Innovation

What is the meaning of ‘Innovation’ to you?

Depending on who you ask, you are likely to get a different answer. Here are a few responses that you might expect:

• Doing something new
• Generating crazy ideas
• Move fast and break things
• Doing something that nobody else is doing
• Disrupting industries with new ways
• Doing traditional thing ‘cheaper, better and faster’

It could definitely mean many more things to a different organization but one thing for sure it is not a siloed team sitting in four walls of the corporate buildings. If you really expect out of your ‘innovation’ investment make sure your ‘innovation’ team speaks to your end-user/consumer. Incumbents who are doing investment without any strategic direction are soon going to get toppled by new entrants.

It also reminds me of a quote from my recent read ” Skin in the game”

Two people can be using the same word, meaning different things, yet continue the conversation, which is fine for coffee conversation but not when making decisions especially which affect other people.

Some books [really] change the way you see the world

Since I started my professional career, one of the advice that I got from seniors and people whom I admire, was to read books. During my school days, most of my friends were reading fiction books and taking inspiration from them I started reading fiction books but I could hardly complete those. Fast forward to professional life where I got introduced to amazing people with various backgrounds and cultural biases, non-fictional genre caught my attention. With the vast resources available at various firms where I offered my services, I started reading about everything that I could find from entrepreneurship, human psychology to evolution theory.

Recently I read Sapiens by  Yuval Noah Harari and it had profound impact on me. It is a book about human history and evolution. It tries to answer some of the astute questions that is there today. What are the effects of all the four revolution? Can we free ourselves from our cultural biases ? Are we really happy today compared to our ancestors? For person like me who have little knowledge of history, this book is a masterpiece for me. It really changed the way I think about people from other culture, region and ideology, the way I think about my family & friends and most importantly the way I think about myself. Some of my favorite quotes from the book.

History is something that very few people have been doing while everyone else was ploughing fields and carrying water buckets.

Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.

We study history not to know the future but to widen our horizons, to understand that our present situation is neither natural nor inevitable, and that we consequently have many more possibilities before us than we imagine.

Having understood(maybe partial) the human history and what shaped current generations, can we use this knowledge to build or at least shape better future for coming generations? Strongly recommended for everyone who would like to understand how history has shaped us in who we are today.

Expectation: Real cause of your unhappiness

How many times you feel disappointed/nervous/unhappy?  Just because someone has not done something the way you want. Just because you were not able to deliver something to your boss. In both the situation it is the expectation that makes you disappointed/nervous/unhappy. In first case your expectation is high from other person. While in other case your boss is expecting more from you. Also in education(especially in India) parents expect more from their children. Every parent wants their children to be a doctor/engineer . But they don’t understand that each and every human on the earth are unique. They have their own feelings  , capabilities and virtues. If a child’s father/mother is engineer/doctor  , then they force their child to follow(continue) their profession. You can not Expect Everyone to be Yourself . I am not telling you that expectation are bad. It is a motivating factor but it should not harm to your happiness. Always keep in mind Life never turns the way want.

So.

Expect More From Yourself and Less From Others…..

Work More…..

But never override your expectation with your happiness.