TWENTY QUESTIONS FOR DILIP MUKERJEA: QUESTION 8

[continued from the Last Post]

Question #8:

Most organisations, at least in Singapore, see ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ more as acts of lip-service, without readily quantifiable results to justify their long-term pursuits. In other words, there is a perceivable gap between training investment and a company’s bottom-line. What are your expert thoughts? How can you help us to make it work for us?

DM:   Yes, and I do not blame them. Once the fizz is in, everything fizzles out! But this is not because ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ per se are at fault. It is due to a lack of follow-through. This is a crisis of leadership. You cannot expect to establish something durable out of a solitary event that takes place here and there. A culture of creativity and innovation must be established. This takes time and effort, but most importantly, it must be generated and reinforced through vision, discipline, passion, and conscience.

Every person and every organisation is subject to global forces. The hallmark of the 21st c. company will be its ability to expect the unexpected, to be faster, more flexible, and more responsive than ever before. Strategic agility and competitive robustness are going to determine corporate destinies.

If I were involved in such an endeavour, I would ensure that I first craft an Innovation Landscape or Strategic Dashboard, and ensure that from CEO onwards, the people are kept involved, informed, intrigued, and inspired. This is easier said than done, but without resolute commitment, every vision will suffer from an equal and opposite revision…at huge expense! We need to consider the following points for organisations to make rapid positive strides into the future:

· Look at whole systems, not at just their parts.

· Order and disorder are inter-related, and self-organising change occurs as a result of their interactions.

· A small event in one sector can cause tremendous turbulence in another.

· Well-crafted maps, models, and visual images and symbols, metaphors and analogies, make it easier to see connections, relationships, and patters of interaction.

· Panoramic scanning across disciplines, domains, and industries is the key to seeing emerging conditions, paradigm shifts, and opportunities for innovation.

· Nonlinear thinking is crucial to recognising clues about shifts in the environment.

· Perspective is vital when viewing chaotic events, especially from a metaposition.

[to be continued in the Next Post]