Innovation in a competitive environment

Innovation is the most potent weapon to counter any kind of competition. The same is true for individuals as well as organizations. In a competitive environment we find two different sets of people – reactive and proactive. Let us see what kind of results we get when we map them against – High Risk taking ability and Low Risk taking ability. Risk appetite is closely related to innovation. Let me clarify that risk taking ability does not mean financial soundness; it is just the state of mind I am referring to. Now, consider the following in a competitive environment:

Quadrant A:

Individuals or organizations in quadrant A look for opportunities which have a successful track record. These people are not very innovative but pick up successful innovations pretty fast and often race to success due to their higher risk appetite. When the first Bigbazaar (shopping mall) opened in India, people doubted its viability but its huge success prompted a lot of other entrepreneurs to jump into the retail bandwagon. Now Retail is a huge industry in India.

Quadrant B:

People in quadrant B are the most successful in a competitive environment because of their proactive nature and high risk taking ability. Being proactive is one of the essential traits of an innovator; this also includes intuitiveness and vision. Their high risk taking ability allows them to pursue their dream; they take the First Mover Advantage and out-smart competition by far. Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder of Bharti Enterprises, was the first person to introduce the push buttons phones in India. He saw the phones in a trade fair in Taiwan and immediately signed up an agreement which eventually lead to the roll out of Beetel range of phones in India. It is his proactive and intuitive nature which helped him to identify the need for such phones back in his country and his high risk appetite supported his instincts.

Quadrant C:

They are the last person to accept innovation. Fear of defeat prevents them from accepting new challenges. Their low appetite for risk keeps them away from anything which has not been endorsed by millions of people. These people suffer the most in a competitive environment and are generally not open to new ideas.

Quadrant D:

People in this quadrant are extremely receptive to innovation but takes calculated risks. They would generally look for low investment innovative business ideas or explore new challenges as a hobby. Some of these people generally carry entrepreneurial desires seeded deep inside them. This kind of people gets average success in a competitive environment in the beginning but always carries the potential to change the rules of the game.

Relation between Creativity, Execution and Innovation

Mark Twain quoted “The man with a new idea is a crank until the ideas succeeds”. An average idea with great execution succeeds better than a great idea with average execution. Successful execution of the idea is innovation.

VijayGovindrajan, Professor at Tuck School of Business,defines innovation as a function of creativity and execution where innovation is equal to creativity multiplied by execution. If one of them is zero, then innovation is zero. This is the most convincing definition I have come across which clarified my doubt about these two words – innovation and creativity. They are very different yet used interchangeably by most of us.

Execution is the framework which includes planning, implementation, reviewing and action. The person executing the idea could be an inventor or a first time entrepreneur but the process remains the same. Yet there are challenges which will give enough opportunities to get discouraged. Execution also requires great patience. For organizations, execution of new ideas is a bigger challenge primarily because of resistance to change and acceptance of new idea by people in the organization.

ITC’s International Business Division conceived one of greatest ideas impacting and enriching the lives of 3.5 million farmers in India. The e-choupal or village internet kiosks give farmers access to a wide range of information which would help them in growing better quality crops to be sold to ITC at the best possible price. The execution of the creative idea eliminated the need for intermediaries which reduced net cost of procurement and eliminated costs in supply chain. The initiative was inundated with several challenges like infrastructure and training the first time internet users but all challenges were overcome due to some top class execution making the innovation a grand success.

The IPod with 5 GB memory was marketed as “1000 songs in your pocket” – that is the Steve Jobs way of execution. I feel the greatest strength of Steve jobs is his simplicity which reflects in his execution style. The lesson learnt here is making the big plan simple to increase its acceptance which enhances quality of execution.

Difference between Creativity and Intelligence

People with high creativity are often mistaken as people with high IQ. People with high IQ might not be creative. High intelligence is required to build a robot but a lot of creative thinking was required to conceptualize and create the first robot.

IQ tests give us a fair idea about an individual’s intelligence but creativity is very difficult to measure. The highest IQ score  recorded is 228 and it belongs to Marilyn Vos Savant, an American magazine columnist, author and lecturer. Albert Einstein’s estimated IQ score is 160; Bill gates shares the same score with Albert Einstein. Are you surprised?  For most of the super geniuses it is their creativity which differentiates them from others.

Yet there is one more important difference, the one between creativity and vision. The geniuses we are talking about were also great visionaries. All creative people are not visionaries. Visionaries see things which others cannot see; they are highly intuitive as well. People might make fun of visionaries in the beginning but they are the ultimate winners. I was surprised to read in one of the sites that telephone could not be used for the first 15 years after invention because people thought it was not useful enough.

A vision is not enough to become successful. You need a lot of passion and courage to follow your vision. When you have the vision and have passion to pursue your dream, it’s time to use your intelligence in executing the idea. An idea is worth nothing until it is executed.

Have you heard about the Bill Gates think week? Bill Gates’ bi annual Think Weeks best exemplifies the power of creative thinking. He takes leave twice a year for a week to read ideas sent to him by Microsoft employees and ponders on avenues to improve his organisation. That is how visionaries function.

At the end it is hard work. Imagine the effort which went into building organizations like Infosys and Airtel. Sometime back I saw a television show on entrepreneurship where the Infosys co-founder Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy said “A ship is safest at the harbour, but it is not where it is supposed to be. It must go out into the high seas and face the challenges of nature.”  An entrepreneur is similar to the ship who finds true credibility by confronting challenges. That is the statement of a great visionary packed with the flavour of determination, passion and courage – all in one.

To conclude I must say that intelligence is just the one leg and you need the other leg - creativity to stand out and make a difference.

Using analogies as a thinking technique

Analogy is used to find a similarity between two different things or situation. It is like when we say - a thing is like something else. Some motorbike companies draw analogy with a muscular horse or a bull to emphasize the design or power of the bike.

Analogy is a very old technique which has been used consciously or unconsciously by many inventors and thinkers while problem solving. It is extremely effective because it gives us a new direction to think. Let us look at some famous analogies:

Dr. Rene Laennec was inspired to invent the stethoscope when he saw children playing with hollow sticks. While a child was scratching the stick on one end, the other child was listening to the amplified sound of scratching at the other end of the stick.

The inspiration from a spider got independence for Scotland. King Robert the Bruce was defeated six times and was forced to hide in a cave where he saw a spider fail six times trying to spin her web. She succeeded in her seventh attempt and inspired the king to launch a fresh attack for the seventh time which got them the much awaited famous victory. The King was able to relate to the perseverance of a spider and the great analogy got them independence. 

The word “productivity” was initially associated with factory kind of a scenario for measuring the amount of output per unit of input but now “employee productivity” is widely used by various industries as a tool to measure the contribution of employees towards their job.

The word “strategy” evolved from the greek word “strategos” primarily to be used for a war kind of a situation. Now “strategy” is used very closely with any kind of competitive situation, like a game or business.

How to find the appropriate analogies?

Whatever we see around us can be used to force an analogy.

A family can be compared to a human body in the following way.

Family                                 Defining the Attributes                                      Human Body

Father                     Main supply source for fulfilling family's basic needs            Heart

Mother                    Mental and emotional support                                            Brain

Children                  Dependents                                                                     Organs

Short stories are like T20 cricket matches. Ever tried to write a 40 line thriller? 20 lines for weaving in the plots and 20 lines for solving the mysteries. We can try to create maximum excitement in every line and mystery gets solved in the last line like a bowl out in T20.

Talking to a person who does not know the languages I speak is like talking to deaf and dumb person. Would learning some basic sign language help tourists and service providers in places where the local language is not known to the tourists? Imagine some travel companies starting classes for teaching sign language and the service providers using the sign language to enhance customer satisfaction.

Lets us try some exercise…..

Try to find similarity between the following two things and think of improving any one of them by analysing the attributes of each:

1. Coconut                  2. Mineral water         

                                                           

Purity of mineral water could be compared to coconut water. We can think of designing a coconut shaped mineral water bottle or a coconut flavoured mineral water. Should taste Yummy!!!

Perception is an important element in creative thinking

Perception is like seeing a glass half empty or half full. Different people perceive different things about the same situation and we assign different meanings to what we perceive. Perception is an important element in creative thinking and contributes towards developing different views for same or similar situations.

                                                      X

The above letter “X” can be viewed as an alphabet or it can be perceived as the alphabet “V” and its mirror image.

                                       

The above picture looks like a cat’s head but a closer observation would also create a perception of an outline of a human head wearing a cap.

Video conferencing could be perceived as a threat for airlines companies. Chocolates are competing with homemade sweets. The general perception towards jewelry has changed, wearing iron jewelries are in vogue. Shopping in Malls and Hyper malls are perceived as entertainment, people visit these stores with their family to enjoy on weekends. Red is perceived as the colour of danger and caution but we don’t have the same perception of Michael Schumacher’s red Ferrari or the red flag over Tiananmen Square in China.

We can use the power of perception to analyze  a problem from various angles and come up with a creative solution. Try it out....it's great fun as well.

Try to perceive the following as parts of a human body:

                          III          2011, 2012

Here, the Roman 3 can be perceived as three I’s , so that sounds similar to “eyes”. The next one year’s sounds similar to “ears”. With the change in perception we could connect two sets of totally unrelated elements and bring them to a logical conclusion.