Creativity and Innovation in Business Drivers
45-minute interview
Professor James E. Burroughs, McIntire School of Commerce, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Interviews
Sanjay Dalal, CEO, oGoing Inc., and Chief Innovator, InnovationMain - Creativity And Innovation Driving Business
What are the key drivers for creativity and innovation at your business?
Do you have what it takes to deliver successful, "killer" innovations? What are some do's and don'ts? What drives innovation - Leadership, Passion, Culture, Execution? What are the key processes? What is your innovation culture? What drives creativity & innovation at your business? What is a creative culture? How do you create an "Ideas Factory"? How do you see things from separate lens? Can you build an "Innovation Factory" at your business?
Get answers to these questions, and real insights... in this five-part interview. You can also read the entire interview transcript below...
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Detailed Interview Transcript of Professor James E. Burroughs' phone interview of Sanjay Dalal, CEO, oGoing Inc. and chief innovator, InnovationMain:
Q J. Burroughs: I appreciate your allowing me to record it because it does make things a lot simpler in that respect. I actually think I want to take something of an unusual approach to the interview with you because usually in sort of preparing for these interviews and doing my research, people have sort of a— their background is sort of— It fits creativity and new product development in a very particular way but I have to say that your background strikes as much more eclectic because you have a company that you run, you sort of have this academic interest that you’ve done in terms of publishing, you’ve got this list of the 20 most innovative companies that you assemble and so it really seems like you kind of have a lot of different viewpoints on that and so what I thought I’d do first is to sort of just ask you to comment a little bit on your background and how you became interested in this and how it’s relevant to what you’re doing today. Does that make sense?
S. Dalal: Interested in, you mean what you’re going to be asking me about, or just in innovation general?
Q: Yes, just in the general issue of innovation and creativity in the area of new product development, sort of how did you become so involved in thinking about these issues and how does that affect your current focus, for example, with oGoing or anything else?
S. Dalal: No, that’s great. I think since I moved to Silicon Valley, if I go back in time to 1997 I want to say, [laughs] I moved to Silicon Valley in 1997. We used to be in Austin before that. I was working at IBM and I think that was the change in the sense of working on kind of a larger outfit where you’re contributing but you’re one of thousands or tens of thousands [laughs] versus now I’m in the Silicon Valley, I’m working in my first start-up which was eComLive where we had the product which we christened it later on, the name was Rendezvous and then we made it Visual Rendezvous and really that you’re almost like, you know, I’ve been an engineer, a computer engineer, a computer software engineer. I was on the software development side so far, you know, with my experience at IBM and the one before which was at Honeywell Bull which became Bull HN eventually. [It] was really now thinking through about not just developing great software but what are the benefits of making that software, I mean, why should somebody care about it, what is the customer value proposition, so I start thinking about all of that because I essentially joined a start-up, right, and when you are in a start-up, you start wearing multiple hats.
Q: Can you comment on some of the— You mentioned this is your fourth start-up. What were some of the other start-ups you were involved in?
S. Dalal: No, this is first start-up after I moved to Silicon Valley, right, so before that I was in larger companies, right? So Honeywell Bull was a huge company. Then it became Bull HN which is— That’s all in Phoenix and then I was at IBM, so, again, I’d only worked in large companies before so this was my first foray into working for a small start-up when I moved to Silicon Valley.
Q: How did you get involved in sort of assembling this list of the 20 most innovative companies?
S. Dalal: Well, that actually was much recent, so this was something later, I want to say 2006 is kind of after being in multiple start-ups, after moving to Silicon Valley where I was at eComLive. That was for two-and-half years which is really where I started honing in on the whole field of product management and product marketing where how do you really create innovative software in this scenario, you know, that you can bring to the marketplace and really make a market around it, right, so that was my first foray and then after eComLive I was at WebEx for about six years and after WebEx I was— Again, at WebEx I was a product manager where I launched multiple products at WebEx, again software products. We [delivered] software as a service so, again, that’s where my background was, increasingly creating innovative software products, launching them in the marketplace, growing them to become market share leaders and once I was beyond my WebEx days, you know, which is in the 2006 timeframe, I was consulting for another company out of India which is Educomp. They’re the largest eLearning providers. I did that for about six to nine months and then I was really trying to figure out what is the next thing I want to do on my own [laughs], so that kind of was the crossroads, if you may, late 2006 timeframe per se.
I [did] a really good education through eCornell which could be of interest to you because that’s where there was a whole section of classes I took which is part of their executive certification calling Leading Management Teams and as a part of that, some of the courses were about leading through Creativity, so [when] I’d done all that before and when I was doing things as a software product marketing and product manager, that kind of education kind of brought it full circle. I thought, oh, now I need to create my own brand, so to speak. [laughs]
Q: Were you doing this at Stanford? Stanford’s well known for some of their being out in front on creativity innovation and education or was it somewhere else?
S. Dalal: At eCornell. Cornell... .
Q: Sorry. I missed that.
S. Dalal: Cornell University. So that’s kind of— So, in 2006 is when I said, well, you know, how do I really put together an innovation index because, you know, one is so I’m still a student, how do I really understand how is that all of those great companies— I read Jim Collins’s book, Good to Great and I’m like, okay, how do those companies really make that leap from good to great per se and what does innovation and creativity have to do with that. From there...
Q: I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but it makes me think of a question—so what after all of your studies and dedications to this has made you convinced is the key to innovation, successful innovation, and successful creativity. What are the factors that you see as particularly critical that affects your mindset?
S. Dalal: Well, I mean, obviously you have to have a product vision, right? So, I mean, the first and foremost is what are you planning to innovate about, right? I mean, it could be a product, a process a service. And that doesn’t come to everybody, right? I mean, you’ve got to have that vision of what is it that you’re looking at and many times if you’re in business, it happens because, you know, your customer is calling and they’re calling about issues that they’re having with a current product and in the process of solving that, a challenge is you probably strike some new opportunities in the process, so that happens, too, but by and large, if you’re trying to generate something totally new like what Steve Jobs would do, right, create a new iPad or an iPhone or whatever and his team, I think those are visionary, so first and foremost, I mean, you’ve got to have the vision in your thought process about what is it that the market is looking for or going to be looking for and that I think is foremost. I’m talking about great breakthrough innovations now, you know, I mean, that vision of creating a new product, a new service, a new process, you know, that comes either from instinct, you know, that you’ve developed over years or that comes from some kind of acumen that you have about a certain market or a certain industry, you know, through experience. For example, the founders at WebEx, they had the vision that the world is going to be all about online meetings and they stuck with that vision although there are other providers doing similar things, but really, they made it a much bigger company out of that.
Q: They’re certainly looking quite prescient at this point, aren’t they?
S. Dalal: [Laughs] They’ve made a lot of money, too, in the process. So those are the first things to do.
Q: Continue your thought.
S. Dalal: So that I think is the first and foremost to creating innovative products is having that visionary thought process about what the changing, you know, I would say the ecosystem or landscape of demand is going to be and I think that is key and then, of course, once you have that and the execution of it is the key item. I mean, you’ll probably see everybody going around with lots of ideas but how many of them actually put [these] idea into fruition. And to execute that is a lot of work, that needs a lot of passion, that needs a lot of drive, that needs perseverance. You’ve got to be really optimistic about what you really want to do. It’s almost to the point you’ve got to be a little bit crazy about it, too, I guess. [laughs] And you’ve got to [allocate] a lot of resources, like your people, your teams, you know, whatever you can, you know advisors, everybody to really believe in what you’re trying to make and have you, you know, give you that opportunity or create an opportunity to make that happen.
Q: Well, that actually leads to an interesting thing because you mention that everybody sort of has to have a joint passion. How do you go about creating that in an organization because it’s easy as sort of the founder or the CEO to have that passion because you’re the guy who gets to most directly experience the benefit but what about your rank-and-file employees. How do you get them passionate about creativity and thinking about new products that might help the firm?
S. Dalal: Right, so now again, not every division in your company is going to have— they’re not all going to be creating new products, but the key is, you know, sort of start off with your product organization and then I’ll branch out into different other organizations, so beginning with the product organization, your job as a CEO is going to be hiring great product engineers or product marketeers who believe first of all in your vision, and you look for people to hire, you know, you have to have a sense of what have they have done before and importantly, and are they coming on board to really be I would say, you know, be equal or be sharing in your beliefs about creating a great company around this product that you’re creating and I think it takes a lot of encouragement, you know, it takes a lot of— you know, it takes almost a— they have to have some skin in the game in the sense that they’re also parties to this and that happens through sharing your company in the sense of your shares, if you may, you know, the stock options or giving them incentives to deliver great new innovations by providing [carrots], if you may, so, again, you’ve got to incentivize your team but I think ultimately if they come on board with the thought that, yeah, let’s build something great out of this.
The product guys are always, as I said, they’re the most passionate. They will go along for the ride and then they will continue doing that inasmuch as they’re seeing results of what they’re doing and that’s where you now bring in other team players which is your sales teams. How do you incentivize your sales guys so they’re also as motivated as you are and your product teams are and for that to happen, again, sales is incentivized mainly by, again, you know, selling and if you have something that you offer your sales people that they can sell and they can build stories around that and then they can tell their clients about how valuable this is for their businesses and you get those first five sales, you know, where you really help them all together, the product teams, you know, where you do the product demos together, go see your clients together, etc., and so really handhold them through your marketing approaches and your product team approaches so that it’s almost like, you know, you ‘re handholding the first five deals for your sales and once they see that, yeah, this is making a difference in my customer’s lives and they’re coming back and asking for more, and back on the sales guys are really energized because now you are going to be sharing those sales success stories not only with other sales team members but also the rest of the organization [to] say, listen, now look, you know, we’ve got those first five clients, they are using our services. They’re having— Their response from that, you know, let’s drum roll please, let’s talk about it.
Q: A building process.
S. Dalal: But it works. It always works because now not only you are encouraging or you’re talking with your clients but in the process, you’re talking about the sales teams who made that happen so you are, in a sense, you know, you know, recommending and encouraging those players who did a great job of making that happen and then in return, you’re also telling about the product team, so it just feeds on itself and I think before you know it, now the whole sales force is behind it saying, hey, let’s start selling this product now because this is really catching on. But you’re right, it’s a process. It’s not overnight. These things can take weeks to months to years. [laughs]
Q: Sure.
S. Dalal: As part of a leader, you go to have that patience in the sense of depending on what market you are in.
Q: So vision is both what the product might be and how you’re going to get over the long term.
S. Dalal: Exactly. You cannot— Say, with oGoing, you know, I come back full circle, I look at my business over the next five years and I will develop things that I want to do, you know, so I have some thoughts about what I want do this year and then next year and so on and so forth. Then, obviously, you know, as an innovator you got to be able to change the course depending on what’s happening in the market place. You’ve got to be nimble to do that as well.
Q: I’d like to come back to something you mentioned a few minutes ago and follow this up a little bit further because you talk about incentivizing employees and you talked quite a bit about the importance of selecting the right people to begin with. Once you have people in place, at least for the short term, you’re sort of stuck with who you have. Is there anything that you can do to enhance the creativity of the people that you have and by the way, it’s not just necessarily people who aren’t creative but even creative people maybe, there’re things that you can do to get them be more creative. Have you given any thought to that type of an issue?
S. Dalal: Well, I mean, that’s a classic question that all organizations struggle with—can creativity be taught or is it in you and after doing a lot of innovative products through my own efforts and with my teams and then looking at what other companies do, I mean, definitely there is a culture that you can create within your company which can be what I call a creative culture and to develop that, it always starts at the top and I always used to remember some of the CEOs I used to work with, they always were going around offices and people, every time they’re making those rounds, if you may, one of the questions they would always ask is "what’s a new idea today" or "what is something new that you thought of today" and I think that simple question, just asking around the employees about what are some ideas they are seeing in the sense of whatever they’re working on or what they’re hearing from the field or what the customers are telling you or what they’re hearing from competition, to breed that culture where you bring forth ideas so that it’s not something that stays within but it’s something that gets shared, is very important, especially for a growing company, even once a company has grown to a certain point, because that’s where they’re going to feeding the next new product they’re going to be creating and it’s not as simple because you have to really create that culture about telling stories, as I said, going back to every customer that you have is a story that you talk about, and every new competitor you sell against and you win, that’s a story you talk about, so every new product that you launch and as to how you thought about creating that product, that’s a story you talk about, so by doing that storytelling or sharing those best practices and insights, that’s how you create that new culture where if you bring forth new ideas or new thoughts or new ways of doing old things you will be rewarded, so ultimately it can be made a process where you can create an idea machine, if you may, or an idea factory where you have a place, a [repository] or a database where everybody’s welcome to share their ideas. No idea is a bad idea or a stupid idea, as I say, [laughs] and then have a way to evaluate the idea, so, you know, have a team which is what a lot of companies do which would evaluate the ideas as they come in and then share everything so keep it very open and transparent about how you evaluate things without favoritism and it doesn’t matter where the idea comes from, you know, everybody’s ideas are equal and I think ultimately you share the results, you know, out of so many ideas, here are the top three and now we’re going to make a decision about which one we’re going to be moving forward on and I think when you create that culture, it really just takes off because everybody feels that they’re contributing whether they’re the product teams or customer service or even as mundane as the back office, so because sometimes they may have ideas about how they can create savings, if you may, for the company, so it’s that which a lot of Silicon Valley companies are getting more and more adept [technologies] and then that’s probably why you see the results in the sense of not only their top line revenues but also how efficient they are in terms of their operating costs and so on.
Q: So if I can summarize, it sounds like you’re emphasizing three characteristics of a creative organizational culture. One is that it’s open sharing. Two, that it’s non-judgmental, and three, that’s everybody is able to claim ownership of the ideas and the products. Is that a fair summary?
S. Dalal: Very true. On the money.
Q: Is there anything else that goes with a creative culture that you can think of?
S. Dalal: Well, it’s learning from mistakes, so, I mean, obviously when you create that culture and not all ideas are going to be successful, so when you start saying, okay, let’s move with this and it’s an instinct to unfortunately many times for many managers is give me your point, I want something done go make it happen but in this culture, actually you’ve got to reward ideas that fail. I tell you why, because when it fails, you learn from that mistake and as much as [that] failures, if you may, happen fast enough which is what you’re looking for [laughs] so you haven’t invested a lot of time and resources. It’s always— We call it fail fast], right? So, the key is failures are to be rewarded inasmuch as successes because, again, you cannot hit a homerun every time. Hopefully, you hit a homerun 1 every 10 at bats, right, so how you reward failures as well and actually have a sort of a memory in place, you know, in the sense of institutional memory that has all the things that you’ve done and your teams have done so that, you know, when somebody else is looking at it again because teams change, people change and companies change as well and they evolve, there is an institutional memory which says, you know, been there done that so let's not repeat it unless there is something really changing in the landscape, then we must re-address what we were thinking about earlier; so, again, that ability to learn from your mistakes or to learn from your failures and evolve from that as quickly as you can. It is also essential for success in the long term.
Q: Sometimes when firms try and enhance creativity, they take very deliberate types of steps. For example, they’ll engage in a training issue that might involve visualization or trying to go through exercises to think out of the box to get the creative juices flowing. Have you experienced any of that in your organization and do you have any thoughts on those types of exercises? Are they valuable? Have you not seen them? Anything along those lines?
S. Dalal: You know, I mean, I was hosting a whole boot camp on that, the Innovation BootCamp, where I was teaching potential clients about how to train yourself to do exactly all of the above, what you just told me, so I think the—
Q: You went through visualization techniques or what did you exactly do in the boot camp?
S. Dalal: Well, I took them through a whole process of thinking from a different set of eyes, if you may, or lens. That’s how we defined it, so finding new ways in how you really think through creatively so we went through a lot of exercises in the sense of different analysis from Shanks and Bales and, I mean, the whole six sessions I do including case studies of how some innovators do it and so I’ll be happy to share with you some of that; but as far as training is concerned, I mean, I have experiences at a lot of Silicon Valley companies and they are, you know, although there isn't a lot of training per se as to how to make you think clearly because, believe it or not, [laughs] the organization has a lot of creativity flowing to begin with in the sense of, as I said, the product teams because they’re made around creating their great products and great services from the get-go.
Q: Silicon Valley’s kind of unique that way, I suppose.
S. Dalal: Yeah, but when I was doing my boot camp I did talk to a few mainstream companies, a couple of companies in financial services and a couple of companies who were in IT services or consulting and I think there that is not the case, you know, and they found a lot of value from the training I gave them in the sense of how do you really, you know, what I call creating that innovation factory at your business and what are the different processes and steps you need to take so that your team, your organization, becomes more creative, and you create those products or services which matter and make a difference, but, yeah, there’re different techniques I would go through, you know, and so I definitely found that those definitely, you know, use for companies who are more mainstream as they get bigger and maybe the teams aren’t as made up of kind of the classical creative product managers which you would probably find a lot more here in California, I guess. [laughs]
Q: Sure. If I can just, again, try and capture the thought here, so it sounds like these training or creativity exercises are— You think it might actually benefit from your experience. It stands kind of to benefit more organizations that may not have such high creative firepower to begin with, so there may be a relative benefit to going through these exercises as well depending upon the nature of your organization. Is that fair?
S. Dalal: Very much so and, yeah, I mean, and I think from what I’m seeing from all the different businesses which have downloaded— both my ebook as well and I provide the resource— I call it a resource kit, which has the presentation about all this creating the innovation factory and a lot of them have been implementing some of the key tenets from that and I’m also seeing a pent-up demand from a lot of overseas companies, you know, global players, which are in the emerging economies and a lot of them are seeing value from the processes that they can create at their business to be more innovative and to create new innovations. I’m seeing that demand as well as I— So there was time where I had a thought process in 2007 was maybe I should start a whole practice outside, overseas within a few of the emerging countries because obviously there is a pent-up demand over there to be more creative and create this kind of new company around new ideas and new markets out there.
Q: Without asking you to divulge your trade secrets, you say this innovation factory kind of process idea that you go through, can you offer any examples of the types of things that you do with clients that you take them through to try and help them to get to think more creatively. What types of exercises? You said you mentioned cases and exercises? What types of things might you do to try and make people think more creatively?
S. Dalal: Well, it’s interesting that a lot of them, they haven’t been trained per se or they don’t think through— I think the key is that they don’t think from somebody’s else lens, so one thing I always make them do is start thinking not just from what you want to do, but what is it that you want to do it for, or who’s going to be the recipient, who’s going to be the user and once you start thinking from that user’s vantage point, a lot of creativity starts because now you are putting your hat or putting your whatamacallit lens in that user’s head, so you are planning to make a product for a VP or sales or his team, you know, what is that that person does on a ongoing basis, you know 24/7. What is his role for that business and how does he go about doing it and the key is, if I want to make a product for him or his team, then obviously you’ve got to put that time, you know, if you’re going to be a creative person to really understand that person very well and then what is it that you want to do to make their lives easier, make it better, and, of course, cheaper as well, right?
So, that process, it’s easier to say people know it but a lot of times they don’t know it. They start creating something without taking that into consideration many a times and I think to instill that thought in the sense of how do you— The word I want to use is— It’s almost like you have to do it, right? So, you’ve got to put your feet in that person’s feet and then really understand how well they do things and then you come back and say, well, here is what we want to do, and then when you’re seeing those other products you want to do, are you taking continuous feedback from that same people for whom you’re creating the products.
Now, if you’re Apple, they don’t do a lot of that, something that I want to say that Apple is an exception to some of this. They create new products with the thought processes that this is where the demand is going to be and many a times they’re creating new demands, so it’s kind of unique player in that market place.
But most companies to create new things, they really put themselves or they need to put themselves in a who is it that they to create those products for and then really— And it’s not easy because I think when you put it in down on paper saying, you know, for example what is their job and what do they do every day and who do they interact with and what are their goals and aspirations and what is it that they’re going to be delivering for their business in the next two quarters and by the time you do all of that, and then you come back and say, well, now create your value statement about what is it that your product is going to do for them and how far— and how effective would it be in making that happen and how easy is it going to be and so it’s that thought process also where you if you can start championing that in your mind and say, you know what, this is how I’m going to go about doing it, then I think you’re onto something great and, yeah, then if you have new idea, anybody has a new idea, you know, you start drilling that idea all the way through that process, I mean, who is this idea going to be benefiting, right? And then you identify, this is your user of this idea, be it the sales manager or the product manager.
Then you say, okay, now show me how is it going to benefit them and where is it going to benefit them and how easy is it going to be for them and if you can answer those simple questions for me, then the idea will get to the next stage. If you cannot answer those simple questions for me, then let’s go back to the drawing board and figure out is this the right idea to go for.
Q: A better way.
S. Dalal: A better way, exactly. And I think that process many a times is missing and even for the most established companies, the idea filtration, I mean, how do you really take all the ideas you get and filter them through what I call is a machine of sorts, you know, for lack of better of words and it’s a process and then how do you really evaluate that; some companies, they really do good at it like the P&G and 3Ms of the world and the new players like Google and Apple’s of the world. Amazon is doing an awesome job there as well, but not everybody does that, right? They are only able to come out with breakthrough products every few years, to really start creating new markets.
Q: Maybe because that process gets away from them a little bit. Is that a fair characterization?
S. Dalal: Exactly, because what happens is you start with your first one or two products and you build a company around it and then everything seems to be revolving around those products that you already built, so it’s very easy to be [thinking] in that way because those products are bringing you money, you know, you have clients who are using those products and those clients are coming back to you and saying we need more of those or we need more of somewhat variation of those, so you really start tinkering with what you already have.
Q: Become myopic.
S. Dalal: Which is fine, I mean. Yeah, and that’s incremental innovation and that’s all great. I think it works for you for a certain time but ultimately what happens is in doing so you miss out on a new opportunity which is probably right there in front of you.
Q: Well, that actually makes me think of a final question I wanted to ask you, if you wouldn’t mind taking just two more minutes to comment on. You’ve had an unique opportunity to work for very large organizations like IBM and Honeywell, I believe you mentioned, and then very small organizations, I mean, as small as your own start-up which I presume was relatively few people, at least at first. So, how does the role of creativity and innovation differ in a large organization versus a small? Are there differences? Am I being too presumptuous there and if there are, what are they and what are the challenges that go with those types of issues?
S. Dalal: Well, I think, the biggest thing in a large company because it becomes a certain size, you know, you have to, for lack of a better words, your company starts developing walls or departments or teams and your role is in sales versus your role is in marketing versus your role is in products versus your role is in customer service and when those walls get created, for lack of a better words, everybody is working on their roles. Now, as I said, in an innovative organization, I wouldn’t say they don’t have walls but at least their culture would be to tell everybody who comes to the company as to, first, think from your customers’ point of view, now what is it that you are doing which is going to be impacting your clients, you know, all our clients and how is that you bring forth everything that you learned from that back to the company and I think that culture has to be really, I want to say, ingrained, taught, especially as companies get larger, that listen, we are in the business of helping our clients so everybody in the company, you know, be it in sales or customer service or product teams or marketing, everybody has to be always thinking through from how you deliver the best product, the best value, and I think when you’re a small start-up organization, the clients mean everything for you.
Everybody is wearing multiple hats, you know, so you go out of your way to serve your clients because without those first 5 or 10 or 50 clients, the company is not going to be around next year, so it’s interesting that when you are that small how everybody in the company is already focused on and doing everything for your clients, you know, be it taking the laundry out—I’m just kidding here—but what I’m saying is you will do everything and anything possible to be sure the client is happy and they’re getting what they’re looking for when you’re that small, but as you get bigger, what happens is since the roles get more defined and those walls get created, unfortunately, a lot of companies they’re not able to come out of those walls and it becomes like, okay, that’s your job versus, no, that’s not my job kind of a thing.
Q: Working against that open borders idea you talked about earlier with the creative culture.
S. Dalal: Exactly, so that I think has to be taught. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the back office trying to create mundane accounting work or writing checks all the way up in the front office where you’re working closely with your top five clients. You’ve got to have that culture where all ideas are to be ingrained. You’ve got to bring forth everything that you learn and share that with the rest of the organization so everybody gets rewarded [for] all good ideas and I think that as you get bigger has to be even more pronounced, if you may, because if you don’t do it, then you run the risk of not finding something, you know, a new opportunity that your competitor is already looking at and they’re going to run with it before you know it so, I mean, I think that’s the key, so to have that openness, that transparency, you know, sharing of ideas, rewarding of ideas, rewarding of failures, learning from your failures and all your institutional memories and then really talking about it, write stories about it, and I think that’s what at least I’ve seen make a lot of companies great, you know, in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Q: Ok well listen, Sanjay, I promised to try and keep this to a half an hour and you’ve already been more than that generous with your time, so I want to thank you. Here’s what I’ll do. First of all, if you have any questions for me, I certainly would be happy to try and answer those now, but what I’m going to do is it’s hard for me to send an MP3 file through the email but what I can do is either put it on the thumb drive for you or I’m going to have them transcribed and if you like, I can just send you the transcript and if there’s anything that you’re concerned about in that transcript, you can certainly strike it out and I’m also happy if you would like to send you the final product of what the research is for your review if you’re curious to see it. It’s not the most riveting reading in the world but given your—
S. Dalal: No, I would love to see it. I love to see where is it that—
Q: I’ve had some really interesting interviews with some people at some really big organizations and some really innovative organizations and they’re very interesting. If it’s any consolation to you—
S. Dalal: What has been your analysis or what have you been observing so far, if I may?
Q: Well, I’m trying to be as non-judgmental about it as I can but one of the things that’s very interesting that keeps coming up is the notion of being open-minded and about the notion that failure is okay. I think that runs contrary to what a lot of organizations, the way they’re structured and it seems to me that creative organizations find ways to value all ideas recognizing that, as you used your baseball metaphor before, you’re not going to hit 100%, you’re not even going to hit close to that. You’re going to bat 10% or 20% and that’s okay. I’ve had several managers comment on that and some of these were from some of the most creative companies with reputations, some of which you’ve mentioned. I also think that this notion of team work which wasn’t initially one of our focuses and I’m not sure will make the cutting room floor for this project but might make me think about another one, it seems to me that creativity is not—
You may have one visionary person, a Steve Jobs, but at the end of the day, creativity has to be harnessed from everybody in the organization. It’s a team process that’s messy, it’s sausage making, and it’s difficult and I think there’s a tendency to see creativity as this one visionary guy sitting at the top of the tower coming up with these great ideas that he sends down the hall and I’m not sure that’s a very healthy visual of creativity and you seem to really kind of affirm that, that it’s a much more on-the-ground understanding of people’s problems, grinding through them with them. It’s much more arduous process than that and I think that’s a very interesting idea. Would you consider those to be fair characterizations?
S. Dalal: Very much so and actually one of the slides which I borrowed from one of the visionaries out in Europe is there’s talk about how innovations or organizations are changing from top down to bottoms up and I think if you look at kind of exactly what you said, you know, where it used to be— where innovations used to be one or two guys starting at the top saying this is what we want to do and how that has completely changed or at least in this forward-thinking organization, about how it’s really bottoms-up approach about how you really— It’s kind of all the whole web 2.0 effect as well, you know. You can use the word like crowdsourcing and collaborative sourcing and so on and so forth as to how a lot of sharing of ideas and sharing of feedback and sharing of thoughts and opinions is what can drive the next “killer” product for your company.
Q: That’s very interesting. I think we’re starting with the working premise that creativity is something that everybody acknowledges is important but people— there’s a lot of variance and misunderstanding about what it is and how you go about leveraging it and we’re trying to get some better insights into how do you get a handle around this thing that we all know is important but I don’t think that we have a very good sense of what it really is. It’s a very enigmatic idea.
S. Dalal: One thing I want to say is that it does involve a little bit of adventurous thought in the sense of the risk taking and I think that as an organization becomes larger, they do tend to become more risk adverse in terms of trying out new things and I think the smaller they are, the more— And I don’t mean risk in a bad connotation. I mean risk as in taking that leap of faith and saying, oh, let’s just go with this and then see how far we go with it, right? So that notion of risk taking, it tends to get less and less as you have your CFO looking at everything you want to do.
Q: I think that’s an interesting— So, not reckless risk, but risks that’s willing to calculate the payoff of taking some bigger chances. I think all organizations tend to get that way because we have more to lose the bigger we become, right? So, there’s more on the line.
S. Dalal: Exactly.
Q: Well, listen, I’ve taken to much of your time already and I do appreciate how you’ve helped us with the research. I will get you this transcript and I will also get you kind of the final summary. Be warned. It takes a while. It’s an arduously slow process in academics, but as soon as we get this together, I would be more than happy.
S. Dalal: That you are doing it so I appreciate that and I would love to review it and hopefully if you’re okay, we can talk about it when you give me the go on that.
Q: Absolutely and I’d love for you, if you’re willing, too to give us some feedback on the research and say, well, l I think you should think about this or I think you should go farther with that or whatever because it definitely is a creative process. Thank you very much.
S. Dalal: Ya. Thanks.
Q: Bye Bye
Selected references:
Leading Business Innovation eBook & Resource Kit
Apple's Innovation Strategy
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world
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