Innovation Flow

Paul Romer, a co- recipient  of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics  (shared with William Nordhaus) said , “ a crisis is a terrible thing to waste ”. During a crisis like the COVID – 19 pandemic,  it is natural that we tend to focus our efforts on the immediate challenges inherent in the crisis. But this is also the time for us to look for the opportunities. Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Indian Conglomerate Mahindra & Mahindra, advised his employees to use the time available to come up with new ideas and innovations; and taking advantage of the crisis "to dream bigger dreams about the future and raising ambitions once the crisis has passed". How to use the downtime to reboot, reinvent and reignite through introspection and innovation. Can we reboot our personal and professional way of life along two dimensions – (a) Sustainability and (b) Balance. Can we reinvent our business processes so that we halve the time we...

The right brain helps us to get a new idea. In fact it offers us many new ideas and we register and act on a few of those. The left brain helps us to make the Idea work. Hence it is obvious that we need to learn to use both the right and left guys effectively. The funny thing about these two neighbours is that they dont get along well (like most neighbours). When the right guy talks, the left guy jumps in and criticizes him. Then the right guy becomes silent. Real innovation happends when these two guys can sing a duet together. How do you control these two guys and make them speak in tandem ? - this is a million dollar question for an individual or an organization that wants to excel in Innovation. Helps comes from the ancient Indian science of Pranayama - balancing the life breath. I attended a Medidation camp at Adi Sankara Nilayam (Sankaracharya's birthplace in Kerala). The Meditation was taught by Guruji Tejomayananda who head the Chinmaya Interna...

Creativity is not a process, right ? (Tim Cook, The Apple CEO) http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/85214-tim-cooks-freshman-year-the-apple-ceo-speaks?src=longreads&utm_source=buffer&buffer_share=f156d I agree with Tim, Creativity is not a process. In fact many creative folks fear that a process may well wipe out whatever creativity that exists. But Creativity and Innovation are not synonymous. Innovation is still a process. Innovation is the process of (a) using creativity to create insightful ideas (b) using these ideas to craete value to the Customer and (c) taking that value-creating idea to the Market successfully. Creativity will yield good ideas. But a process is still needed to make that creative idea solve real problems and craete value to customer. Without a structured process, it is difficult to take an idea (however great it is) successfully to the Market. So Tim, Innovation is a process unlike Creativity.

I am speaking at the Nanotechnology Center, Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) on 16 August. Nanotechnology is a fertile area of inter-disciplinary research and holds great potential for solving the World's most critical problems in renewable energy, affordable healthcare, water management etc. We often read reports on promising nanotechnology inventions that seem to have the potential to positively impact the lives of people. However a very small fraction of these inventions are commercialized and made available to the common man as affordable and valuable solutions.  During my years at GE, Dow and Honeywell, I had the opportunity to work with global teams of scientists and inventors who are some of the best in Nanotechnology. I lead many programs to bring their minds together and create innovative new products enabled by nanotechnology - I had my share of successes and failures and I got some very valuable learning out of these efforts. I intend to focus my tal...

Lead Question: How to create an Innovation Strategy that will lead to Differentiation ? I took up the role of Innovation Differentiation Leader at a Multinational Company two years back. Our team's focus was on growing the business in emerging markets through product innovation. I spent the first 30 days defining and getting acceptance from folks on (a) what should be the focus of our innovation efforts and the next 30 days on (b) if product differentiation is the purpose of our innovation, then how should we define and achieve sustainable differentiation ?. I share the general wisdom on this topic, my own experience and the key learning here. I realized that the first and most important step is to decide what particular kind of value we want to deliver to whom. Differentiation  When it comes to strategy, I would like to hear Porter's thoughts first. I came across three  excellent tips from Porter on differentiation - differentiate yourself, deliver v...

A tribute to Stephen Covey Most of us know Steven Covey as the author of the highly acclaimed “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I wish to draw your attention to the book that he wrote on   the 8 th  Habit which is all about “finding your voice” and helping others find theirs.  In this context “voice” is the unique personal significance that each person offers and can bring to bear at work. To find your voice, you must connect with mind, body, heart and spirit. He defines leadership as the ability to help others understand their own true worth and potential so that they see it in themselves and live accordingly.  This book resonated with me because I believe as Innovation leaders we have the potential to make an enormous difference in the lives of the people we work with. The "voice" that we need to find is creativity and innovation. We need to find our Innovation potential and helps others to find it.  Each person has creativity latent...