Effective meetings are conducive to innovation. Meetings can waste a lot of time or they can provide an effective way to harvest ideas and ensure buy in, thus empowering the group to achieve greater levels of productivity. Meetings can be an empowering experience if handled well. The effectiveness of a meeting can be enhanced by:1)Having …
Mistakes can be expensive. The cost of rejections is the major source of concern in manufacturing. Doing things right, is essential before companies can think of doing new things. Doing things right happens through: • Training • Retraining • Building in quality consciousness • Reward and feedback systems • Process improvement • Communicating and affirming …
A key innovation characteristic is doing things not done by others. A well known luggage company in India, was deeply concerned about the high cost of transporting the bags. During a brainstorming session, one of the members asked, “Why do you transport – all the bags are just full of air”. A nesting system was …
Doing right things involves choosing the right way to do things by benchmarking with the best organization in the world. The Internet provides us with direct access to best practices. Hindustan Lever, the Indian division of Unilever has Innovation Centres in every region that study the best way anything can be done. This information is …
Ensure that all stakeholders start with the same, clear concepts about what is required. Often each member of the team has limited knowledge about the product, thus the chances of success are reduced. The situation is like the six blind men of legend who were asked to describe an elephant – no one had a …
Revisit your goals and reconsider the impact of the goals on the company. In view of the thinking process and the ideas generated, it may be necessary to reconsider and restate the goals. Impact of the ideas can be measured against the 6M framework, or it could be measured merely against the bottom line. Critical …
The Big five emotions (Kama, Kroda, Madha Lobha, Matsarya) lust, anger, arrogance, greed, jealousy, can flood the body with the chemicals of stress. Stress is destructive. Stress is aging. Stress is a killer. Ambition and increasing peer pressure ensures the ‘Rat in a trap Syndrome’, where you are trapped into running faster and faster, to …
‘Innovation is not a gamble. It is a considered, calculated risk. When you take a risk, measure the downside, and make sure the upside is obvious’ says Uday Kotak, M.D. of Kotak Mahindra Bank. I ask him about the need to take risks. ‘I don’t believe in betting the firm. I will not get into …
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Cutting edge technologies were considered among the most important areas for ensuring success of the company. Merely incorporating cutting edge technology can make or mar a whole industry. When the flourishing textile mills of Coimbatore failed to keep pace with the cutting edge technologies adopted by the Japanese, the whole industry went into doldrums. Conversely, …
Incorporating the customer’s voice into a product is one of the most important methods of ensuring market led innovation. Often the companies assume they know what customers want. But fashions change and so do customer tastes. Nestle, found in the 80’s that their market share for chocolates was plummeting. They conducted a TCC or Tapping …
