Is innovation promoted in your company?

Ok folks...writing a serious topic on a rather light note.

Newton was sitting under a tree when an apple falling triggered a whole new set of laws of physics. What if he had to come to his lab at 9.00am and leave at 6.30pm. I wonder if he would be able to see the apple at night :)

I believe there ar 3 imp skills sets which every growing company must have.
1) People who come up with ideas, build businesses from zilch to .1. These guys cannot be contained by things like timing, rules, comparative politics within an organization. It absolutely hinders any ideation process.

2) People who can take .1 to 10. Guys who have imagination but need a framework or a skeleton. They will push businesses from mere ideas to a working machine.

3) The savvy scalers.... Guys who can take a business from 10 to 100. They will take the working machine and completely scale it to new heights .

The fact is that newtons contribution to physics, mathematics as well as optics is beyond imagination, however he did get eccentric at the end of his life...was it alchemy that he sought? which led him to do experiments on himself will never be clear. The fact is that a creative mind like his will not be bounded and will go ahead with what it wants to do not keeping in mind the requirements of day to day life.

Can we as normal people actually find out what is whose skill set (very tough if we actually start doing this) and accordingly allot them work..or are we as companies and maybe even as a society churning out clones? Are our policies, organisation structures, renumeration packages supporting this differentiation?

The fact is scalers will need discipline, but innovaters might need a completely different ambiance.

Chicken and egg - blame the person or the workplace... the fact is that both lose out on their talent potential.

Straight from the heart

Its been 7 years.

However it doesn't feel too long yet. I wonder now if its time to move on. At times you are stuck in situations which are nobody's fault, yet they occur. The feeling of being a stranger, or being distrusted, or being in the midst of folks you gotto live with but are totally unlike you and all because you are hanging on to a memory of past happiness and satisfaction seems foolish.

We had the same dreams, the same goals, we totally believed and trusted each other, yet cracks appeared. Some faults were mine and some were not.

At times to grow you need to leave the familiar behind and explore unchartered waters, push yourself to the edge to the cliff to fly. Its necessary to do...yet you leave a lot behind. A tough choice...and the only person who will be affected is me.

Money Talks

I feel fear. It was an alien concept to me. Yet I feel fear now.

I really ought to think of whats the worst that can go wrong..? My car could get stolen, my bosses could get non supportive and dis believing, my house could get robbed, all my savings could vanish as the stock market could reach 12000 points. (not far from reality). It could also be all of the above as I have observed thats the way life works. When you get, you usually get more than required and when u lose, it could be everything.

Another point of deep thought of all of the above is that it is all related to money!

How did I start thinking so much about money. This slowly creeped up from nowhere maybe a couple of years back when my company went in for an IPO. How peaceful was it when I didnt have any money...just getting a little bit of it gives it an opportunity to control me.

Is anything really the worst thing that could happen? If my savings vanish or the markets touch 10,000 points or I lose my job...will it not be a blessing in disguise. Warren Buffet became the richest man in the world - he says when markets get jittery, maintain your cool, have a long term vision, look for buying opportunities. Another colleague says pray you can be solvent before the markets revive...which never usually happens.

As i take a rain check of what I think - though intellectually I agree with Warren Buffet, I think it could be a blessing in disguise and more than that I think I am just gonna chuck it...so what if you lose some savings in the short term or so what if you chuck a non cooperative job...the universe always has something in store for you.

"Disagreeing without being disagreeable"

It took me 9 yrs and Senator Obama's blog (which I got referred to by the India uncut blog) to really understand one of the most positive traits for success and leadership. This my friends applies to the corporate world as much as it applies to Politics.

My blindness surprises me as the biggest example of this trait is my CEO, who I have had the opportunity to interact with for long now.

We often lose our cool in meetings, especially when it is a topic we are passionate about. We also seldom have patience with colleagues, friends who disagree with us. It could be about a promotion idea, a new product or feature discussion or it could be about something as mundane as how to drive a car by the rules. Do we discuss, talk without belittling the other?

I know people who do and they are a league apart from the rest. I have much to know and change within myself to point fingers at others here.I have grown wiser today. So I end this blog here with a quote from Obama's blog -

"In fact, I would argue that the most powerful voices of change in the country, from Lincoln to King, have been those who can speak with the utmost conviction about the great issues of the day without ever belittling those who opposed them, and without denying the limits of their own perspectives."