Two years ago, when we embarked on the journey to create a culture of creativity in Vodafone, many expressed their apprehensions. By and large, we too felt that it was not an easy exercise but we were prepared to take the challenge head-on. We have 23 circles across the country, which act like independent business units.
While creativity exists in individuals in every organization, it is important that we know how to leverage it and create value out of it. It is easier for a small organization to tap into this talent. But for a large corporate, the visibility and connect with people at the grassroots becomes difficult due to processes, size, geography and various other factors. Managerial busyness takes over the business, and people spend time in making phone calls, attending meetings and sifting through the to-do list, even as they fail to realize the priorities.
Finding the Missing Link
During the year 2010, we realized that people are creative but the platform and process is missing in the organization. The creativity was being tapped through adhoc means or not through well-established platforms. Most people at the grassroots level have a lot of things to contribute and would happily participate in the organization building activity. This is quite a healthy sign and reflects a vibrant culture. To us in IT, it meant that a potential revolution lied at the bottom, and I was confident that change would flow from the top.
We created a platform and a process for submitting ideas and attached the workflow. We created processes in different circles and we piggy-backed the IT chiefs of different circles to support. When we launched the portal in November 2010, the response was enormous. We had 26 creative ideas in the first hour of the launch. It exponentially grew and we were worried about the backend to process these ideas. We could see "innovation hungry" people everywhere in the organization.
Fear of Failure
Execution of the ideas submitted through this platform posed a challenge. People were too busy to act on ideas due to various operational pressures and limited bandwidth, because of which, the focus and attention was getting lost.
The fear of failure was taking over, as any setback would not only mean death of ideas, but also death of the culture. The revolution at the bottom did not trigger the anticipated change which we envisaged from the top. I went to the executive council meeting to get support and presented the entire concept. It was encouraging to note that the support for innovation existed, and the management was keen to leverage the existing platforms for harnessing innovation and creativity.
I was asked to piggy-back on the already existing renovation platform to drive innovation. There was a "Fast Forward" platform meant for changing business processes to make it more effective and leaner existed and was working across different circles and geographies.
I thought that this process should be more evolutionary than revolutionary. May be we are going too fast and we needed to go slow first and gain momentum later. I thought of slowing down and joined hands with "Fast Forward" and aligned creativity and innovation with this platform.
After consistent follow-ups and persuasion, the "Fast Forward" team agreed to join hands but they had a different approach in mind. I was dependent on them as that was the only option available.
From Idea to Execution
We discussed the approach and corrected our strategy. We were back to the drawing board again to chalk out a different plan. We went to different circles to understand the changes we should bring about to make it successful and took the feedback to recalibrate our approach.
As a next step, we completely revamped the process and technology, where we eliminated extra layers of approval and gave more control to business to manage the show. The governance layer was modified and it promoted democratization and crowd sourcing of information. This would mean "Power to You" for business and people. It also removed controls and boundaries and made it more collaborative for people across circles. We also changed the approach from "Push" to "Pull" even if we had to wait for long.
We added a component of fun and gaming using betting and rating of ideas. We launched this platform once again and it was a new beginning. We decided to retain the ideas generated using the previous platform. It was aimed at giving confidence to the people we had not forgotten their ideas, and we were determined to take it to the next level.
We initiated the campaign for the tool and I was happy to see one big circle willing to promote creativity. This was the turning point and we launched the portal in that circle and calibrated the process. This time the difference was that it was driven by business and supported by IT.
But soon we hit another roadblock. Post launch, people stopped submitting ideas. To promote the concept, the HR in that circle launched a reward and recognition program and things started to turn around. Today, we get at least one or two ideas from this circle every day and it is successfully getting into implementation as well.
Today, this platform is being used as a means of differentiation by several business units and not only have they requested us to implement it, they have also sought support in making it better and more effective.
I now see the culture getting rooted, and people are by and large happy. Every fortnight, we launch new features, such as rating of ideas, discussion forums, Thumbs up for ideas, betting on ideas to gain points and scores etc. People are also measuring the dollar value of the ideas that have been implemented. Around 6 percent of ideas got implemented, ringing in benefits to the tune of over Rs. 20 million. The potential of the ideas in pipeline is worth more than Rs. 100 million at a very conservative estimate.
Throughout the entire experience I remembered "When going gets tough, tough gets going".
Lessons Learnt
There were quite a few lessons learnt but some of the experiences were beyond the scope of this article.
1. It is not always easy to implement or promote creativity and most of the resistance is towards execution of ideas. We should not always expect or depend on the support which we often take for granted. The challenges could be more for bigger organizations.
2. We should go slowly with the approach and allow it to mature. This is also something which cannot be pushed but rather wait for pull.
3. Creativity should not be seen as IT initiative. It should be viewed as a business initiative supported by IT.
4. Technology plays a key role in success. With democratization and crowd sourcing, more acceptance will come. Create a lot of fun around the concept and let people enjoy.
5. Reward, Recognition, Competition etc are major catalysts for success.
6. You need to be prepared for a long drawn battle and there are no shortcuts. It requires patience and infinite hope to succeed and we should be accepting failure gracefully.
7. Giving success to someone else makes sense. Always make it a success of the person who wants to drive and/or execute. The creator and/or sponsor may not be very important.
8. This should revolve around the KRAs of business leaders and one needs to align this initiative as a platform for meeting those KRAs. You can see people motivated to run with you.
9. Focus more on the evolutionary model, as revolutionary is often resisted. Any existing platform in the organization can be aligned. Expand it later gradually.
10. Show some early successes and publish it. Campaign is very important for such initiatives. Keep publishing success stories in different media and forums and ensure proper marketing.
11. Be prepared to face difficult questions from senior folks at every stage. At times, you may feel that it is a thankless effort, or at times you will see strange reactions such as "this won't work here". Accept them gracefully as they are part of the change and don't keep but change course when you hit roadblock.
Hello DD,
At the outset, let me congratulate you for a crisp article.
6% hit rate of implementation is great. Good admonishment to encourage youth, to keep their enthusiasm till the ideas are implemented.
Sridhar
Thanks DD for sharing your great insights about the innovation process. I adore every person who are working so hard to implement an innovation culture. I would only like to add the importance of having business values, visions and a communication plan. My experience is that innovation has to be a part of all departments and peoples needs not only business.