In his new book ‘A Biography of Innovations’ R Gopalakrishnan, former Tata Sons executive director, talks about learning from mistakes and the importance of intellectual curiosity, collective ingenuity and storytelling
D Shivakumar‘Innovation’ is among the most frequently used terms in management jargon in the last two decades. Everybody has a view on the subject and seems to write about it. You wonder whether one listens to anybody else or reads everything that is written on the subject.
Canadian historian Benoit Godin states that the word ‘innovation’ first appeared in texts on law and meant ‘the renewal of contracts’. It had no connection with creativity and merely meant ‘renewal’.
Google’s useful Ngram Viewer, a database of word usage, suggests that in 1800, the word ‘invention’ was used four times as frequently as ‘innovation’.
After a century-and-a-half, ‘invention’ and ‘innovation’ came to be equally used, and since 1970, ‘innovation’ has overtaken ‘invention’ and has been used more frequently.
Humans think and imagine through stories and metaphors. [Tweet]
We believe that a superpower runs this world, but for our daily living, we find it difficult to relate to this superpower. It is an idea, a concept. Most of us need something physical and tangible to be able to relate to an idea.
Innovation is natural and human. But, we still need a way to think about the subject so that we can relate to it on a day-to-day basis. In this pursuit, metaphors and analogies can help us.
Simple is never simple enough when it comes to the human brain.
Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, believes that the engine of human progress has been the ‘meeting and mating’ of ideas to make new ideas. It is not important how clever individuals are. What really matters is how smart the collective team is. [Tweet]
‘Serendipity’, a word derived from Arabic, is the occurrence of events by chance that produce beneficial results. It is a crucial word for innovation.
Prof. Carol Dweck suggested that there are people with two types of mindsets: fixed mindset people who believe their abilities are fixed. And growth mindset people who believe that their abilities can be expanded and accept that this involves learning from mistakes and failures.
Leadership in an institution, company or laboratory is a formal position. Achieving an exalted status can cause a leader to give up the growth mindset. [Tweet]
The reality is that holding a leadership position is like having a licence to drive. It does not mean that you will drive skilfully under severely challenging situations. To do that you have to take risks and experiment.
Leadership means creating for employees a meaning in the work they do and fostering engagement in their hearts.
In organisations, leaders must create a charged up environment for employees to take chances and succeed.
Companies should celebrate success but they should also celebrate authentic failures. Innovation can only thrive in a climate that encourages risk-taking. [Tweet] Institutions need storytellers who can repeatedly narrate inspiring examples.
The ancestor of innovation is thought. Without thought, there could be no innovation. In management, while innovation attracts profound commentary, analysis, awe and cynicism all at once, thought attracts less commentary.
You convert implicit into explicit learning through articulation. [Tweet]
Teachers who don’t think that thought leadership is their core business are in danger of being considered lazy or indolent.
The important thing to note is that creativity is not as genetic as may be popularly believed. It has a lot more to do with the effect of the environment.
Curiosity is the engine of intellectual achievement and it is what drives us to keep learning and pushing forward, according to science writer Annie Murphy Paul.
Curiosity is one of the personality traits that gets short scientific shrift. Raw intelligence has been researched to death but our curiosity about the world remains a mystery.
Prof. George Loewenstein argued that curiosity comes alive when “we feel a gap between what we know and what we want to know”.
To stimulate curiosity, teachers should spend time asking the right question, one that opens up the information gap in the student's mind.
Four lessons for modern innovation can be drawn:
Recognise that knowledge is essential.
Adopt a formal method for the development of an open mind.
Learn the art of making free choices.
Specialise deeply on a philosophical platform.
Every Indian has a rich environment for creativity. These are the 4 Cs—chaos, challenges, communication, and channelisation.
Developing mental preparedness requires four stages according to French mathematician Henri Poincaré: Preparation, incubation, illumination and verification.
Large organisations think that encouraging failures would have an implication on its reputation and thus want to play it safe.
Three types of errors occur in organisations.
The error due to sabotage or intentional concealment.
An error occurs due to carelessness or bending of the rules.
Creative error.
Three types of lessons have been learnt from creative errors: Technology advancement, business models and the end consumer.
Mature companies understand the impact of culture and team climate and have created mechanisms to measure and monitor these soft indicators which practically impact everything.
Innovators must recognise that there will be opposition to their innovation and they must listen carefully to the concerns of those who oppose them.
Each innovation produces consequences, some unknown and some known. Progress necessarily means that while one problem is solved, another may be created.
Every innovator is a hero to himself. They suffer from the conviction that their innovation is superior to others.
Young people bring much needed freshness and agility to business; older folks bring experience and wisdom. There are a few lessons.
The first is that startups can learn from grownups.
The second is that obstacles are essential to spark innovation.
The third is that startups are best nurtured without their becoming overtly conscious of their potential future value.
The fourth is that irrespective of the growth that a company achieves, leadership always strives for a growth mindset among employees.
The secret sauce of a grownup company’s long life:
Consistent purpose
Focused at the core, experimental at the edges
A clear identity of who they are and why they are in business
A conservative approach to costs and finance
Not being able to speak up in a company creates a spiral of silence that can result in disasters of massive proportions.
The innovation of a ball pen was led by non-pen people.
Narcissism is a good thing in small doses. The limits that make it dangerous are undefined.
Indian startups that have failed show some lessons and patterns:
Bill Gross, the founder of many startups, found that timing of innovation ranked first (42%), followed by team (32%), and finally the idea (24%).
To be confident as well as humble, a leader has to listen.
Listening to people means looking people in the eye, not interrupting them, saying in a simple way what you mean and asking someone to repeat themselves in case you didn’t understand, and to be focused.
Apathy is a poison to innovation because it leads to low expectations.
Ideas don’t have border controls and visas.
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About the author
Before his current assignment at Aditya Birla Group, Shivakumar was Chairman & CEO at Pepsico India. Prior to that he was Managing Director at Nokia India. Before joining Nokia, he worked with consumer electronics maker Philips and top consumer goods firm Hindustan Unilever. He is an engineer from IIT Chennai and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.
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