Book Review - Jugaad Innovation

“An innovative fix; an improvised solution born out of ingenuity and cleverness.”

That’s how authors Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu and Simone Ahuja define Jugaad. While we Indians generally associate the term with a negative feel, the trio give it a much more holistic definition in their book ‘Jugaad Innovation’. The Economist states that this is the most comprehensive book to appear on the subject. Is it true? Well, you have to read it to find out.

The book sets off in Ramakrishna Nagar, a village in the desert of Gujarat, where a potter Mansukh Prajapati turned into an entrepreneur a few years ago. He designed and developed Mitticool, his version of a fridge. It’s a terracotta box entirely made of clay, except for a glass door and plastic tray at the bottom. Water from an upper chamber seeps through the side walls, cooling the lower food chamber through evaporation. The fridge consumes zero electricity, produces no waste, is completely biodegradable and costs merely 2000 bucks. Witchcraft, right?

Jugaad Innovation

There are other ingenious designs and business models across emerging nations cited in this book, which make it a pleasure to read. The concept of Jugaad, the authors say, is not restricted to India. The Brazilians call it jeitinho; the Chinese have their own term for it: zizhu chuangxin while the Kenyans term it jua kali. Gustavo Grobocopatel from Argentina, unhindered by scarcity of resources and funds, launched his company Los Grobo which is now the 2^nd largest grain producer in the country thanks to Jugaad. Tulsi Tanti from Gujarat, faced with infrastructural bottlenecks while setting up a textile company, founded Suzlon Wind, the world’s 5^th largest wind energy solutions provider. It examines business models of YES Bank & Future Group (the founders of Big Bazaar) and tells us why and how those unconventional models succeeded in India. This book is laden with many more such examples.

Research states that a whopping $550 billion (about 60% of the total borrowing by the Indian government in 2011!) was spent by western countries on R&D in 2010. Organizations’ constant desire to over engineer and structure an innovation process does them more harm than good. That’s probably why we witness many western firms filing for bankruptcy.

Hence, the authors explain that corporate entities can (and must) incorporate Jugaad to encourage innovation if they want to survive cut throat competition. They enlist 6 principles of Jugaad entrepreneurs, which are:

·        Seek opportunities in adversity

·        Do more with less

·        Think and act flexibly

·        Keep it simple

·        Include the margin

·        Follow your heart

These principles are elaborated upon in form of 6 chapters very well; each chapter also has lessons on how the corporate sector can use the respective principles to innovate. The book inspires not only corporate leaders, but also normal people like us to develop resilience, passion, flexibility, frugality, simplicity and empathy so that we can contribute to society. A foreword by Ratan Tata and an introduction by Sam Pitroda (who pioneered the telecom revolution in India) only add to its credibility. A good entrepreneur is one who can feed 1000 families, directly and indirectly. Let’s try and make ourselves capable of feeding even ½ that number. And the only way to do it is through Jugaad. Jugaad Innovation is a must read for everyone, whether we want to be entrepreneurs or not. It will make you exercise your mind and come up with ideas of small innovations which can make even your daily lives easier.

How Much Has Our Brain Developed...

Over the centuries? Very little, from the looks of it. It’s 2012. Yet, here we are, falling over each other, proud to be part of the Cattle Class and dragging along each day. We now live under the illusions of possessions, crappy serials, petty politics and self importance.

Those in the 16^th & 17^th centuries had imagined the 21^st century would be the age of robots and artificial intelligence. What went wrong?

We are still stuck inside our lizard brains. For the uninitiated, it’s that part of the brain which is concerned with survival, food and sex (the very basic needs and emotions). We refuse to move beyond it. Relentlessly arguing with those who don’t get our point, feeling cheated if someone else gets what we felt we deserved, looking to avenge pain someone inflicted on us... the list can go on and on. We want to conform to those in power; be it our parents, teachers, bosses, influential friends or even those running the world. We want to study so we get a good paying job. So we do exactly what our teachers tell us. Then we do what our bosses say. Then our families, our children, our friends, our peers; all this just to ensure we live in the comfort zone. Comparison becomes a way of life.

The world talks crap: innovation and creativity! But when it’s action time, higher ups expect us to do exactly what they want. Why? They probably encountered the same thing. They’re so mired in mediocrity that’s all they can measure. Do you want to go the same way?

Chanakya, my guru for life.

Stop living in your comfort zone. You cannot make a difference by sitting in a plush corporate office. All you learn in cubicles is appeasing egos, while the real world is out there. On the streets. You learn it by watching, absorbing and comprehending. And accepting! Develop different points of view, learn what people’s latent needs are, understand what works with them and what doesn’t, how they can help you in making this world a better place, how you can contribute to society... forget people who left you, caused you grief, laughed at what you believed in; there are millions like them waiting to be herded by you the moment you do something ground breaking. Fighting doesn’t get you what you want. Even if it does, it’s a hollow victory. Breaking someone else’s furniture doesn’t make yours look any better. Only when we move beyond this lizard brain we will be able to build something more beautiful and make the world a better place. Here's how we can do it.

Yes, world has forged way ahead of what it was 200 – 300 years ago. But that isn’t because we humans have advanced over the years; it’s because some humans were adventurous enough to venture past the lizard brain and build something new... Niccolo Tesla (the real inventor of electricity), Galileo, Jack Welch, Steve Jobs and our very own Lal Bahadur Shastri, Azim Premji, Kishore Biyani and Narayan Murthy to name a few. They invented, innovated, built products, services and companies which are epitomes of success today. We merely copy what they did. Mind you, we do a sucky job at even that.

Our brain has developed substantially since the days of Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and Dale Carnegie. But how much of it are we utilizing? If we don’t go past petty issues we still dwell on, our kids will inherit a soulless world. Are we doing enough right now? Stand up! Don’t be afraid of being different. The world may laugh at you, but it needs you. It needs you to fix it, to make it sane, to see the bigger picture and be indispensable. It needs you to do something no one can repay you for. Yes, the world needs you. Can you deliver?

4 Lessons From The UP Results For Us...

UP has SPoken! Neither the then incumbent BSP nor the potential competitor Congress managed to succeed; the SP prevailed! I can’t delve into details of intricate political moves as I’m not qualified enough. So let’s focus on something else.

The Samajwadi Party winning by such a large margin was a huge surprise; it caught a lot of politicians and analysts off – guard. But, obviously, there had to be reasons. This is a case more of the BSP losing the election than the SP winning it.

Mayawati’s and Congress’ losses offer a lot of lessons for Corporate Inc. Some of them are elaborated below:

1.      Be genuine: - Hollow actions and words are easily seen through. The media may have hyped Rahul Ghandi’s visits to various areas in UP. But it was not enough for people to believe that RG was genuinely keen on working towards the upliftment of troubled areas in UP.

If your efforts don’t display genuineness, you can kiss a secure future goodbye. Genuine interest for growth of your organization is a must for success.

 

Rahul Gandhi? NO! Mayawati? NO!

2.        Look at the larger picture: - Mayawati, her sycophants and the Congress were busy slinging mud at each other, while the Samajwadi Party maintained its business friendly image. Congress pointed fingers at Mayawati’s corruption while the latter kept playing the Dalit card, refuting the Congress, etc. In the end, they both lost out mainly because they failed to see the bigger picture. The picture which promised hope and growth to business and common man in UP, something the SP did very well.

If you focus on only what your competition is doing, you’ll lose sight of the bigger picture (i.e. what value you can add for your customers). The cat takes the fish while monkeys are busy fighting over it.

Cometh The Future, Cometh Google+ !!

So I’ve spent more than a month on Google+. And I already feel that this site is much better than Facebook. I know I have done a lot of Social Network bashing on this blog, but I just had to try this one out. Well, I can attribute that desire to 2 facts; 1.) I am a huge Android fan. I like (& trust) them so much that my 1^st (and only) smart phone so far has an Android OS & 2.) the hype they created around the site and then delayed people joining up was a masterstroke. Now they may indeed have overloaded servers in ß – testing, etc. but it successfully managed to arouse interest and excitement in a lot of people (including yours sincerely) to sign up and check out what it is all about.

                             

I am not going to post the regular Facebook (FB) v/s Google+ review here. Yes, I will talk a little about how + is generically better than other sites and features and advantages over the others. But then I think I’ll touch up on some more points in this article also.

The overall interface of Google+ is pleasing and accommodates more than just the regular social networking options. Google has a lot of features we use like Gmail, Orkut (well, that’s passé now), Search Engine, Picasa, Google Docs, Youtube, Translator (sometimes), Blogger and much more. Google has their hand in nearly everything online and we know how much we depend on the California – based company. We see hyperlinks to all these sites on the top left of the home screen, thus making all these sites easily accessible to us. No more URL typing, no more visiting Favourites to open these tabs; it’s all right there once we log into Google+. Plus, it allows one to connect all her/his links/sites on the profile page (Twitter, FB, Blogger, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc.; anything you want can be linked right onto your profile page so others can reach you on those locations also). Features like "Circles" and "Hangout" are very innovative. You do not need to share all information with all your contacts here, plus you can add one contact to more than one circle. The amazing sensory function in "Hangout" which almost always accurately brings the person talking on the centre screen is simply genius. Plus, one can start a Youtube video and have the other members on the Hangout view it alongside – simply awesome. You don’t even need an Xbox avatar to chat with many people located at different places; + lets you see all the others in flesh and bone.

With all this happening, Google+ still does not seem to be picking up pace as fast as expected. Many attribute FB’s still all powerful account base to this. Some skeptics are not even sure if + will hold on to its own because Orkut and Buzz were flops. But I don’t think we should call Orkut a flop. It was the 1^st ever genuine social networking site and a super hit for well over 2 years. Google then learnt some more lessons through a couple of failed ventures and have now come out with this ingenious all – in – 1 portal. Michael Dell already proposes to use Google+ for customer service also to make life easier for his company’s customers. Many more will follow suit and try to device methods in which they can use this site for business (clients and vendors alike). Plus, Google+ has sorted a lot of safety concerns which were rampant on FB and taken care of a lot of loopholes lurking on FB.

When Orkut was introduced, people jumped onto the wagon like there was no tomorrow. They took time to move onto FB, but have been hooked onto the latter ever since like a fish. History will most probably repeat itself and people will inevitably transition over to Google+. Orkut was the SN of the past, Facebook is of the present, while Google+ is the SN of the future. I used to wonder what the SN sites of the future would have to offer. Google, ladies and gentlemen, has all the answers!