Art of Being Happy

Before we begin, let us look at the definition of Happiness. Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. The key words being ‘mental or emotional state’ – meaning that Happiness is a state of mind. Research has proven that while most people seek happiness, % of people who are truly happy is in dismal minority. Why? What makes it so difficult for people to be happy?

Let us examine the world that we are living in (in the interest of space, limiting to just 2 key points):

·       We live in a world of negativity. We start our mornings with Newspaper headlines that sensationalize what has gone wrong yesterday; TV is filled with things that are wrong with the society and system; debates and discussions are about what’s not well with the country, society, people; even in organizational discussions, focus is more on weaknesses than on strengths. We are surrounded by negativity all the time.

·       When we ask people ‘What would make you happy’, the answer is always tied to a goal/objective. If I achieve so and so, I’ll be happy. Once we achieve the goal, we have another goal that need to be achieved, to be happy. Happiness is always in the future state.

What we do not understand is that the very purpose of our existence is to seek happiness. Human system is designed to be happy. Humans are equipped with two powerful tools to be happy – Forgetfulness and Neo-frontal cortex of the brain. Forgetfulness is to overcome the misery in our lives. When we are faced with loss or misery, forgetfulness enables us to overcome it and revert back to normal state. On another hand, Humans are only species that are equipped with neo-frontal cortex. We are the only species gifted with the ability to visualize a future, to experience/live a situation through our mind. No other species can do it. They all can live only in the present. This is a great gift for Humans to see a better future, and rekindle hope. However, we use forgetfulness to forget most things that are good in our life and remember the negative things; and similarly we use neo-frontal cortex to visualize fear, thinking about the future – fear of failure, fear of rejection; that leads to inaction or tension. Humans deal with higher challenges/obstacles (& worries) in their mind than what they face in reality.

So, what can we do to be happier? Here are few ways to structure our life to be happier.

·       Pleasure – All of us seek pleasures but we seek what we do not have instead of enjoying what we already have. Most of us tie pleasures to money. Yes. Money does give pleasures but beyond a certain level, more money does not matter. If we all rewind to the happiest days in our lives, most of us go back to our college days. We definitely did not have enough money in our pockets during those days yet we all were very happy. Pleasure is more about savoring what we already have. We can derive significant pleasure in simple activities that we engage in – drinking coffee, engaging in a conversation with spouse/friend; watching sun rise, seeing a child smile, smiling to a colleague. But it is important to be in the moment. Live in the moment and savor it. Also, it is important to note that while pleasure gives happiness, it is not sustainable. It remains with us for a short period of time.

·       Engagement – It is important to structure our life to be more engaging. Living in the flow is all about engaging in activities that challenge us, that capture our utmost attention where we lose sense of time and environment around us. We all would have involved in activities in the past where we lost track of time. We feel very happy when we are engaged in such activities. These activities involve our core strengths. As we discussed in earlier blogs, when we engage our core strengths, we feel great sense of engagement, enjoyment and hence tend to be very successful. First, focus on identifying your core strengths. It is ironical that we focus a great deal of time and energy on our weaknesses than our strengths (and infact, more people are oblivious of their strengths). Spend time to gain a good understanding of your strengths and then slowly structure your life to move towards those activities/roles that leverage your strength. This would increase the level of engagement and you’ll wake up looking forward to the day. You will be happier.

·       Purpose – Research has proven that being of service to others gives more happiness that is sustainable than focusing on ourselves. Most people misinterpret this to be charity. More than charity, it is about how we can be of service to others and make a difference to the lives of the people – this would link to the purpose of our life. This is not about leaving your job and joining an NGO (if that thought excites you, you probably should) but it is more about how you can leverage your core strengths to service/help other people. This could be helping your colleague who is struggling; mentoring a junior in office; helping your neighbor come up with a brilliant presentation for his office work or any other work that excites you. These should be activities that leverage your strengths (and therefore obviously excite you) and that you help others around you without any expectation of return. Such activities give more meaning to your life and hence lead to sustained level of happiness.

·       Relationships – We derive more happiness when we are with others than being all alone. This is not through digital media but being in person with a group that we relate with. Hence, do spend quality time with family, friends, and parents. A short call to your friend with whom you have not spoken in months will make you feel better. Sitting down with parents and having a conversation about your childhood will make everyone feel better. These do not take time but such moments calm our mind and contribute to increasing our level of happiness.

While what I stated above is not rocket science, it does take disciplined approach to achieve them. It requires us to be more optimistic about our life and develop a positive mindset. We all live in the same world yet some people find this a beautiful planet while many others crib about the deficiencies in our lives. Reality that we see is through the lens that we have in our mind and through which we see the world. If we are able to change the lens in the mind, we would see a better world. To orient our mind to be more positive and recognize/acknowledge what we have (instead of what we do not have), I suggest that we do the following (for next 21 days – to make it a habit):

·       Journal – Maintain a journal where you record everyday one positive thing that happened in your life in the last 24 hours. Initially, we may not be able to find too many moments but do not give up until you write atleast one thing that you are thankful for, that happened in the last 24 hours

·       Gratitude – Everyday, identify atleast 3 people that you would like to send out a thank you note (or even better that you can thank them in person) for what they have done for you. Believe me; it would spread a great deal of positivity both in you and in the recipient.

·       Meditation – Now, this sounds cliché but in today’s digital world, we are constantly distracted. Meditation does help us to regain focus and enables us to live in/savor the moment. For those of us who tried meditation and gave up, engage in an activity outside of work (painting, writing, reading, singing etc.) that you are passionate about and where you could lose sense of time. It helps to us to be more focused and be in the moment.

We can do lot of other things but if we do the above 3 activities, we gain more positivity in our life and that leads us to be in a happy state. Being engaged in meaningful activities (purpose) derives and sustains happiness. Pleasure is like icing on the cake that will amplify happiness. Happiness is not about what we do not have. Instead it is about leveraging (strengths) and engaging (pleasures) of what we already have. Then, why do we seek happiness elsewhere when we already have it?

Transient Man

Before I dive into the topic, let me narrate three short stories for you.

1.     Peter is an executive who has done extremely well in his organization. He is known as sincere, hardworking and one who delivers results. Peter sees his friends getting better jobs with better pay and decided to look for opportunities in the market. He spent considerable time in building his resume and posted it on job portals. He also started sending it out to consultants so that they can have his resume in their database to match with an opening. However, he sees that many of his friends who started job efforts much later than him landing better jobs but he is unable to do so. Why? What is wrong with Peter?

2.    Raj is depressed. He and his daughter Neha constantly fight at home. He wants his daughter to study well and be successful but Neha complains that Raj does not trust her. Whenever, he comes back from office, he sees Neha in her room, with music on, book open and chatting with her friends on phone (using Whatsapp, Facebook). When he confronts her, Neha reacts that she is studying hard and that she is discussing school work with her friends. How can she be focused and studying while listening to music and chatting with her friends? How could he explain to her that focusing is all about reading the book in front of you? Chatting and Music are all distractions. Why is Neha unable to understand this simple concept? What can Raj do??

3.     Zia is a successful executive who is listed in top 20 Leaders in India. She had a successful run building a product enterprise. She is on multiple boards and her experience is well regarded. However, she is distressed today. Her company bet big on a product that would capture a significant market share. They studied all their competitors, spent a huge amount of time in understanding customer needs, got best consultants while designing the product, produced television commercials that would excite the audience. They invested lot of money and are about to launch in few weeks. Zia got to know this morning that a new player is launching a product that re-defines the market space and eliminates the need for her product. This new player is not from their industry and was not even on their radar for potential competitors. Zia is distressed. Where did she go wrong? What can she do?

What is common amongst all the stories above? What challenges are Peter, Raj and Zia dealing with? Peter has to recognize that the job market is not the same as when he entered the industry. Today, recruitment happens more online than offline. More jobs are available and recruited on social media like LinkedIn, Facebook than through job portals. Raj has to recognize that the new generation way of learning is very different from his generation. Gen Y engages more through digital media than face to face. Zia has to recognize that the World is changing at a dramatic pace and the competitors are no more just your peers in the industry.

Let me give you couple of examples of how the World could potentially change tomorrow.

·       Tesla Motors (the company that is recently in news for producing an Electric car ‘Model S’ that is comparable or better than conventional cars) has floated an idea of Hyperloop (a superfast tubular transport system) that could cut down transit time from San Francisco to LA to 30 minutes. There is even a proposal to get you from New York to Los Angeles in 45 minutes. These are not just ideas but an actual design exists in public space. Imagine if this becomes a reality in 5-10 years, what would happen to the Transportation industry (Airlines, Trains etc)? If you were the CEO of an Airline today, what would be your plan?

·       Let me take another example that is not in the distant future but is happening today. With the advent of broadband speeds, entertainment is being re-defined. A whole lot of digital media is available to people, at very low costs, on their own phones/gadgets. Imagine how this is re-defining the entertainment industry. Today, a launch on YouTube is more critical than a trailer release in a theatre. There is advent of short films that both entertain the audience while giving opportunities to potential actors/directors who had to run around studios in the past. A movie could be produced with crowdsourcing, released and could compete with a big star at the box office. If you were in the Entertainment industry, what would you do? Where would you focus?

We are operating in a World that is changing at an exponential pace. These are not just small changes but the environment around us is getting constantly re-defined. Our earlier generations did not have to deal with such level of change and our next generation would come into the new World. We are the transient generation that needs to deal and adapt to this change. How can we do it? How can we be successful?

We need to start by recognizing and acknowledging the change around us. We then have to accept the hard truth – Our experience is no longer relevant. We are no longer relevant unless we reinvent ourselves. There is nothing to differentiate us from the newly passed out college grad (infact, we start on a negative as we need to significantly unlearn). So, how can we be successful in this transient world? By applying the following principles:

1.    Open mind – simple to say but difficult to practice given the baggage of our past success and experience. Extremely important to have an open mind to new ideas/thoughts coming in from anywhere

2.    Learn – Willingness to constantly learn. This World is no more the same and never going to remain the same. We need to constantly learn from all sources. More importantly, from younger generations who see the world very different from us.

3.    Speed – World is operating at a different pace today. Things cannot take multiple planning sessions to be decided. We need to start taking decisions faster, willing to experiment, fail & learn, take risks and be comfortable with fast pace. More importantly, we will be tested on our ability to make decisions in ambiguity.

4.     Embrace – We need to embrace change. Embrace new ways of doing things;

5.    Self-Aware – Last but not the least is recognizing that change is not easy. Hence, it is important to be self-aware. Awareness of our own emotions/feelings. As Leaders, we need to lead our teams through this change. Unless we are self-aware, we cannot have an awareness of our team’s emotional state and that is critical to success.

Like all things, being in a Transient generation could be a blessing or a curse. For people who cannot change, it’s a curse. But for someone who is willing to embrace the change, it is an era of opportunities. How do you see it?

Work Life Balance: Balancing Life

Work-Life balance is a major topic in today’s business world. Every organization is focused on addressing the issue and there is tons of literature on this topic. There is lot of time spent thinking about solutions to improve work-life balance. Are we successful? Do we really understand what work-life balance is?

I have fundamental issue with the word ‘work-life’ balance. This tends to indicate that work is not part of life.

·         How could we define a place, where we spend majority of adult, active life as NOT LIFE?

·         ‘Work-Life balance’ tends to indicate a mindset that we need to minimize work as much as possible so that we can have life

·         This is in contrarian to the Organization goals to maximize output from their employees to improve overall profitability (nothing wrong by the way. That’s why organizations exist – to maximize profitability)

·         Hence, this denotes continuous conflict between Organization and its employees. Not a great state to be in.

·         Most employees tend to look for alternatives, jump from company to company, in search of ideal work-life balance but they fail to achieve it.

The above denotes that we can never achieve work-life balance as the interests of the Organization and its employees are in conflict. But is it true? Can we not achieve work-life balance? In my mind, we are looking at the problem in the wrong way. Problem is not about achieving work-life balance but in achieving right balance in life. Work is part of life and hence if we achieve balance in our life, our goal will be achieved.

But, how do we achieve balance in life? The only way to balance life is if all our needs are met. Every Human being have needs that could be categorized as follows: Intellectual needs, Emotional needs, Physical needs and Spiritual needs. If we balance our life against these needs, we can achieve the desired balance in life.

·         Everyone has different levels of needs. It is possible that a person has higher intellectual needs while another could have higher spiritual needs. Also, it is important to note that these needs tend to vary over a period of time. For example, as a young person, you may not have much of spiritual needs but by middle age, you may see this need emerging.

·        Our needs could be met at different places. Typical thought process is that intellectual needs are met at office, while emotional needs are met at home. This may not always be right. It is possible for office to cater to emotional needs if you have close friends or social circle in office while intellectual needs could be met at home while pursuing a hobby/activity. A case in point – we do tend to see that sometimes people leave a company to go to another company when their close friends move. This is predominantly to sustain their emotional needs.

·        It is also important to understand that we cannot achieve the desired balance of the needs every day. At the same time, if it takes more than a year to achieve balance, it’s a shame. How many times did we hear the adage – ‘we spend our health to achieve money and then we spend money to regain our health’? Hence, it is important to define a timeframe within which we would like our needs to be balanced. It could be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly – whatever appeals to you.

Having said the above, I’d ask you to follow the below process:

1.      I’d like you to think through what your intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual needs are. Having identified those needs, allocate points out of a maximum of 10 points, for each of the needs. The total points across all the needs should be 10. If you think you have higher intellectual needs than emotional needs, please allocate more points to intellectual needs. It is ok to allocate zero points to a need. For example, if you decide that you do not have any spiritual needs at this point in time, please allocate zero to that need.

2.      Figure out where these needs are being met. For example, we have different segments in our life – Office/Work, Home/Family, Parents, Friends, Hobbies/Activities, College/Education (if you are pursuing), Colleagues, etc. Determine what needs are being met by each segment of your life and to what extent. You could use the table listed below (illustrative) to capture this data:

	Intellectual needs <x1/10 points>	Emotional needs <x2/10 points>	Physical needs <x3/10 points>	Spiritual needs <x4/10 points>
Office/work
Home/Family
Parents
Friends
Hobbies/Activities
Education
Colleagues
Charity/Social work
… (Any other aspect)

3.      Do validate and see if your needs being met are in line with the priority that you have assigned to them. Also, are they being in the right proportion and in the right places? If not, there is opportunity to balance them. For example, if your intellectual needs are high and they are not being met at work place, you should see if they could be met through hobbies or through friend circle that you have. If not, it is important to address it – either by changing the workplace (if the organization is not providing those opportunities to you) or by changing the career (if there are no way you can meet your intellectual needs in your line of work).

4.      Create an action plan (based on the above) to bring changes in your life and segments that would help you to balance your life much better, by meeting the priority of your needs

5.      Review the action plan and see the average timeline in which your needs are met. Is the timeline congruent with your demand? If not, go back to step 4 and re-do the action plan so that the timeline could be closer to what you desire.

If we can move away from ‘work-life balance’ to focus on balancing our overall life, we will be happier in our lives and more content with the outcomes.

Given the above, how do we deal with the work component of our life? We need to think beyond money from work. If workplace is catering to your multiple needs like Intellectual, Emotional, Physical etc., then feel free to spend more time at work – as it will fulfill both your needs and monetary aspects. However, if the workplace does not fulfill any of your needs, you need to seriously examine how much time you want to spend at workplace or more importantly, should there be a need for a change either in workplace or your career.

What do you think? Could we address the work-life imbalance by balancing our life? Is it practical? Would you do it?

Influence to Success

“Influencing” has emerging as one of the most critical leadership skill in today’s world, as stated by CEOs, in recent leadership surveys. However, do we really understanding, what “influencing” is? How much of it is a skill and how much of it is a mindset? Could we all be good at it?

More than ever, Influencing is emerging as a critical element for all Leaders. With geographically distributed teams, Gen Y workforce, and disparate groups needing to collaborate together to deliver business outcomes, a Leader has to depend upon teams outside of his/her control to achieve success. This situation is further magnified by emergence of social media/networking. While social media provides access to multitude of people/resources that were earlier not possible, it requires the Leader to be in a position to influence remotely. Not an easy task at all. Before we go further, let us understand what “influencing” is?

Influencing means persuading an audience to:

·         Give you something

·         Take action

·         Accept your ideas

without formal power or authority. Even when we are in the position of power or authority, influencing is the best way to get things done. In our personal lives too, an effective way to engage with our children is through Influencing. One key aspect: Intent behind Influencing is to achieve a win-win situation. Focusing only on self-win will lead to manipulation, not influencing.

To best understand the framework of Influencing, we need to travel back to 4^th century to meet Aristotle. He was a Greek philosopher and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He came up with framework for persuasion (Yes. Influencing was critical even in the 4^th century) – Ethos, Logos and Pathos. Ethos refers to an appeal to the authority or honesty of the presenter. It refers to how well the presenter convinces the audience that he/she is qualified to present (or speak) on the particular subject. Logos is the logical appeal or simulation of it. It is used to describe facts and figures that support Speaker’s points. Pathos is an appeal to audience emotion. It is the ability of the speaker to connect to the underlying emotions/values of the audience. What does it all mean to us?

Ethos refers to our ability to build credibility with our client (target audience). Logos refers to the content of the message and Pathos refers to our ability to understand our client. Each topic by itself is a blog (that I’ll detail in the future) but here is the summary:

Ethos: Ethos is focused on you. Are you credible with the audience? Why should they listen to you? Why should they agree with you? Hence, before we start on our influencing path, it is important to understand the following areas:

Brand: First area to examine is our Brand. Do we know what our brand is? Branding is not an impression of ourselves that we carry in our minds, but perceptions that are carried in other’s minds about us. It is important to understand that brands are born of experience and reflect our reputation. Therefore, our actions/behaviors/words play a critical role in the way our brand is perceived by others. So, in order to build a powerful brand, first and foremost it is important to understand our Unique Value proposition. This should, in turn, help us to re-position our brand. We will discuss the process in a future blog

Knowledge: To gain credibility, it is important to build and share original thoughts. You may have great amount of knowledge but if it is not shared, you are not helping yourself. It is important to first - build your knowledge, second – translate the knowledge into your original thoughts (primarily, how you can apply the knowledge in your areas of expertise) and third – articulate your thoughts in various forums. Hence, it is important for you to be active in forums at your office, and on social media like blogs, twitter, LinkedIn etc

Network map: How do we address a situation where we need to influence, but do not have credibility with the audience – either because the audience is not aware of us OR we are not the subject matter experts in that specific area. This is where, we need to ‘borrow credibility’ by leveraging people who are in our network map. It is important to ensure that we have diverse set of people in our network. If all the people in our network are of the same profile as us, then we have a weak network. We should have people from our customer organizations, our own organization (but from different areas), industry. Network map also constitutes our personal connections and ability to tap into their networks.

Logos: Logos is focused on the content and our ability to articulate it effectively.

Content: It is important to build the content from audience perspective. More often than not, content is defined by the key points that we want to articulate as against what is important from audience perspective that would help us achieve the objective. One area where we implement this effectively is at the time of giving gifts. We may define the budget but when we think about finalizing on the gift, we always think about it from the perspective of the person who is receiving it. However, when we deliver the messages, it is all about what we want to convey as against what others need to receive. Content is not just about the message but is also about the timing of it (is this an appropriate time for the audience to receive the message).

Articulation: Even, when we have defined the content well, the success or failure is dependent upon how we articulate it. Do note that the articulation process is highly dependent both upon you and the audience. Even between same two people, articulation should vary depending on the subject that you want to influence upon. Usually, there are two techniques for articulation – Push and Pull. Push technique should be used when you have credibility with the audience and are an expert on the subject. Pull technique should be used when you do not have the credibility but yet need to influence. We will learn more about these techniques in a future blog.

Pathos: This section is all about understanding your client (audience). Unless, we understand our clients well, we will not be able to structure the message well and be able to know if we have the credibility with the customer.

Understanding the client: It is important to spend time in understanding your client. What is it that drives them? What do they like and dislike? What are their key goals? How does the current situation impact their eventual success? There are many other such questions that we need to answer before we can say we understood the client.

Stakeholder Analysis: More often than not, we tend to think that there is just one person who will make the required decision. However, in professional organizations, usually there is more than one person involved. It is important to do a comprehensive stakeholder analysis to first identify who are all the key people who will be involved in the act and then, identifying their current positioning on the topic before we decide how to influence them.

Influence Map: It is important to create an influence map that shows all our key stakeholders and their current relations/positions. We should then intersperse the influence map with our network map so that we know the leverage points. This is a critical point in the influencing exercise as it will allow us to prioritize/sequence the influencing process

Levers of Influencing: Once we are able to establish Ethos, Logos and Pathos, we can then identify Influencing levers that we could leverage during the Influencing process. Robert Cialdini has done significant research in this space and has arrived at 6 levers for Influencing – Reciprocity, Scarcity, Consistency, Consensus (Social Proof), Authority, Similarity (Liking).

Influencing is critical for success in today’s world. I’ll try to detail each of the above areas in future blogs so that we could cover each topic in a comprehensive manner. Kathleen Reardon, workplace politics expert has said that ‘Each of us is atleast 75% responsible for the way we are treated because we have the CHOICE to influence what others think and say about us; and the obligation to learn how’. Influencing is not only about achieving results but also about how we are able to influence our perception on others, thus laying a strong foundation for our success. If not anything else, I do hope I piqued your curiosity and influenced you to learn about Influencing?

Customer Experience in VUCA World

Customer Experience is a key focus area for all business leaders. However, in this fast changing world, the meaning of Customer Experience is changing dramatically. Do we really know what customer expects? How can we significantly improve our play on customer experience?

Before we understand how the customer experience is re-evolving, it is important to understand the context. I did write an earlier blog in detail about the VUCA world (Title – The World of Tomorrow). However, let us start with a quick introduction to VUCA.

VUCA is a term coined by US military in the post-cold-war era, to define the emerging multi-polar world with asymmetrical adversaries; and propelling terrorist cells bringing the battle home and making it difficult to identify the difference between terrorist and innocent civilian. However, the term gained currency post 2008 crash in business, when a new normal has been established and the business models/paradigms that worked prior to the crash are no more meaningful.

VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world.

Volatility refers to the rate of change in the World. Nature and dynamics of these changes along with the speed of change is creating volatility in the world. Uncertainty refers to the lack of predictability and high possibility for surprise. There is limited sense of awareness and understanding of issues and events happening around us. We are operating in a world where we are unclear about present situation and future outcomes. Complexity refers to the constant chaos and confusion that surround an organization. Multiple decision factors and forces outside of control have rendered business extremely complex. Ambiguous refers to the possibility of misreading the situation. With so many forces at play, cause and effect could become too confusing and could drive incorrect actions. Rapid technological changes, increasing global interconnections, climate change, population growth, global age and income disparities are combining to create a highly volatile and unpredictable terrain.

As someone said, we are moving from a world of problems (which demand speed, analysis and elimination of uncertainty to solve) to a world of dilemmas (which demand patience, sense-making, and an engagement of uncertainty). We are faced with dilemmas that are unsolvable, complex, often messy, threatening, and confusing and laden with puzzling choices; and with risks that cannot be avoided but need to be managed strategically. In such a World, companies cannot achieve success by being fast followers. They need to be able to create the ‘future’ and hence the importance of Innovation (no more as a differentiator but as necessity for survival). This requires different set of Leadership skills. For example, never ever before, the need for Inspirational Leadership has been as critical as it is required now and in the future. With VUCA, the teams can neither comprehend the rapid changes around them nor the implications of such changes on the business. Rationale explanations cannot work as the past is no more indication of the future. They need inspirational leadership to guide them towards the new direction.

When business leaders, with the powerhouse of their organization technology, analytics and talent, are finding it difficult to handle VUCA, Customers are overwhelmed and confused. With so many variables in play and constantly changing world, customers are unable to make decisions. They are looking for others to provide guidance, which is non-existent. Hence, they are looking to products/solutions where decision making is minimal or not required. To take an example from Asset Management, with so much of unpredictability around their income and expenses (given the current world where neither income nor expenses are stable/predictable/guaranteed), Customers are unable to decide upon their specific goals or portfolios. Instead, it is easier to opt for ETFs that could provide returns in line with the market and hence do not require the customer to make any complex decisions (it’s another point that ETFs are indeed generating good returns while active fund managers are struggling to grapple with the VUCA world).

Given the situation, Customers want integrated solutions that could handle as much VUCA as possible and insulate them from those effects. Solutions - that are designed to meet holistic needs of the customers and minimize the level of decisions that they have to make. Customer experience is no more driven by how we interact with the person (yes, it is still important) but more by how we meet their needs.

Most of the companies are still trying to find their way in the VUCA world, thus generating tremendous opportunities like never before. A truly customer focused company that could deliver holistic solutions will position itself to be the best customer experience company (not just in the industry - as in the VUCA world, the boundaries of industry are getting erased), would benefit from loyalty of customers and be a market leader.

Mega 'nano' - Innovation in India

Innovation in India is one of the hotly debated topics. While some strongly feel that India has not caught onto the bandwagon of Innovation; others feel that Innovation does happen in India. And at the end of the debate (even after hours of it), positions of either party hardly change. What is the truth? Can India become the hotbed of Innovation?

I believe the truth is in between. Indians have a high ability to innovate. We do it every day. Growing up in a developing country, we do not take anything for granted. Hence, whenever, we face a hurdle/challenge, we find creative ways of working around them. At the same time, we lack risk taking (which is critical for innovation). Our social world does not receive failure well and hence we abhor risk taking. There was a time, not too distant past, when an entrepreneur used to introduce himself/herself, many would believe that he/she failed to get a decent job and hence had to resort to starting their own company. Things are changing now but it is still a slow change. However, we still have many successful examples of Innovation in this country.

Today, I’d like to write about one such Innovation story. A story that busts two myths:

1.       India and Innovation cannot go together

2.       Innovation means big breakthrough – in technology, business model or any other aspect

Tata Nano story started more than a decade back when Ratan Tata announced the intent to build a small car under the price of Rs. 1 lakh. Mr. Tata was moved by the plight of lower middle class family who had to ride their family of four on a two wheeler, in all weather conditions. He was worried both about comfort and safety of such family and decided to make a small and cost effective car to meet their needs. When he announced his decision, whole world was shocked and many mocked at him as they did not believe that such a car could be a possibility. Even people who were sympathetic to his cause were worried about safety aspects of such a car and some even thought that it would be a glorified auto (three wheeler automotive driven in India to ferry passengers).

Mr. Tata asked his team at Tata Motors to work on the small car and set specific objectives. Its performance has to be comparable or better than Maruti 800/Alto and it should meet all safety standards as set by the regulators. The price of the car has to be under Rs. 1 lakh ($2,500). Under the leadership of Girish Wagh, leader of the small car team and guidance of Ravikant (MD of Tata Motors), the team decided to start building the car from scratch (as against re-engineering existing cars). They brought together Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sourcing, Customer experience teams and vendors to innovate on multiple aspects to deliver such a car. Here is a small snapshot of innovations in Tata Nano:

·         Collaborative approach: Early on, the team decided to pursue a collaborative approach. Hence, they had finalized on hundred vendors (unlike six hundred to seven hundred vendors used for small cars). Instead of choosing multiple vendors for each component, they partnered with single vendor, thus guaranteeing them volumes as car sales increase but asked them to invest and partner in the design, innovation and manufacturing to ensure that those components could be produced to meet the new specifications and in a cost effective manner

·         Modular design: Nano has been designed to be constructed in components that could be built and shipped separately. Thus, the car could be easily assembled from these components at variety of locations. This reduces significant upfront investment in manufacturing and helps tie up with various entrepreneurs who could share the success story of the car. This is what they termed as Distributed Manufacturing process. While this model exists, they have not yet capitalized on it, owing to possible quality concerns if the entrepreneurs do not follow the laid down procedures. Hence, they decided to defer the implementation of tying up with entrepreneurs. However, from a design perspective, the car is indeed of modular design.

·         Design innovations: To meet both the cost and space needs, many design innovations have been incorporated into Tata Nano. For example, the engine has been placed under the rear seat while the battery has been placed under the driver’s seat. Both the seats have been insulated to ensure that the heat and vibrations are not felt by the passengers. Similarly, a single wiper has been used to cut down costs while not compromising on safety needs; back wheels are larger than front wheels to provide stability to the car; spare wheel, fuel inlets are placed under the bonnet etc. are designs meant to cut down costs while providing stability and safety to the car.

Tata Nano has been launched in 2008, much to the fanfare and awe of the world. It has immediately placed India and Tata Motors on world map – both for the design of the car and audacious idea of producing it under $2,500. Tata Nano has not been delivered by a breakthrough technology or product innovation but by institutional innovation. Tata Motors has filed only 34 patents for Tata Nano (very small number compared to 280 patents awarded to GM every year). However, Tata Nano delivered on a promise that many felt was not possible.

I believe Tata Nano has not yet seen the success it deserves (due to the failure of their marketing team and its weak positioning). However, no one can take away the innovativeness of the product. Tata Nano is a classic example of an innovation that is targeted to the bottom of the pyramid through frugal engineering processes as against break-through technology. Tata Nano is an example of Blue Ocean strategy. It has changed the competitive dynamics and is helping to expand the market. Nano Europa is being launched to target European market and a small car targeting US is on the cards. Though the car now has global reach (which was not expected), it still remains an Indian car that equally caught the attention of western world and rural India.

Despite the small size (Nano) of the car, it is an outcome of a big (Mega) idea. Innovation can only be possible if we are willing to challenge status quo, be unconventional in our approach and willing to take risk. We all have in us to be Innovators. The question is, are we willing to Think BIG? Are you?

Listening - for a better World

Today, the World is laced with conflicts. In majority of these conflicts, everyone thinks that they are right and their position is right. How can two people (or groups) be right at the same time? Is it possible? What is the reason for them to believe so? Similarly, we have many “conflicts” in our professional/personal interactions. How many times do we have a strong view point or we draw a conclusion based on our experience; and we are confident that we are right? We are so confident that when we see any other person differ from our view point, we attribute it to either their ignorance or stupidity. Why? What makes us so confident that we are right?

Let us examine ourselves. Please refer to the below diagram as I explain who we are and how we operate.

At the core, we are who we are. That cannot be changed. This has been wired in us by early childhood (and there is a great deal of science how it happens and who influences it {not parents} – topic for some other time). For example, if you are a shy person who has difficultly in introducing yourself to new people, that is not going to change despite how much ever you try. If you attend 100 parties in a year to change it, you might learn the skill of introducing yourself but every time you do it, you feel very uncomfortable. That’s the way you are. Instead, if you are a person who can work a room and make friends easily, the same task of introducing yourself to strangers comes naturally and you enjoy doing it. This is not about who is right or wrong. This is the fact that we are just different.

Next is the mindset. This is developed over a period of time, based on our experiences and exposures. More the experience, more this gets hardened. Hence, we find that the associates (or people who are starting their careers) can be molded easily but a highly experienced person will find it difficult to embrace the change. Same at a personal level, we see that the young kids in the family find it easy to adapt but many of the elder people take a long time (or find it difficult) to adapt.

Around the mindset are the knowledge and skills that we develop over a period of time. This is driven by our interest and ability to acquire (or learn) new concepts/knowledge/skills.

The above model looks very simple but is the foundation of how we operate and how we make our decisions.

MINDSET – This is the most critical component as it influences our decision making and tells us what is right and what is not. Let us examine this a little more and define what Mindset is.

Webster’s definition - ‘a mental attitude or inclination OR a fixed state of mind’;

Oxford’s definition - ‘the established set of attitudes held by someone’

Wikipedia - ‘set of assumptions, methods, or notations held by someone that it creates a powerful incentive to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviors, choices or tools’

The key part is that, mindset is developed over a period of time based on experiences that we have had. Hence, we look at the World through the lenses of our past. When two people are faced with similar situation, they could read it very differently and draw different conclusions based upon their past experiences.

However, we are perplexed when we face new situation because we do not know what is right or wrong as we are facing it for the first time. We are willing to look to others to help/guide us and are more open to learn and then react. For a situation that we faced in the past, we are very confident of judging what is right/wrong because we have had our experience in that space.

BUT the most important question is – are we willing to accept that how much ever experience we have had in our past; it is possible that there are other angles/experiences that we are not aware of? Are we willing to accept that the truth (as so we call it) or right (as so we deem it) could be the truth/right as we understand (limited by our experience/knowledge/skills) and there could be another truth/right? More importantly, can we agree that it is important to LISTEN to others, UNDERSTAND others, where they are coming from before we brand them as ignorant or stupid?

All of us have gone through many communication classes where they teach us aspects of listening. They teach us all the skills that are required to listen – bend your body forward to indicate attention, nod your head, and paraphrase what you have heard so that the other believes that you have heard him/her. But what they do not teach is WHY it is so important to listen? Not because we make the other person feel good that we listened to him/her but because we are AWARE that our experiences/knowledge/skills could be limited and by listening to others, we are developing ourselves much better. By listening to others, we are improving ourselves and more importantly, it helps us to understand ourselves much better.

Today, the World is changing at a rapid pace. New technology/innovations are revolutionizing how we live and operate. In such a World, past experiences may not hold good to learn the present or forecast the future. Hence, it is even more important that we are willing to LISTEN and UNDERSTAND; we are willing to be more open to changing our MINDSET. By doing so, many of the conflicts in this World could be addressed much better and more importantly, we can address many of the “conflicts” that we have in our own personal/professional lives. Are you willing to take a chance?