Companies are going every extra mile to survive the competition
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Pradeep Khandwala, former director of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, and an expert on corporate creativity, had a simple test at his workshops for CEOs. He would give each of them a common or garden brick and tell them to write down 20 uses, the zanier the better. The average CEO would see the brick as a component of a wall. The marginally creative type would remove it from a wall and visualise a spy hole. The man who really thinks with his left brain would donate the goldfish to the office dog, put the brick in the fishbowl and call it a pet.

“In the days before the Tamagotchi, this would have been creative thinking,” says Mumbai-based HR manager D. Singh. “Today, pet rocks are commonplace; you can sell anything to Americans.” For the record, pet rock “inventor” Gary Dahl sold five million of these pebbles in six months for $3.95 each and became a millionaire in the process. Packaging for the rock, a fad in the 1970s, included a “Pet Training Manual” and a cardboard box, designed like a pet carrier. The manual contained instructions on how to properly care for the pet, including how to house train a pet rock by placing it on a piece of newspaper and other commands including sit, stay, roll over, play dead and come. People paid for and swore by their rocks. That’s the power of creativity.

Today, creativity is no longer enough. You need disruption. What would a disruptive CEO do with a brick? “He would wedge it on top of his door and brain his secretary when he walked in next,” suggests Singh. It may not result in a new world, but it could mean a new secretary.

All this sounds nice in theory. So do the weird ideas (see box) that Stanford professor Richard I. Sutton recommends for the workplace. But what would happen if you actually tried to implement them? “The company would collapse,” says Singh.

Yet it is undeniable that stodgy companies will find it increasingly difficult to survive in a fast-paced age. There are scores of products and sectors that have succumbed to change. Look at the manufacturers of typewriters, slide rules or cast iron buckets. But these are the very places you cannot introduce innovation. Nor can innovation be institutionalised. A corporation either has such genes or it doesn’t.

Companies in India are even more traditional than their peers around the world. Mukesh Ambani is selling pillows. But can you visualise him selling something along the lines of pet rocks? “In India, about the only place corporates encourage creativity is accounting,” says Singh.

How do you break this idea logjam? What some Indian companies like Marico are doing is keep people moving from job to job and function to function. As every role is new, they are not overly worried about failure. There always has to be a learning curve.

Second, take a closer look at Sutton’s suggestions. They are all creative. But some of them are less disruptive than others. Arrange them in order of disruption and work your way down the list.

Third, send people out to organisations that encourage creativity. Would a creative organisation want a stick-in-the-mud playing party pooper? Possibly yes; they too have something to learn. You can’t go to a rival company. “Try your ad agency,” says Singh. “Most agencies go out of their way to seem different and creative.”

Fourth, send your staff to creativity workshops and seminars. They will probably treat it as a paid holiday. But some things do rub off even if it is just a new awareness of how the other half lives.

Finally, ignore everything that is written in this article. If it has already been documented, then it’s neither new nor disruptive. Throw a brick of your own around; it might hit someone with a brainwave.

The weired way:-

Sutton’s recipe for stirring the corporate pot

Weird idea 1: Hire “slow learners” (of the organisational code)

Weird idea 1.5: Hire people who make you uncomfortable, even those you dislike

Weird idea 2:Hire people you (probably) don’t need

Weird idea 3: Use job interviews to get ideas, not to screen candidates

Weird idea 4: Encourage people to ignore and defy superiors and peers

Weird idea 5: Find some happy people and get them to fight

Weird idea 6: Reward success and failure; punish inaction

Weird idea 7: Decide to do something that will probably fail; then convince yourself and everyone else that success is certain

Weird idea 8: Think of some ridiculous or impractical things to do, then plan to do them

Weird idea 9: Avoid, distract, and bore customers, critics, and anyone who just wants to talk about money

Weird idea 10: Don’t try to learn anything from people who seem to have solved the problems you face

Weird idea 11: Forget the past, especially your company’s successes

Source: Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation , by Robert I. Sutton.