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. 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. Asia Brown Boveri (ABB) regularly involves shop floor workers, marketing executives and customers in an annual process of negotiating the future.

Investing in new technologies

Investing in new technologies can happen rapidly by global scanning. It can provide instant innovation from an outside source. The only problem is that it is quite expensive. Often foreign technologies also come with strings attached: sometimes Indian corporations are not given key secret processes. In India, this has resulted in cheaper import substitutes, using easily available local resources. India, with its vast human resources, would do well to invest in developing innovation in its own backyard instead of buying it readymade. Innovating internally would also make India globally more competitive.

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.

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.

Constructive performance feedback

Productivity depends on performance feedback, as does innovation. 360-degree feedback provides young innovators the opportunity to give their bosses clear feedback on a less than conducive environment. A system to clearly map individual competencies and provide consistent, timely feedback, can result in providing appropriate training when required. The immigrants of diverse races who moved to the USA, created a dynamic flow of new ideas and thus helped in forming a leading economy.

Listening to all members

There is no doubt that each person in an organization has ideas. If there is one thing the quality movement has taught us, it is that it makes sense to listen to everyone, particularly the workman who does the work. People who feel that they are heard are more likely to solve problems. There is no incentive to think outside the box when no one listens or cares. Positive affirmation is the key to ensuring that people stretch to think innovatively. Participation is the reward we give to those who respect us. Einstein developed his theories in a Swiss patent office.

Developing alternatives in good times

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