PLAY. THINK. TRANSFORM: How to find harmony in chaos

Innovation by India Inc - admirable but not sustainable (yet)

Take a look at the cover image. Surreal, no?

This gives a window into life in the vibrant city - Mumbai, as seen from a casual passerby of the so-called "Lower Parel Innovation District". If you look more closely, you will observe how the Mumbaikar attempts to find harmony in chaos! You will also appreciate there is an intense level of creativity in this ecosystem - admirable but not sustainable.

Unfortunately this is similar to the state of the Indian Inc, and broadly speaking, even our innovation ecosystem.

While the growing need to survive in the rapidly evolving consumer-led landscape is forcing companies to innovate like start-ups, there is too much talk and not much action.

Change is slow as usual and we face severe under-employment according to Niti Ayog. There are really no significant steps being taken for cultivating creativity in organization culture, upskilling, leverage digital technologies or any scalable transformation. To top that, what works in the US or Eu may not necessarily work in India, so there is no proven method that can be used as a reference to stay relevant in this new digital age.

The time to transform is now...

The reason why most companies are failing at transformation and innovation is because they haven't learnt how to fail fast. While many companies let CIOs drive business transformation, expecting an IT leader alone to cultivate collaboration and open innovation is easier said than done. We are also now seeing that we can neither leave design to designers and innovation to digital agencies to drive the much required change.

Digital transformation is about people, not about technology or art. Companies need to build an agile, design-led, customer-focused innovation culture, before leveraging new technologies to transform consumer experience, marketing, sales & operations, and create new business models.

The design-driven CEO needs to be the ambassador of transformation and bring technology, culture and business together . This is what future-ready firms do! 1, 2, 3

Per McKinsey’s recent research, design-led firms have grown by more than 200% in the past decade. These top innovative brands are (not surprisingly) consumer-focused companies with a relentless focus on design, technology and fail-fast culture to succeed at innovation.

…but we struggle and how!

While design-led innovation is now a transformational force, organizations continue to struggle with accelerating change (culture, process, technology) within organization.

We all know that thinking creatively, having constructive conversations and working collaboratively are the much-needed first steps for companies to become more open and agile.

But then, why do we struggle to bring creativity back into our workplace?

We struggle because "Play" and "Work" seem paradoxical.

While growing up, we were clearly told that work was serious and play was fun. By the virtue of our 18th century education methods, most of us were never taught to have fun with learning, and lost our ability to play and think creatively like a child over time. Today our pre-conceived notions about how work should be done significantly limits our ability to think creatively.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”_George Bernard Shaw

But with children, nothing has changed even today. Children are still filled with curiosity, desire to discover and tons of creative potential that is waiting to be tapped and nurtured.

Can PLAY become the future of WORK?

So can we bring back these principles of Play (seriously) into our workplace?

Turns out that curiosity, creativity and collaboration along with being ICT (digitally) literate are some of the the much-needed competencies to survive and grow in the 21st century, as per the World Economic Forum.

Research shows that when we think with our hands and listen with our eyes, we discover a new world to be explored, we untap creativity to make a difference, we define purpose for ourselves.

Play is the very cornerstone of creative learning that involves collaborative, experiential and trial & error learning... and surprisingly enough, these are the same principles of 'design-led innovation'

Play (seriously) in the new Digital age

As things around us become internet-enabled, being digitally illiterate will be like not knowing what do when the lights go off at home today. Problem solving and creativity in technology-enabled environments is no more an option. We all must know what tools to use to keep the lights running.

"With AI taking over routine information and manual tasks in the workplace, we need additional emphasis on qualities that differentiate human workers from AI — creativity, adaptability, and interpersonal skills” – Harvard Business Review, June 2017

Digital technology will keep our business alive and therefore cultivating playful creativity with technology is the future of sustainable business.

In an excerpt from a recent interview with Jeff Immelt, Chairman of General Electric -

"It doesn’t matter whether you are in sales, finance or operations. You may not end up being a programmer, but you will know how to code . We are also changing the plumbing inside the company to connect everyone and make the culture change possible ."

So if you think coding is only for programmers, think again. It's a culture change!

"We [GE] need to move quickly, take risks, fail fast and behave like a startup to keep winning," wrote the CEO, who has been chief since 2001. "We have to embrace decentralization and use technology to help our people to stay connected and allow more automated decision-making so you can look at an app and see what’s going on inside the company."

GE is more than 100 years old, but coding is part of Immelt's plan to adopt a "startup-like mentality" to make products that are more digitally driven. This is actually resulting in creation of jobs across the world.

Did you know? In India, startups such as India STEM Foundation, SOAL.in, Mindchamp and Academy of Customer Experience are driving this at schools, graduates, startups and businesses. If you want to know more or be a part of this movement, drop me a note.

So are we ready to PLAY seriously, THINK design and TRANSFORM business? Should this become the new method for innovation in a country that thrives on chaos?

author: avinash jhangiani, @goodthing

pic credits: charu rathi, featured by Google's Pixel team.

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