Leaving Bangalore one evening during the monsoon season, Tata Group Chairman, Ratan Tata said to his driver, “Please be careful it will be very slippery.” As they got out into traffic a motorcycle with a family of four on it passed Ratan’s car and went down. Bodies everywhere. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. At that moment Tata dedicated himself to putting families like this in a safe, affordable form of transportation that would cost a little more than the motorcycle itself.
In his book, Nanonvation: How a Little Car Can Teach the World To Think Big and Act Bold, co-author Dr Kevin Freiberg examines how Tata overcame seemingly impossible odds to produce a Rs. 1 lakh (US$2100) car- the Tata Nano.
Applying lessons learnt by the Tata Nano team, Freiberg shares some strategies that HR leaders can use to inspire innovation among employees:
1 Dare to be radical and revolutionary
Most organisations are cautious, metered, and incremental with regard to implementing new ideas. There is nothing wrong with incremental innovation. In fact, it’s what keeps you in the game – at least for a while. But, incremental improvements rarely create and sustain the kind of growth that is expected from investors, and they don’t generate an evangelical response from customers. HR leaders can take a big step in the right direction by working with line leaders to create an environment that rewards people for taking risks.
2 Question the unquestionable
Step out of the prevailing paradigm. Think like an outsider. Challenge your taken-for-granted assumptions – about the way your industry works, about what your competitors are doing, about your customer’s expectations, and what your employees are truly capable of doing. What would happen if HR got a cross-section of people together quarterly to identify the deeply-held assumptions that the company makes about what customers really want, what competitors are really doing and what employees are really capable of accomplishing?
3 Look for the intersection of trends to find opportunities
You can’t win with yesterday’s ideas, so what are the big, converging trends that are headed your way? There is huge opportunity for innovation where rising trends intersect. Competitive advantage goes not to the strongest, smartest, or richest companies, but to those that develop the capacity to see what others can’t see and turn those insights into innovations faster than their competitors do. Why can’t HR be the junction box, the catalytic agent that draws key thought leaders within the company together to identify these trends and what they mean for the future of the business?
From an internal perspective, what are the big trends shaping HR? Whether it’s the disintermediation of jobs via technology, lifelong learning and retraining the workforce to meet the demands of a new economy or managing multiple generations of workers in the same business, HR should be ahead of the curve in preparing executives for what’s next.
4 Jettison the incumbent mentality
Incumbents are vulnerable to the often-fatal trap of thinking the future will be more of the same only better – more choices, better features, and better design – all incremental improvements on yesterday’s headline. Incumbents seek to grow market share by being ‘better’ than the competition. But even if they are better, competitors catch up, innovations become commoditised, and incumbents eventually get forced into a price war. Innovators side-step the price-value discussion by creating new markets and making the competition irrelevant.
HR leaders can mitigate the incumbent trap by helping employees and senior executives create a culture that knows how to LET GO. That is, helping people manage the creative tension that comes with pouring yourself into something the world is ecstatic about and then letting go of it or changing it to pursue the next big thing.
5 Look beyond customer imagination for the next big thing
Customers are smart and never to be underestimated. But customers don’t always know what they want and if they do know what they want, they can’t always tell you. In fact, listening to customers might even derail you from pursuing breakthrough innovation and changes that will radically differentiate your business.
Sound like heresy? Maybe, but how many customers are on the cutting edge enough to know what’s possible in your industry? How many customers are aware of your future capabilities? How many customers are in the right frame of mind to share their ideas for an innovative new product that is likely to displace the one they just bought?
6 Look for breakthroughs beyond your industry
Where do new ideas come from? They don’t come from sitting in the same office, talking to the same people, looking at the same computer screens day after day. Spending the majority of your time with people who share your beliefs and assumptions doesn’t unleash your creativity. It sharpens your prejudices. It doesn’t promote discovery. It leads to close-mindedness. Some of the best ideas for game-changing innovation will come from outside your industry.
What if HR initiated a programme where everyone in the business was required to spend three days a year visiting other industries with a specific eye for how to apply their best practices to your industry?
7 Let limitations drive creativity vs complacency
Limitations: Are they a blessing or a curse, an asset or a liability? That’s your choice. Whether they are financial, regulatory, geographical or political, limitations can be springboards to creativity. They can call forth cleverness, focus you on what’s most important, and drive you towards more elegant solutions – if you let them. While your competitors are whining and moaning about the limitations you both face, why not apply your imagination and ingenuity to find unique solutions within those constraints? THAT could radically differentiate you.
What if you could create a culture where employees saw overcoming limitations as a badge of honour versus an excuse for doing nothing? You can. You do it by mining stories about those who refuse to give up, those who refuse to let limitations be limiting. These stories can have a contagious effect on people’s attitudes.
8 Maintain the dignity of the end-user
The best products and services in the world enhance; they don’t denigrate the user’s experience. Every step of the design process must be taken with at least three questions in mind:
» What’s it like to be the end-user? What are their pressure and pain points? What are their hopes, dreams and ideals?
» What’s it like to live where the customer lives? What’s unique about the context in which the end-user will experience this product or service?
» How do end-users think of themselves – particularly when they use what we’re creating?
When your focus is on the needs and dignity of the end-users, and when you make their needs your cause, you start to get very focused on things that really matter. What if HR led an effort to get anyone associated with a product or service design to spend one week each year shadowing and working with customers and experiencing their experiences?
9 Shake it up! Hire some CRAZIES. Diversity inspires innovation
Surround yourself with off-the-wall dreamers and doers who don’t think and act like you do. You know who they are. It’s the hippie mum with a gypsy skirt and funky earrings who writes killer marketing copy. It’s the gear head who reads comic books at lunch, but radically reduces costs and cuts cycle time by revamping your whole IT infrastructure. It’s the oddball fashion designer who reconfigures the layout of your entire facility and creates space for people with diverse perspectives to bump into each other and engage in unscripted, yet stimulating dialogue that leads to new things.
These ‘crazies’ are the non-conformists, frustrated activists and eccentrics on the lunatic fringe. Are they bizarre, peculiar and a little bit psychotic? Yes. Are they uncomfortable and unnerving? Yes. But if perpetual innovation is your goal you need to be around them. HR can play a critical role here by challenging business leaders, managers and supervisors NOT to do what’s comfortable, not to hire people like themselves. HR should be the standard bearer for shaking it up.
10 Invite people to change the world
Call it leadership by outrage, a genuine sense of empathy and compassion, being purpose-driven, or capitalism with a conscience; game-changing innovation is driven by solving a problem that matters. The Tata Nano grew out of one man’s desire to make life better for others.
People who see their work as noble are hungry for change. They have a drive to succeed, a will to win, and a deep-seated passion for taking risks and trying new things that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. People don’t lay down their lives for a job. They don’t give the totality of who they are to line shareholder’s pockets. But, they will give everything they’ve got to play a role in changing the world.
HR leaders can start by asking, “what’s noble and heroic about what our people do? What’s the heroic cause for which we fight?” Once the cause is identified, HR must build a compelling business case for managers that shows why a noble cause is essential in motivating people to engage. Then, working with managers, it’s important to ensure that every employee has a direct line of sight to the cause. A company breeds commitment versus compliance when employees know how their individual contributions link to, and support, something bigger, something that matters!
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