Leadership & Innovation

Good Leadership drives innovation. Probably that is how we got Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad from the same company Apple Inc. under the leadership of Steve Jobs, though infamous yet popular Windows OS and other many MS products from Bill Gates. And there are many examples across both public and private sectors.

Or at national levels where Pt. Nehru had a vision for India and achieved tremendous lot in very first few years of independent India. Also where Kennedy set a whole nation on a long path of over a decade towards Journey to Moon that lead to the famous "One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" from Neil Armstrong.

You may have as many great skilled people, education, degrees yet but one man with conviction, charisma and leadership can change the destiny for the masses in villages, cities or a whole nation.

Innovation

Innovation is doing something in a new way. It is about bringing in radical and incremental changes to a product, processes or services.

How to Innovate?

1. Identifying the affects (or syndromes) with an existing product, processes or services
2. Identifying the causes for the affects.
3. Arriving at a solution and fix the cause.
4. Now every other person may come up with a different solution.
5. Innovation is about the best solution to a problem. It is thinking out of the box and bringing in a new radical change.

It may sound as if the innovation is problem solving. No, innovation is about finding the most effective solution to any problem. Also, any solution is effective only if it meets the general constraints of cost, time, scope and quality. Also we may say that innovation is very subjective and any problem solving is called innovation if it effective at that moment of time. Like the classic ingenuity of the Apollo 13 team who were able to bring back safely the crew members to earth when their mission to moon failed due to an oxygen tank explosion.