a long time. After a nervous 5 minutes wait, got a message saying that the tickets have not been booked due to a technical failure. Within another 5 mins, I got an SMS informing me that the tickets had NOT been booked. Reasonable experience, you think?

Somehow I felt that they could have done more. They knew my mobile number (since I had registered previously) and they had the good sense to send me an SMS informing me that the ticket had NOT been booked. But according to me, they missed an opportunity to impress me even further!!! All they had to do was to get somebody from their ticketing team to give me a call and ask if I needed help to complete the transaction which was still incomplete, due to no fault of mine. This should have been such a small step for them (given that they had all the relevant information) but of huge value and importance to me. Also in this situation, they would have ensured that they have got my business.

So why am I highlighting this story? Since, I believe, this company had a huge opportunity of using technology in an innovative way to make a difference and stand out from its competitor but missed out.

Sounds familiar? Think of it. I am sure you had many such experiences where you were left unsatisfied or with a reasonable experience but nothing that makes you remember this or stand out. Why do companies continue doing this? It is not that they don’t care but just that they are not able to think from their customer’s perspective. They are more inwardly focussed – more worried about how they are internally organised and it is up to the customer to figure out how it works. Unfortunately that is not a good enough stand especially in today’s world when you have so many choices and differentiation is the key to survival!!

Another reason is that most of these processes are thought up by one group working in a silo manner and these have not been discussed or brain stormed by a diverse group. Now I could be sticking my neck out, but I will be surprised if a diverse group of people, who know the customer pretty well, have not picked this.

So you must be thinking – interesting but how do I get started? Here are my tips:

• Focus on the rough edges within your site – A lot of attention should have been paid already on the successful use cases but not enough time should have been spent on the abnormal path. However these are opportunities as well and I would argue – need more attention. So they are a good place to start.


• Get inputs from the technical or account support staff – Support staff are the first people your customer contacts when they face any issue. Spend enough time with them to understand the kind of issues your customers face or report and then proactively start looking at whether that can be improved.


• Think everything from your customer perspective - It is important to keep your customer at the centre of everything that you are doing. It is only when you live and breathe like your customer that you can get the experience right. So focus on it and don’t compromise.

In summary, innovation need not mean disruptive or ground-breaking changes only. While that is a form of innovation, we can use innovation in other simple day to day situations to make a difference and keep our customers happy and satisfied. If done correctly, it has huge potential and can even become a differentiator for you from your other competitors.

Do you know the real "you"?

Googling around – This has become a regular and accepted part of our work life where we use google to search for information in the World Wide Web. But I still believe there is one huge gap still despite the advances google has made. Google can never search the knowledge present in the human mind unless it is expressed in words and posted on the web. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we can somehow access the human brain as well and tap into the unwritten idea?

At the minimum, the expectation of any employer is that the knowledge present in the mind of its employees is completely accessed. But is this really true? I would argue that for any medium to large sized firm, this is hardly true. With the exception of very small organisations, where they operate out of a single room or building and the flow of information or knowledge sharing is continuous – in all other firms, the flow of information is restricted and obstructed by many barriers (internal groups, politics, structure, silos – I think you get the drift). So within a short period of time, people stick to their boundaries, reply when asked specifically and just learn to do their day jobs and “fit” into the system (which typically means find the power centres and keep them happy!!!).

So you may be thinking – how can we break the shackles and get to uncovering the real “brain” of the employee? Well, as always – there is good news and bad news.

• Bad news – Unfortunately there is no magic wand to wave and these problems will go away. Also any solutions put in place will require constant reinforcement and time before they can reap results – not something any decision maker wants to hear but there you go!


• Good news – It is pretty simple to start, costs very little, the potential for extracting value from your employees is unlimited and more importantly when this is done correctly, it has the additional benefit of leaving your workforce fully energised and engaged.

Ready to get started? - These are the simple steps you can take to start leveraging the true power of your employees’ brain.

1. Establish a platform for this purpose – This can be a mix of both technology and change processes. Essentially an area where the “true” ideas of an employee can be explored without any boundaries.


2. Encourage and reward – The encouragement could be simple items to start off with – for eg: peer recognition, recognition by a well known leader within the organisation etc. Also ensure that all attempts are encouraged not just the popular ones.


3. Select broad themes – Remember – this is not a problem solving network – refrain from posting simple challenges which targets only a particular group. The challenges posted should be broad-based to appeal to the entire employee base and the goals should be clearly defined.


4. Monitor and adapt – The evaluation process should be fair and transparent. Periodically review and take any corrections as per the usage and the feedback received. Communicate as much as possible about the goals and ensure that individual feedback is given as much as possible and the top contributors felicitated.


5. Sustain – Finally remember this is a journey and the important thing is to sustain this for a long period of time. Start and Stop approach only tends to create confusion in the employee’s mind. If you feel, interest is dying down, rejuvenate by introducing new challenges or new rewards or publish success stories which will keep the interest alive.

In simple terms, every employee also wants to contribute his best to the organisation – nobody comes to work thinking that they want to do a lousy job. I also don’t believe that employees lack the motivation to “go the extra mile”. So what happens then? The problem is the environment at the workplace. Every employee has ideas and views – especially if they are coming from other organisations. Ultimately only a receptive environment within an organisation will help uncover all the ideas of your employees and help unleash the true potential of your employees.

Establishing a platform for your employees to contribute their best ideas will go a long way in freeing up your employees to think without boundaries and encourage open and free flow of ideas. So start today and you will be surprised by the true “brain” of your employees.

Innovation and Micro Management

Picture this. Your son is just about to take his first step. He walks one step convincingly and then starts to falter. If you are a typical parent, you will immediately be on your alert to catch your son from falling down and getting hurt. But we all know that falling down and getting up is part of the learning process.

A innovation project is a similar kind of experience. Many a time, project sponsors are over-protective and so short-circuit the success due to their over-zealous nature. Innovation Projects need to run for some time and find its groove. There is more harm than good in trying to micromanage and dig further during its initial run.

Half the time what people need is time to innovate and for their sponsors to have confidence in their skills and judgement. They also need a long leash where people are not bound by rules or pre-conditions. If anything, they need to be told that the only thing not acceptable is following a known path. They need to explore without boundaries in these innovation projects.

Another important point is the freedom to observe how their customers use their products and when I say observe - I mean as a full time activity and without judging or even being seen by the customers. This knowledge will go a long way in understanding the areas of improvement and where innovation is required. The ability to empathise with your customer and see the product from a customer's eyes is the best gift that your team possess and if they act on that basis, success is not far away.

So - all this sounds so obvious that you may be wondering why I am highlighting these points. Well - frankly - even though these are obvious, it is amazing how people keep forgetting these simple but effective points. So the next time you are planning that offsite to come up with the next generation product design - think - have you looked at it from your customer's point of view? Would he appreciate the features that you are planning to add? If you are not sure, first observe from a customer perspective and walk in his shoes before undertaking the offsite - It will make it more productive and useful!!!

Sustain Innovation

"So how do I ensure that innovation is continuously looked at by my staff on a 24*7 basis and in each of their activities?. How do I make them enjoy it and become second nature to them?" This was the question posed to me recently. We were discussing about how innovation projects were well received and participated during the initial days but of late the interest seems to be waning.

Frankly this is quite a common occurence in many organisations. Most of them enthusiastically start off with innovation and promote the initial projects but very soon the interest dies down. So much so that it looks like a flavour of the season or a fad rather than a long term strategy or vision. The reasons for this are many but thankfully there are a few things you can do to change this perception:

1. Invest in a innovation technology platform - This sends out a clear message to the employee base that the company is serious about innovation and it is not a one off effort but they are in it for the long term. The technology platform will enable them to track the response and take corrective action if needed. It will also encourage others to participate and help institutionalise it.



2. Ensure that the top management gives consistent messages regarding innovation - Monitor the signals being emitted from the top management or leadership team. They need to support innovation in all their actions and be consistent. This could be the weakest link if not controlled. Remember all the action of the top management/leaders are being observed by the staff and actions speak louder than words. If you mess up with this, staff would be quick to retreat back to their shell and then it is going to be a struggle to get them back.



3. Encourage all bold attempts even if it results in failure - An innovation project is not like your typical project since the chances of failure are pretty high. Statistics show that only 30% of innovation projects are successful but the good news is that the 30% of success will make up for all the money spent on failures. So it is still worthwhile to search for success even when you don't get it first. Important thing is to learn from failures and not repeat mistakes. Apart from that, encourage and even reward bold attempts. Nobody remembers the number of failed attempts that Edison had before he discovered the electric bulb but the discovery of the electric bulb made Edison amongst the best known inventors.



4. Have minimal rules and make it easy for even the junior most staff to contribute - Have no entry barriers and design your innovation platform in such a way that contributions can be done very easily. Also respect and encourage everybody to participate whether that is a recently joined intern or a seasoned professional. Over a period of time, this will also become a channel to identify the staff with potential and also mentor upcoming resources.



5. Ensure that the best ideas are implemented quickly and with no political interference - End of the day - this is the ultimate goal. Once you identify an idea which has the potential, take the ownership of implementing this quickly and ensure that the rewards are passed on to the contributor. When this is done consistently this will spread and soon all the employees will aspire to get recognised in this platform.

These are the main points that I feel will help you to sustain interest in your innovation projects. While this does take some effort to institutionalise, the returns will be manifold as it spreads throughout your organisation and the quality of the contributions improve. Over a period of time, this platform will be self-sustaining and could even give your company a competitive advantage.

In summary, sustaining innovation projects takes time and unfortunately there is no short cut but the good news is that with the small steps outlined above, it can go a long way in making innovation the bloodline of any organisation.

Innovation and You

So what stops us from being innovative? I was observing my 3 year old son as he went about his daily activities and found most of the answers. As small kids, there are no rules defined and exploring means that in the true sense of the world. There are no assumptions apart from the high level ones concerning safety and kids truly revel in this and are at their innovative best. So what happens after that? As we grow older, we become more conscious about ourselves and try our best to "fit" in with the society around us and unfortunately that also means that we become accustomed more and more to play by rules and stop challenging assumptions.

This becomes very more institutionalised in our professional lives where we have clearly defined job responsibilities which are according to our professional qualifications. But is that truly our strength? Have we ever got a chance to explore other areas which are reportedly not our traditional "strengths"? The answer is frankly NO. In fact we are discouraged from doing this at work.

I was reading an article recently about a person had done his doctorate in archaeology and spend a lot of time exploring excavations in Egypt and then one day decided to do something new. He tried his hand at statistics using his knowledge of data analysis and mapping which he used during his days as an archaelogist and today he is employed in a software company using his skills to crunch data and generate new search patterns. That to me is an example of the true potential or strength of the human mind and a strong reason why we should not stereotype people. But how often does this happen and if it does happen, is it just by chance? Is there any institutionalised way of encouraging this within your organisation? Think about this.

So you may ask, what is this go to do with innovation? Innovation to me is a new way of looking at things and trying out ideas. The best way to kickstart innovation is to bring a new set of experts (maybe from different diverse fields) and ask them to approach the problem. You will find that they are able to think with a newly found freedom which their peers working on this problem for ages were lacking.

But this is still only half the story. The picture is truly completed only if the leadership team who are evaluating these innovations are also able to break their shackles and think with the same innocence as that of a child - basically no boundaries and with no pre-defined assumptions. This is truly a challenge especially in the initial days since we are so conditioned with think with our pre-defined assumptions that we will find it easier to shoot down proposals rather than think differently about how to make it work.

But if we fight the temptation to resist and truly think differently, success is only a few steps away and as they say - nothing succeeds like success.

So in summary - don't attempt to stereotype your employees and encourage them to try out different areas and realise their true potential. Also get new set of eyes looking at old problems and encourage new thoughts and ideas. Over a period of time, this will get you truly innovative ideas and you will be surprised at the true potential of your employees once they are truly allowed to break free.