Fear Induced Innovation vs Rapidinnovation.

Here is a Facebook status update of Rahul, a friend of mine, who works as a consultant in Tata Consulting Services, and is presently engaged in improving the manufacturing process of a large gold jewelry manufacturing company in India:

"Last 2 days I got great exposure and learning while understanding with respect to India "What does Innovation means & How it happens" for the companies like Google, Intel, Yahoo, IBM, 3M, Infy, Wipro, Biocon and many more big & small enterprises from the CEO's, MD or VPs of these companies....The mandate came from Summit- Making Bangalore the Innovation Hub for Asia. (in the field of Manufacturing, Pharma, Energy...and obviously "IT" :) )"

It was obvious that he was quite happy attending this Summit. But I wanted to understand from him the deeper insights he gained from the interactions during the Summit. Few days later he came out with a terrific insight about the Summit and put that in as a comment to the discussion thread, which was the following:

"I found that almost all big companies are involved in doing innovation in the name of fulfilling the Future needs of the people, But they are not thinking much to solve the present "Wants of the mankind" specially the basic wants of low income group..i.e. food, water, energy, transportation, house, having regular income....Business house generally think this as a charity or CSR activity, but this is wrong, these issues have huge potential for doing Innovation and also have successful business models to sustain it.....It requires patience and focused approach from individuals and organization to address the problems of the larger section of our society."

Now that was something very significant and what I fear most about 'innovation' -- that is trying to do something for the future by completely ignoring the present.

Trying to do something for the future is insurance and not innovation. And insurances are always made to cover known and unknown risks and consequences. I call such innovations 'Fear Induced Innovation' (FII). And why is that? Risks are imagined or perceived - never real. So addressing such risks is done more out of fear than anything else -- just like any insurance policy we undertake. 

Paradoxically, such innovations based on fear or induced by fear are always risky, costly and most often do not serve any real purpose of the society in which they spawn and develop. They sap the resources of the society without paying them back adequately. The society is exposed to more risks than achieving solid gains in improving the standard of living of its citizens. Hence to cover such risks at low cost big companies are setting up their innovation centers in India and China away from their homelands. It is a sort of gamble that may not pay off in the long run.

What is the answer?

Innovations must be based on the 'NOW' (N). Innovation must be based on 'Present Failures' (F). Innovation must solve some 'Present Problems' (P). And innovations must be guided and informed by reality. Otherwise it is mere distorted thinking. 

I have classified the innovations that address the NFP (Now, Failures, Problem) as products of Rapidinnovation, which is a more inclusive form of practice under Design Thinking. I shall write on Rapidinnovation in my next blogs.

FII ('Fear induced innovation') is never the real one. CEOs are often found to run after FII to turn around companies. But they fail. No wonder, the CEO of Yahoo got fired over phone just two days back on 9th Sept 2011. CEOs of modern companies seem to work like 'freelancers' far removed from the ecology on which they operate, thrive and grow.

I feel that the need of the hour is to have Creative Leaders who understand the inclusive nature of innovation, or more specifically the inclusive practice of Rapidinnovation.

 

 

CL - The role of Creativity & Design

Many people take creativity and design to mean making things from 'spoons to cities' as the famous adage goes.

Sure it is. But there is something vital, which we generally tend to overlook.

I quote from Ralph Caplan's book, 'By Design: Why There are no Locks in the Bathroom'.

"...design at its best is the process of making things right. That is designers, at their best, create things and places that work. But things often do not work. And making things right is not just a generative but a corrective process - a way of righting things of straigtening them out and holding them together coherently."

In other words, it is a continual effort to correct problems or 'solve them' as they crop up, which they, for some strange reasons, come up every minute.

That is what the term Design Thinking is all about. It can be applied to 'right' anything we do as human beings.

Though the creative ability to 'right things' lies in every one of us we often don't get to see it being applied to make things 'right'.

Why is that?

 

 

CL - acronym that stands for Creative Leadership

Creative Leadership -- Question the Unquestionable

In the video that follows, Dr. R.A. Mashelkar shares with us three great stories of Creative Leadership for creating ultra low cost products.

He also shares the philosophy of designing and creating such great products.

It starts with a clear Intention.

The next step is to Question the Unquestionable.

And then it is all about combing Innovation + Compassion + Passion.

This appears to be the 3 step magic formula behind all the innovative products that have motivated the house of Tatas - one of the most respected business houses of India.

There is of course a great surprise that comes up towards the end of the video clip. I leave it to you to find it out -- a novel perspective on teamwork and how it motivated the life of Dr. Mashelkar.

Pranav Mistry -- Innovation + Compassion + Passion

Here is a thrilling story of an Indian innovator, Pranav Mistry.

His innovations with sixth sense technology are simply amazing.

Not only the technology he created is amazing but also the way he thought about them and went about creating them.

Surely it would serve as an all time inspiration to Innovators, Architects and Design Thinkers!

But what moved me most was his feelings for the masses.

He is virtually giving away his inventions and technology free through open source codes.

That speaks volumes about his deep spirituality -- that is combining compassion and passion to do good work for the society at large.

That is the new credo of modern living --> Innovation + Compassion + Passion (that is combining Wisdom and innovative Action)

That is what I understand by spiritual living with a purpose.

But my understanding is not important. What is your take on this?

 

 

Notes:

1.To learn more about his DIY (Do It Yourself projects, coming soon) visit: http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

2. To know more about him and how he gets ideas and work upon them see: http://blog.ted.com/2009/03/11/sixth_sense_pranav/

 

Ref:(Combining Wisdom and innovative Action)

1. Dharma and Creative Leadership

2. Artha The Means to Meaningful Life

3. Kama The Sensuality for Creative Leadership

4. Moksha The Path of Liberated Leader

Innovator's Field Day -- Learning from Nature

Nature furnishes a wealth of examples of the nature of 'relationships' that leads to chaos, complexities, emergence, uncertainty and transformations -- embraced by the Rapidinnovation model. 

In this post we would discuss one of the fundamental laws that relates two fundamental terms quantitiy and quality. We observe in Nature that quantity changes the quality of an emergence. Even a small quantity can produce a dramatic effect on the output quality or create a dramatic emergent pattern. This would give innovators a clue as to what we might we use to create new relations, new systems, new products or simply solve nagging social and business problems. 

For instance, let us examine the relation between the different kinds of electromagnetic waves and their frequencies, that is, the speed with which they pulsate or vibrate at a given energy level.

Maxwell’s work showed that electromagnetic waves and light waves were of the same kind. However, at a later date, Quantum mechanics proved that the situation is much more complex and contradictory, but at lower frequencies, the wave theory holds good.

It is interesting to note that the properties of different waves is determined by the 'number of oscillations per second' or Hertz (the technical term used in the study of vibration).

The difference squarely lies is in the frequency of the waves, the speed with which they pulsate or the frequency of vibration. Hence it is quite clear that the property (or quality) of the waves changes (an emergent property) when the frequency (or quantity) changes. This change of property implies a change of behavior too. That is to say, quantitative changes give rise to different kinds of signals that differ in quality.

Translated into colours, red light indicates light waves of low frequency. An increased frequency of vibration turns the colour to orange-yellow, then to violet, then to the invisible ultra-violet and X-rays and finally to gamma rays. If we reverse the process, at the lower end, we go from infrared and heat rays to radio-waves. Thus, the same phenomenon manifests itself differently, completely depending on the frequency of vibration (higher to lower frequency). And this is determined by the quanity of energy we add or substract.

Interesting to note that as we move up the frequency ladder the emergent behavior changes from 'fields' to 'waves' and then to 'particles'. This is an important insight, the significance of which we would understand in a moment.

Thus Quantity changes into Quality.

Refer the Electromagnetic Table below.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum
Frequency in Hertz	Name	Rough behavior
102	Electrical disturbance	Field
5 X 105-106	Radio Broadcast
108	FM-TV	Waves
1010	Radar
5 X 1014-1015	Light
1018	X-rays
1021	y-rays, nuclear	Particle
1024	y-rays, "artificial"
1027	y-rays, in cosmic rays

Source: R. P. Feynman, Lectures on Physics, chapter 2, p. 7, Table 2-1.

The Innovators' Field Day.

Application of this law to both engineering and mangement can make any innovator or problem solver very happy.

This is because, as innovators or problem solvers we may cleverly use this law to innovate.For example, the microwave oven is based on this principle. Or invention of infra-red ports, mouses and thermal imaging are based on this principle. Similarly, NASA effectively uses cosmic rays to cure and heal astronauts orbitting the space for months. Likewise we can also understand as to how the use of CFL (compact flurorescent lamp) can affect our health. Or for example, we also notice how low frequency electromagetic radiation affects our hearts and anti-friction bearings in machines alike (fields).

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Similarly, when we apply the principle in management systems we can also effectively use the concepts of fields, waves and particles all differeing in energy content, where all changes in management systems are composed of low frequency slow cycles -- fields -- the culture, ethics, vision and strategy of the company and faster cycles of change (medium to high frequencies) which are in the form of waves (general improvement initiatives for a short duration of time) and particles (focussed improvements). It is fair to admit that both low, medium and high frequency cycles co-exist, just as it does in Nature. 

It would not be therefore surprizing to see Design and Systems Thinkers use this prinicple to effectively bring about social changes in fields like health, education and sustainable living. 

And it would also not be difficult to envisage how designers might use this principle to design effective machines and systems (energy, transportations etc) to reduce global energy consumption and global warming.

And architects can also bring about dramatic changes by using the same prinicple of Quanity to Quality to bring about unique relationships between human beings and their dwellings and their energy consumption and their activities and of course their pets.

They are all important for the brave new world that lies before us begging our intelligent thinking and action.

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Well, this is not a problem...

'Well, this is not a problem at all. Just do this. And follow these 9 steps. I have already worked out the 79 different factors that are to be measured and analyzed to come to a meaningful solution. In Japan they just do like this'

Does it sound familiar? How many times have you heard something like this?

Though this comes from well-intentioned and seemingly knowledgeable bosses (after all they are supposed to know more than their subordinates) it is a sure killer and a show stopper for creating innovative and learning organizational climate, empowering people, team work, allowing people to fail and learn and design think of new and unique context oriented solutions that competitors can't even figure out.

Implemening powerful social learning solutions to transform such organizations and boost morale of the people are difficult if not totally impossible.

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Improvisation the Heart of Innovation

This video shows the great master, Ravi Shankar, at work. Notice how with the change of locale the music or the melody changes instantly. When in India (depicted by the famous Taj Mahal) the melody has a distinct 'Indianess' about it. But as soon as the locale changes to China the melody highlight strains of typical Chinese melody. Again the mood changes with changes in nature and times of the day. Isn't is quite remarkable that while the tune (or raga as it is called in India) remains just the same for every situation the melody changes to reflect the master's feelings or his responses to the changes in the locale, mood, timings etc.

This is a brilliant piece of music or innovative music at its best. But this is what the Ravi Shankar calls improvisation or instant improvisation. Such instant improvisation is nothing but human responses to his/her situations and environment. Improvisations reflect human feelings at that particular moment in time. 

This helps us to understand innovation much better. The other name for it would be improvisation or a response to a given situation.

There would be many ways to understand this response. But one of the easiest would be -- 'going with the flow' -- responding to the feelings the situation evokes in us.

But that is tricky business. Much more tricky than what we might care to imagine. It is tricky to feel and stay in the present. This is because our feelings can take us back to the past experiences through our memories or transport us quickly to a future that is yet to be born through unbridled imagination, which is again distorted memory. Both are bad for us. The risky balancing act is to stay with the feelings and be intuitive about it without falling back on memory or false imagination. That is a risky tight rope walking. But that is what all masters of their games have mastered. 

For example, Sachin Tendulkar in cricket from whom rival captains have a hard time setting a field to hold him down by closing gaps.

Or take Ravi Shankar, the musician, for whom feelings flow from the depths of intuition.

Or the World chess champion Viswanand Anand who invariably finds a gap in the strongest armour of his opponents.

Or Michel Angelo who 'saw' entrapped figures trapped in uncut stones waiting to be freed by his hands. 

There is one thing that is common to all of them and one thing that sets them apart. The common thing is they all intuitively find the gaps or the existing imperfections in the present moment with their uninhabited awareness. They improvise their games based on those gaps or existing imperfections in the most intuitive manner -- no copy book styles for them. They have learned the rules of their games so well that they now break them with impunity.  

And what sets them apart? They apply the same principle in whatever game they have chosen to play. The games differ but the principle does not.

They are constantly responding to the existing 'gaps' or 'imperfections' by understanding and balancing numerous resistances the system offers. They intuitively sense these resistance and respond through improvisations accordingly. They seem to see the parts and the wholes at the same time within the same space.

This is what innovation is all about.

The Japanese have a name for it. They call it Wabi -Sabi, which means understand the imperfection in a given situation and improve upon it to make it stronger and more reliable.

The Chinese have a name for it. They call it Shan Zhai, which originally means balancing numerous resistances, see what is possible to be done cheap and effectively, start small and then grow in strength.

The Indians have a name for it. They call it Juggard, which means understand what is to be done, start with whatever is available at hand, go with the flow and build up over time.

These are all present moment responses to the feelings evoked. That to me is the best way to harness 'uncertainty' that clouds our lives.

Being in touch with one's feelings without distortion of any kind is being in touch with one's essential nature.

Or as Gregory Bateson said, "When man lost touch with nature, he lost touch with himself"

That touch has a magical creativity about it. It is innovation through improvisation born out of intuitive feelings.

This is the only way to create a good sustainable future for all since “The future is never empty, never a blank space to be filled with the output of human activity. It is already colonized by what the past and present have sent to it.” (Fry 1999)

How do we develop that is the question?

Understanding that involves deep learning.

And having an answer would be nothing short of 'Know Thyself'. That is living in freedom with heads held high.

 

 

 

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What Limits a System's Performance & Doing Something about it!

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 As a child I loved watching the trailing vortices of beautiful white plumes in the wake of commercial aircrafts flying majestically in the sky. I watched them as long as I could till the plumes gradually dissolved their presence into the blue sky.

Such vortices are strong, long and lingering. But, what might be the effect of such beautiful vortices on the system’s behaviour?

By the way, what system are we talking about?

The aircraft is a part of a much bigger system than we might immediately notice. The bigger system consists of the airport, the number of planes ready to take off or land, number of runways, air traffic control, signals, lights etc. These elements are well within our control or almost. However, some of the elements like atmospheric temperature, humidity, visibility are not within our control at all. 

We can easily understand that all these elements are interdependent on each other and produce a range of possible interactions between them. This we call as the "essence" of a system. The presence of this essence produces a range of behavior of a system that emerges in somewhat unpredictable or random manner. We call such possible and uncertain range or types of behavior (since we can't precisely predict) the 'emergence' of the system. Because of the 'essence' the 'emergence' takes place.

Obviously the essence and the emergence of a system effectively determines the behavior of the system and places an upper limit on a system’s performance.

Let us see how that might happen in the case of vortices generated by the interaction of an aircraft's movement and the wind?

These vortices stretch for miles across the sky trailing behind a large aircraft and endanger the planes that follow it or go across it by inducing drastic rolling moments, which might lead to the failure of the aircraft that follows or crosses the path of these vortices. Thus persistence and length of such vortices would govern the frequency of take off and landing of other planes in an airport. So, the 'essence' and the 'emergence' of the system determine the airport capacity and the limits of the system’s functioning and performance.

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Now, if we want to improve the productivity of the airport in terms of number of take offs and landings we immediately recognize the inherent ‘imperfection’ in the given system. Recognition of such inherent imperfection (in terms of the objecive we would like to achieve) would automatically lead us to innovate or design solutions to either eliminate the ‘imperfections’ or avoid them in case imperfections can't be eliminated totally or monitor them if we have no other way but to live with them.

Such solutions might take the form of a concentrated research work to alleviate these swirling wakes or shorten the length of the wake or we might think of building or using alternative runways instead of relying on one or we might think of increasing the air traffic corridors etc.  In fact, most major airports in the world have now increased the number of runways and the air traffic corridors to improve system performance.

That might be all well for running commercial aircrafts. But what might we do to save aircrafts from accidents during an air show?

During such airshows aircrafts would be forced to fly parallel to each other to avoid the dangerous trap of vortices (as shown in the photograph).Perhaps we need very skilled and experience pilots to perform such feats.

Summary:

The steps that we followed were::

1. Observe the system as a whole (what are the elements that make the total system)

2. Understand the range of possible 'essence' (number of possible interactions happening over time)

3. Understand the set of related 'emergences' or behavior of the system (in relation to the essence)

4. Understand the present objective function or purpose of the system as of now and in the future.(since objective function/purpose changes over time)

5. Identify the inherent 'imperfection(s)' that limits the system to achieve the present objective.

6. Find or design solutions to eliminate the imperfectons or avoid the imperfection if the imperfection can be partially eliminated or monitor the imperfection if it is not possible to eliminate imperfection(s) at all.(all imperfections can't be solved and might have to be lived with, but we may do that in a better way rather than give up).

7. Observe changes in the system over time (in terms of essence, emergence and objectives)

8. Set new objectives and goals to harness uncertainty for productive use.

9. Respond with new solutions and check performance and/or behavior of the system over time.

.

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