Innovation Flow

Logical Vs Creative Thinking To think innovatively, we need to strike a balance between logical thinking and creative thinking. Creative thinking, most often starts with an illogical thought. Einstein's thought experiments (Gedanken) started with a seemingly absurd question what will we see if we travel as fast as light. Crazy questions that typically start with "what if" lead to interesting and innovative thoughts. But we cannot make much progress with our crazy question if our logical mind is active. The logical mind will kill the creative thinking very quickly. The job of the logical mind is to ensure that we think logiocally and it actively distracts us from all illogical thinking. Now, how do we escape the constant vigil of our logical mind and start our journey of innovating ? The Precious moment for Creative Thinking There is a moment when we can do this most easily - when we are tired and sleepy. Kekule got his breakthrough idea of a cycling st...

I have been in the game of leading innovation for nearly a decade now. I have been trying to understand how to choose the right innovation to pursue at the right time and take it to the right market. If I make a mistake on any one of the three, all my effort goes down the drain. To succeed in this complex role, I derive inspiration from the Hamsa bird. The unique traits of this bird is described in the most ancient Indian texts - the Vedas and the Upanishads. I will tell you more about Hamsa after we discuss the three challenges that I faced. I am always on the look out for people with new ideas - I need to be good at identifying the most promising innovators (across functions and geographies). I avoid the classic mistake of trying to identify the most promising ideas. I find that all ideas are equally weak to begin with - the promise of the idea grows in strength only during the incubation Phase. I would not dare to judge an idea before it gets a chance to be incubated. Wh...

Yoga is balance - Yoga is all about achieving a state of balance. Balance is commonly understood in the context of two opposing forces. A Yogi establishes himself in a state of balance both internally and externally. The complex world of opposing forces does not disturb his equilibrium.  Yoga means union -- the union of body with consciousness and consciousness with the soul. Yoga cultivates the ways of maintaining a balanced attitude in day-to-day life and endows skill in the performance of one's actions (B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga Guru). Innovation is a balancing act Idea Conceptialization  - Innovation is all about balancing. Many innovators have the uncanny ability to balance two opposite views in their mind during idea conceptualization. The Wright brothers, when they were conceptualizing their design for an aeroplane, used to alternately argue for and against an idea (read The Wright Way - Seven problem solving skills from the Wright brothers). Sustainin...

Many innovators have a child like curiosity and perseverance. When we closely observe an innovator innovating and a child playing, we will see quite a few similarities. When you start doing something just because it gives you happiness, you are happy and you become more receptive to new ideas. You right brain is fully triggered and new ideas flow spontaneously. When you start worrying about business alignment, market need etc your left analytical brain takes control. You struggle hard to get new ideas. When you are playing, you do pursue and achieve goals. But you are not worried all the time about winning or losing. You enjoy the game. Winning still makes you happy. But when you lose, you remind yourself that it is only play and use the lessons learnt to play better the next time. To be successful in innovation, we need to create a child play environment. The child is so engrossed in the play that the real world around no longer matters. The child is focused on the play...

As we move into the New Year , it would be worthwhile to ask how to create New Ideas from Old Ideas. New Ideas are constantly born as Old Ideas die - I am reminded of the title of Matt Ridley’s.TED talk “When Ideas have Sex. It is true that one can combine old ideas and create new ideas. I went on to think about how I can create New Ideas out of Old Ideas and here are my thoughts. I am a problem-solver and I solve problems whether I like it or not ! When I was walking and wondering who we really are, I realised that we are problem-solvers. We spend a good part of our life solving problems – either our own problem or others’ problem. When I said only a good part of our life and not our entire life, I had in mind the time that we also spend in creating the problems. With the recent trend of globalization, we are also solving problems that are far away from us in space – the recent successes in Reverse Innovation indicate that we are doing the right thing [1]. Also, some...

Liquid Metal Battery Technology - Donald Sadoway (MIT) Image Source - http://www.technologyreview.com/photogallery/427701/making-liquid-metal-batteries/ We often hear about the goodness of alternative energy, like solar and wind - then what is holding us back from using them ? The primary concern is how do we manage when the Sun is not around in the night or when the wind is not blowing - these concerns shifts our focus to the energy storage technologies. Currently we use solid state batteries. A fundamental technology evolution trend is to move from solid to liquid - it is easy to predict that the next revolution in energy storage will come from all-liquid batteries. We see evidence for the "TRIZ technology evolution trend of Solid - Liquid - Gas - Field" in many domains. Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle -- an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal. His Inventive thinking is best des...

Difficult situations and critical moments are like the surprise tests that were subjected to while at School. By definition, they are surprises but we need to be prepared for it. Gita teaches us how to think and prepare ourselves to handle the difficult situations in our life. The Hero, Arjuna is a good person and has only noble intentions. He is brave and well-trained in warfare – he was Drona’s best student. He had powerful brothers to support and Krishna as a friend to advise. Despite of all these positive aspects, he was unable to face the situation. All his knowledge and training was of no help. He was reduced to a helpless state and was unable to think and act. If this is is the fate of Arjuna, the great hero, what chances do we have. I may have the best education, secure job, supporting family etc but I may become an Arjuna-when I am confronted with a difficult situation. How do I handle such critical moments in my life? How do I prepare myself ? Who is my friend Krish...