Mindfulness is an abstract term and it means multiple things to multiple people. Hence, a working definition helps in bringing out key aspects and contrasting them with other connotations. The suggestion here is to "work with" this definition and adapt it to one's needs. Before we look at the definition, let's first take a look at the "overconfidence trap" to which mindfulness is a response.
Catalyzing innovation capacity & culture, design thinking, and mindfulness
Thursday, April 8, 2021
Mindfulness on the go: A working definition
Friday, April 2, 2021
Book review: L R Natarajan’s “The 9 nuggets of innovation”
One of my
favorite stories in the book revolves around the “3-day miracle” challenge at
Tanishq. The idea was to bring down jewellery manufacturing time from 30 days
to 3 days. The challenge was especially daunting because jewellery manufacturing
at that time was an unorganized sector and the manufacturing process was believed
to an art form.
In the chapter titled “Democratize innovation,” LRN presents how he and his team went
about designing and executing a number of interventions from 2003 to 2011. It
involved several multi-pronged initiatives starting from launching challenge
campaigns each year with a specific theme such as putting up “What’s new?”
board in each department, enrolling the vendor fraternity and goldsmith in the
process of innovation, and many more. Anyone involved in the innovation process
would know how difficult it is to sustain an innovation initiative. LRN’s grounded
perspective is a testimonial of one of the finest such examples in the Indian
context.
LRN was
fortunate to have a visionary champion in the form of Bhaskar Bhatt, the then
MD of the company. And Bhaskar Bhatt has aptly written a foreword to the book. Bhatt
correctly observes that “India’s R&D investments and innovation lag far
behind the world” and suggests that “every company needs to raise innovation as
a Board agenda”. I couldn’t agree more.
One of the
core messages, “anyone can innovate” is loud and clear in the book. However,
another core message, “Innovation is simple” is not so clear. For example, the
book presents how Titan Machine Building division went about developing robotic kit-marshaling equipment to automate the process. It is possible that
the technology development involved Intellectual Property (IP) creation in the
form of patents. And it is not clear that some of these technology development aspects
can be characterized as simple. Perhaps “innovation can be simple” is more apt.
The book has
plenty of pictures of real-life examples of innovations and their enablers
especially in Titan. In the Indian corporate context where innovation stories
are kept mostly within the four walls, this book shows a way for other
innovative companies to publicize their innovation journeys. Recognition of smart
failures plays an important role in cultivating experimentation. “9 nuggets”
does talk about removing the fear of failure. It would have been nice to see
some examples of smart failures too.