Tata is well recognized for innovation, and the Tata Nano, the world’s least expensive car, is a good example. What should an organization focus on first to create a culture of innovation like you have at Tata?
I think the first point of entry into this jungle is to socialize the notion that innovation is a good thing. What does it look like? What leads to innovation? What’s the difference that an approach like this will make? Socialization is an important part of the journey in helping people frame issues differently and in having them aspire to be more innovative in a pull sense, rather than having to be held accountable and pushed toward innovation.
It’s about feeding a person’s curiosity to get them to engage in the question: If I really want to have an innovative culture in my organization, what helps? You need to enable people to talk about this and say things such as, “Here is what Clayton Christensen at Harvard thinks creates an innovative energy, and here is what Julian Birkinshaw at London Business School has actually discovered about the qualities of an innovative organization. Let’s have a conversation with these people.”
What tools do you use to help Tata’s group companies improve their innovation capabilities?
There are a few processes and offerings that we provide to the group companies that enable them to look at different dimensions of innovation. Through all these efforts there is a sense of acclimatization that being innovative is not seen as nice to do, but everybody aspires to do it. For example, we’ve put together an InnometerTM based on Birkinshaw’s model. It gives you a dipstick into your own organization, analyzing your innovation process and culture and what you can do to make these more innovative. We also have an innovation management process called InnoMultiplier. This helps identify opportunities that companies should spend creative energy working on. It was developed with input from Clayton Christensen.