Innovation, a genius paradox in business
What is Innovation?
Typically, we have been taught to understand innovation as a science. Something where we use technology that is inherently present on this planet to create or re-create something that is of utlity to human kind.
But, as we grow up, we categorize more and more. we categorize ideas and label them as innovative, boring, redundant or even genius. we have a set idealogy and cornered matrices of our real of thoughts where we try to put every idea into a box.
So, what is innovation truly all about?
For that neighbourhood kid, it's when he learns to do that back-flip in a way that actually saves him from tripping or it's when a child discovers he/she can roll the dice not only through one direction but actually swirl it or throw it from a unique direction and find different results. As Richard Feynman once said, "I don't need any accolades. I find joy in disovering new ways of doing things. That is enough prize."
When it comes to business, we are bound its rules and we see innovation as an answer to take us ahead in this race. But neither do we emphasize our focus on marginal innovation or small improvements in the same activity and neither on radical innovation which involves giving freedom to free thinkers with abstract ideas.
So what keeps people from trying new things ?
1. Inability to understand the joy and power of innovation in business.
2. Financial pressure for the leadership to manage the funds in a way that is more conservative and safe or taking calculated risks often pressured by people in finance whose sole motivation lies in generating large amounts of money through extemely minimal amounts of investments.
Digging a little deeper in what can solve these issues, I have come to realise that that there are two keywords, often over-exploited, "Entrepreneurship" and "Strategy".
"Entrepreneurship" in its truest nature is simply allowing people to own their activities and let them self-improve. As all the cogs and parts start improving on its own, the machine works better and better. For example, A factory operator who finds a new way to better operate machines and thereby increase efficiency or a better packaging done by a team of young designers based on consumer feedback and using their own raw ideas. We must understand that boxing ourselves to think that innovation only is sustained through breath-taking IPs and scientific discoveries does not happen through a Eureka moment. It is with time and patience and culture that those sprouts of Eureka moments happen more frequently.
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"Strategy" or simply planning that is suitable for the sustainability and growth of the business works more from the top to bottom model. It stems through the well defined rules of winning in business either through profitability, cost cutting, market penetration or great advertising. It is the super objective of that "OKR" which pushes the innovation. So why is that even after getting these intelligent permutations and combinations of plans made by the most intelligent people on the planet, there are only a few winners when on a whole, many winners will produce more productivity for the society and more development at a larger scale?
This is where mapping innovation to strategy comes into picture. Strategies that are top fed yet work in conjunction with channelled flows of ideas as well as free flows of ideas are the ones that actually stay ahead in the marathon or achieve success for themselves as well as for society.
What we have as empirical evidence is that innovative companies generally have leaders with a vision, who get a free hand to execute through intelligent & dedicated believers and where a culture of strategic objectives understand the key concepts and utilization of Business Innovation through “strategy” & “entrepreneurship”. Be it Dyson, Tesla, Apple, Starbucks, Ikea or Toyota, visionary leaders who executed their ideas in reality through dedicated employees and were able to skim through the myriad of the profit hungry finance world while retaining key principles of innovation & entrepreneurship for long term sustainenance & success.
Applying first principles, mapping factors, creating strategies and executing them intelligently over a period of time while handling financial turbulence & mental fragility produces what the society remembers.
A genius paradox, isn't it?
Vaibhav,
An innovator at heart with a passion for
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