innovation and learning

Jayashree Sadri and Sorab Sadri 1

INNOVATION AND LEARNING [RESEARCH BASED OBSERVATIONS]

PROFESSOR JAYASHREE SADRI AND

DR. SORAB SADRI


BASIS

This presentation is based on research work independently conducted by the two authors and some academic papers they have co-authored with Dr. S N Tara and Prof. B S Guha between 2000 and 2008.


Value Centered Organizations

In order to register developmental growth and increase the general quality of life value centered organizations are the need of the hour.

These organizations require a culture that promotes creative and innovation within a learning environment.


Basis of V C C

The basis of a value centered corporate culture lies in the policies and practices that flow out of sound business ethics and good corporate governance.

So doing the propensity of building a learning environment increases.


WHAT WE SAY

RESEARCH IN WESTERN INDIA [1997-2006] SHOWS

Management initiatives towards promoting learning and innovation are a crying need in organisations.

In a country where social and employment security is at a high premium all change is positivist – from top downwards.


METHODOLOGY

Participant observation Focused interviews Experiential evaluation Critical analysis of secondary data Selective feedback


EMERGENCE

A realization that quality must be built into the person the process and the product.

A paradigm of quality fuelled by innovation and learning at the organizational level.

A methodology for appreciating the nature and content of the change dynamic at the total environmental level.


RESULT

An Ideal Strategic Management Intervention Involves Being Objective and

Using A Scientific Method

FOR:

Initiation through diagnosis

Being based on values and beliefs

Activation of ideas for value creation.

Evaluation of results


WHAT WE FOUND

COMMON CORPORATE PERCEPTIONS

Usually a buzz word only to be used in public fora. Acceptable only if it means no rise in costs. Usually inspected only at the end of the process flow. Seen as a constant only to be built into the brand and P R presentations.


WHY WE SAY

We are living in an environment that is constantly changing.

This change is non-linear and non-Newtonian.

Disequilibria is dynamic and fuels the engines of growth.

We need to evolve new paradigms all the while.


HOW THIS IS DONE

Keep running even to remain in the same place.

Continually multi-tasking and multi-functional.

Always have a global vision. Move from core competency to divergent

competency. Use strategy as a stretch rather than as a

fit.


BASED ON OUR RESEARCH Promoting innovation and learning is the

panacea for a majority of organizational ills.

These ills are nurtured by the insecure mediocrity.

There must be rise of a collective consciousness – a holistic awakening.


WE LOOOKED CRITICALLY AT The personae and processes of the

accumulation of capital.

Quality of mindsets, that point to innovation and learning as the optimal solution to various problems that organizations face.


CULTURE

In explaining their importance and their justification we have zeroed in or organisational culture building.

Through proactive OD intervention Preceded by strategic diagnosis Followed by objective evaluation.


No Ad Hoc Intervention

Innovation and learning cannot be spasmodic activities undertaken by select individuals in the management.

A corporate vision must unfold such that strategies flow out of objectives that in turn come from the corporate mission.

These strategies are the product of well thought well planned and well executed initiatives.


HOW THIS CONTINUITY

Pursuing our line of thought we argue that policies of firms have to internalise in order to implement these credos.

There are shared values, shared visions and shared initiatives.


POWER AND AUTHORITY

It is a mistake to believe that authority is delegated.

Only power is delegated and with empowerment comes accountability.

Clarity and cogency at every step aids achievement of well reasoned objectives.

The ambit of quality is thus defined.


A HEGELIAN DICHOTOMY Empowerment without accountability

breeds TYRANTS.

Accountability without empowerment breeds SLAVES.

Both propositions are unacceptable.


YET

Tyrants and Slaves flourish. Sycophancy is cherished. Mediocrity thrives. Ad hoc practices prevail. Development-less-growth is accepted. Paradigm change is resisted.


SO

Stability becomes inertia.

Free thought becomes a challenge.

The cycle of change is not progressive.

Old wine is presented in new bottles.

Tick marking activity becomes very important.

Quality deliverables are merely mouthed.

India remains on the periphery of the capitalist

world order.


THE IMPERATIVE

Quality deliverables ARE the only answer.

Continuous innovation and learning HOLD the key.

Change in thought (consciousness) MUST precede change in action (decision making and execution).

LEARN to reflect before and after the act.


THE PROPOSITION

Limerick and Cunnington posited "Metastrategic Cycle“:

A concept that links together vision, identity, configuration and organizational action.


THE METASTRATEGIC CYCLE This has four basic elements or stages

within it and is relevant to India as Sadri and Ajgaonkar have argued:

(i) Founding vision, (ii) Identity, (iii) Configuration Design and (iv) Systems of Action.


THE INNOVATION PARADIGM

Strategic focus in respect of quality, relevance

and performance was possible only through merit

review, human capital management, technology

enabled business processes and performance

assessment that was inherently creative and

innovative.


OUR VIEW

The innovative organization contributes to continuous improvement and transformational change through a range of interdependent systems of action focused on individual and organizational development.


OUR LOGIC

Such an organization has

Roles and relations existing as a multidimensional web rather than a lateral flow.

People work together across divisional, functional, and hierarchy boundaries easily.


OUR SCHEMA

(a) A bias for reflection-in-action (b) Formation of learning alliances. (c) Developing external networks. (d) Multiple reward systems. (e) Creating meaningful information. (f) Individual empowerment. (g) Leadership and vision. (h) Enhancing quality of mindsets.


OUR SUBMISSION

India’s economy is at crossroads where Quality is an imperative.

In embracing a free market economy we must not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Competition must flow into collaboration through strategic alliances.

The human being must not be forgotten in the quest for technological superiority.

For the above to be actualized sound business ethics and good corporate governance are indubitable.


The Big Question

Aristotle once wrote some people are born for leadership as others are for serfdom.

With a neo-colonial mentality and living under conditions of peripheral capitalism, albeit of a retarded variety, are we trying to prove Aristotle right?


QUO VADIS?

Six decades ago India got its freedom. Today we must continue to fight for our

independence. This involves an emergent collective

consciousness fuelled by innovation and learning but founded on the quality of thought word and deed.


Our Task Ahead

Without levels of gyan buddhi and vivek being raised we may be free but forever we shall pine for independence.

Can guan (knowledge) buddhi (intelligence ) and vivek (consciousness to discern) be nationally raised?

How? Who by?

innovation and learning

Business

sorab sadri

intervention innovation

change dynamic

paradigm change

value centered organizations

corporate vision

quality of mindsets

ambit of quality