Cafeteria — Holy Grail Of Innovation
In a career spanning two decades, working across the spectrum of Organisations and traveling across continents, what I have learnt is when each of the org may differ in terms of services they offer, products they build, the culture they follow but the common umbilical knot which ties all of them is the insatiable appetite for innovation. Understandably they have established frameworks and processes and invested in teams who could deliver Innovations. Despite all such best efforts, Innovation continues to be an unbridled horse whose course or speed could still not be accurately predicted.
So is Innovation pure magic? Or a chance miracle? Innovation is not a product of complex corporate thinking, but it’s a fresh breeze that blows in the middle of a casual conversation. Let me corroborate this claim from my experience. I spent most of my 30’s working for a large Healthcare Service organization; in one of the accounts, they were working on a project which will transform a lengthy, convoluted manual process into a simple electronic format that will not only reduce the turnaround time but also provide a higher level of efficiency. This was possible because there was a recent technical upgrade on the Govt’s infrastructure. There was a similar account team that was unaware of this change and was continuing to brace the traditional methodology. All it took is a casual coffee table interaction between friends who worked on these projects, and we had the “Aha” moment. Very soon, the idea was floated as a proposal, a new project was comfortably won, and the team was branded as “Thought Leaders.” It was not their domain experience nor the beautifully organized Innovation framework, but it was the cafeteria serendipity that enabled this innovation
If you ignore this as a one-off scenario, let me provide another example from GE on the power of serendipity. GE was asked to build a turbine in the middle of the ocean. Real estate was at a premium, so the turbine needs to be small; it also needs to be lightweight and since it cannot be easily accessed, it required remote monitoring capabilities. All these challenges have to be solved in a non-negotiable compressed timeline. A traditional iterative lab model would have been a No-Go. Instead, it was a similar coffee table discussion between GE Executives in an outdoor event that solved this enigma. The GE aviation team (small and durable engine tech) and GE healthcare team (X-ray and directional drilling) blended together their engineering experience, and the Next Gen Turbine was built much ahead of schedule.
Steve Jobs, the master innovator, was fully aware of this Serendipity. He was very particular that the new Apple headquarters had to be oval-shaped. It’s so that by design, the engineers from various departments will bump on each other, thereby creating a rich ferment for innovation. In post covid world, when WFH becomes the new normal it might stifle such serendipity and will overall slowdown such natural avenues of organic innovation
Even though the Corporate investments in so-called Innovation frameworks are admirable, they alone cannot guarantee success. What could definitely brighten the chances is designing avenues to promote informal banter. Be it’s a coffee table, smoke room, elevators, or the parking lot …they are breeding ground for the next-gen ideas. These are definitely not just novel thoughts, as, in the pre-internet/computer age, every household of our villages had a portico and a center platform under a banyan tree that served as a NASDAQ for ideas exchange.
Among the never-ending cacophony was a deeply embedded wealth of information that made our ancestors more informed and better prepared for the future. When such principles had worked for centuries and consistently delivered results, why do we fail to recognize and brace them now? isn’t this simple common sense? …share your thoughts !!