‘The Wide Lens: A New Strategy for Innovation’ by Ron Adner

These days, it is enough to read the introduction and then quickly scan the rest of the content to absorb the essence of most management books. The Wide Lens is one book I have read cover to cover, and now am in my second round!

In today’s interdependent world, no matter your situation, your success depends not just on your own innovation and execution excellence, but also on the ability and willingness of the visible as well as invisible partners that make up your ecosystem. This is often a blind spot for many.

Using great examples from tyres to telecom – both successes and failures – Ron Adner introduces a new set of tools and frameworks that will uncover a company’s hidden sources of dependence in taking an innovation to market.

Here is a sneak peek into the Wide-Lens Tool-Box:

• Begin by gaining a clear view of your Value Blueprint. It will reveal hidden Co-innovation and Adoption Chain Risks. Drawing a clear blueprint will encourage you and your team to formulate a plan for dealing with problematic elements proactively, at the start of your journey. It will help you avoid the familiar improvisation of tactical adjustments that is the hallmark of incomplete strategy.

• Using the Leadership Prism to assess the distribution of expected surplus will help you identify who the natural ecosystem leadership candidates are, and whether you are among them. Using the First Mover Matrix will help you determine your ideal timing, letting you see whether the structure of interdependence is likely to reward early movers or hold them at the starting line waiting for the race to start.

• Exploring alternative blueprints using the Five Levers of Ecosystem Reconfiguration will help you arrive at a plan that can accept the constraints of your ecosystem and still deliver a complete value proposition. And coupling this exercise with the principles of the Minimum Viable Footprint, Staged Expansion, and Ecosystem Carryover, will help you identify the best sequence to follow in building toward your value proposition, and then leverage this achievement to extend your advantage to additional opportunities.

Bottom Line: Eliminate avoidable failure; strategise more robust success!

Aren’t the phrases Value Blueprint, Leadership Prism, Minimum Viable Footprint teasing you enough to grab the book at first opportunity?

Infinite Vision: The Story of Aravind Eye Care

"Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World's Greatest Business Case for Compassion" by Pavithra Mehta & Suchitra Shenoy

The mechanics of how Aravind works, are well documented by several business case studies, but they fall short on some fundamental questions like what created, and what continues to animate, the model. This is the crucial gap this book fills in.

The authors of the Aravind book start with an interesting inquiry: If Aravind is the extra-ordinary answer, what were Dr V's Questions? Discover they did, and how! The Indian Express columnist, Amulya Gopala Krishnan says, "A story about an organisational marvel, this book is somehow internally illuminated. It has a plot, poetry, and emotion - things you don't expect from a business title".

"To give sight for all" was Aravind's founder Dr V's vision! That's not a small goal even for world's governments, and Dr V was a retired person with no money, business plan, or safety net! According to the World Health Organisation's estimates, 39 million people in the world are blind, 80% of them needlessly so! But, when intuitive goodness is pitted against unthinkable odds, it stirs the imagination and awakens possibility. Spirituality was where Dr V found many answers! Through a continued process of aspiration, rejection, and surrender, Dr V was able to tap into an intelligence that went beyond the thinking mind. Aravind Eye Care System is actually named after Dr V's spiritual guru, the freedom-fighter-turned-mystic Sri Aurobindo.

It's not just this "spirit", but superb execution capabilities that made Aravind. That Aravind's assembly line systems and skill-based task delineation, ala McDonald's, maximise the Surgeon's productivity and deliver high quality service at low cost is probably well known, but how many know that it is the institutionalised quest for constant refinement that has perfected the model?

Sample this for an outcome of such perfection: UK National Health Service does 500,000 eye surgeries annually; Aravind alone does 300,000! That's not all... Aravind does it at less than 1% of Britain's costs! Because, Aravind model arose from a potent question "How much can we give for what we get?" vs. the more typical "How much can we get for what we give?" That question gave rise to a model defining insight, that there is a synergy between quality, cost, and the demand for services...

Combined with the non-negotiable service principle that there would be no difference in clinical outcomes between paid and free patients, and another insight, that the market price is set based on an average provider's cost and throughput, gave the strategic objective of phenomenal productivity, to give Aravind a decided edge in the marketplace.

Nurses are at the core of such productivity. They hand instruments to Surgeon in such a choreographed sequence, that the Surgeon's eyes don't even lift from the microscope! There is far more to the role of nurses than mere assembly-line efficiency; they are the scaffolding that holds the Aravind model in place and the most pervasive conveyors of its culture. The nurse recruitment process and the training system, described in the book, are pearls of wisdom in Human Resource Management.

Once the strategy is tested for its workability, the next step for any enterprise is scaling. "Start with a microcosm of what you're dreaming of; seeing it in motion will give the energy you and your team need" was Aravind's approach. Such insights pop-up through the book!

Taking on a goal that far exceeds your capacity has a powerful side effect. It primes you to find allies everywhere. At Aravind, the global mission led to counter-intuitive commitment to training its competition! That raises another important question "You can package and share what you do through workshops and training programs, but how do you systemetise and givee away what you are?" Read the book to find the answer :)

High volume is key to Aravind model, but eliminating curable blindness is not just about numbers, it's about reaching people in a human way.

With such deep insights into the evolution of a noble mission, the making of a strategy, the ring side view into execution details and the unique approaches to scaling of the world's greatest business case for compassion, I have no hesitation in commending the book as the Gita for social enterprises...

Little Bets by Peter Sims

University of Chicago economist David Galenson spent years studying groundbreaking creators, delving deeply into their personal histories and work methods. He divided innovators into two basic types, and called them conceptual and experimental. Conceptual innovators, such as Mozart, tend to pursue bold new ideas and often achieve their greatest breakthroughs early in life. On the other hand, experimental innovators use iterative, trial-and-error approaches to gradually build up to breakthroughs.

In 'Little Bets', Peter Sims strongly recommends the latter as the most practical route to success...

Fundamental to the little bets approach is that we:

1. Experiment: Learn by doing. Fail quickly to learn fast. Develop experiments and prototypes to gather insights, identify problems, and build up to creative ideas, like Beethoven did in order to discover new musical styles and forms.
2. Play: A playful, improvisational, and humorous atmosphere quiets our inhibitions when ideas are incubating or newly hatched, and prevents creative ideas from being snuffed out or prematurely judged.
3. Immerse: Take time to get out into the world to gather fresh ideas and insights, in order to understand deeper human motivations and desires, and absorb how things work from the ground up.
4. Define: Use insights gathered throughout the process to define specific problems and needs before solving them, just as the Google founders did when they realized that their library search algorithm could address a much larger problem.
5. Reorient: Be flexible in pursuit of larger goals and aspirations, making good use of small wins to make necessary pivots and chart the course to completion.
6. Iterate: Repeat, refine, and test frequently armed with better insights, information, and assumptions as time goes on, as Chris Rock (American Comedian) does to perfect his act.

The little bets approach is about using negativity to positive effect. If your plans fall apart, refine them; if you don’t know where best to begin, just begin somewhere. Every decision is a risk; take a chance and see what happens. Experimental innovators must be persistent and willing to accept failure and setbacks as they work toward their goals.

We grew up on 'Think first and act later' and 'Look before you leap'. Sims argues that it can be more rational to act first and think later, more efficient to fail and find out what doesn’t work. Because, ingenious ideas almost never spring into people’s minds fully formed; they emerge through a rigorous experimental discovery process. In fact, most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas; they discover them.

The entrepreneurial way of operating was also the subject of some fascinating research by Saras Sarasvathy, a professor at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia. In one of her studies, titled “What Makes Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurial,” she argues that the approach enables us to focus on what we can afford to lose rather than make assumptions about how much we can expect to gain. The affordable loss principle! Successful experimental innovators tend to view failure as both inevitable and instrumental in pursuing their goals.

What stops us from being experimental? Great emphasis gets placed in our education system on teaching facts, such as historical information or scientific tables, then testing us in order to measure how much we’ve retained about that body of knowledge. Memorization and learning to follow established procedures are the key methods for success. Even when we are taught problem solving, such as solving math problems, the focus is generally either on using established methods or logical inference or deduction, both highly procedural in the way they require us to think. There is much less emphasis on developing our creative thinking abilities, our abilities to let our minds run imaginatively and to discover things on our own. We are given very little opportunity, for example, to perform our own, original experiments, and there is also little or no margin for failure or mistakes. We are graded primarily on getting answers right. In essence, we’re taught to be linear thinkers - to follow pre-established procedures and plans - in a nonlinear world. If only the world were predictable!

To be sure, experimental innovation should not entirely replace linear thinking in our regular work processes. Engaging in discovery and making little bets is a way to complement more linear, procedural thinking.

The World that Changes the World: How philanthropy, innovation, and entrepreneurship are transforming the social ecosystem

I reviewed this book for Alliance Magazine, and the piece is published in their March 2011 issue. Am reproducing it here, courtesy http://www.alliancemagazine.org

This book is for you if you are even remotely interested in seeing a more equitable world. If you ever wondered why there is still such widespread suffering in the world, despite trillions of development dollars spent annually for several decades, Cheng and Mohamed have some answers for you. It doesn't matter if you work for a social purpose organization, business enterprise, government or media, or if you are just a concerned citizen, once you've read this book you will appreciate the nuances of what could change our world for the better. The book couldn't have been more timely, as the UNDP has recently developed an Acceleration Framework to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

In a uniquely collaborative manner, Cheng and Mohamed have assembled a group of cutting-edge thinkers and practitioners in the social sector to write the different chapters of the book. The rich and diverse perspectives brought in by Jon Huggett on social enterprises, Sara Olsen on social intermediaries, Stephen Young on moral capitalism, Robert Chew on technology for society, and Kumi Naidoo on civil society, among several others, provide a holistic overview of the large and thriving community that would be equivalent in size to the world's fifth largest country.

More importantly, Cheng's exceptionally perceptive opening chapter stitches these diverse pieces together through an ecosystem framework. In his own words:

‘At the core of a social ecosystem are the social purpose entities that seek to positively impact their beneficiaries, and the capacity builders that facilitate the mission of these social purpose entities. Around them are the community (individuals and corporations), media, and government (including one of its distinctive roles as the regulator) who collectively provide the resources, support, and scrutiny to ensure that the core players function as intended.’

Once you read this opening chapter and visualize the ecosystem framework, all the disparate pieces in the table of contents appear to be part of the same puzzle!

All the chapters are insightful in themselves. Sample these. Talking about the culture of charities in one of the chapters, Gerard Ee opines: ‘The same compassion that drove the formation of Charities to help the poor and needy, can result in poor governance, low performance, poorly paid workers, and a narrow focus on the needs of the poor that leads to suboptimal outcomes.’ In another chapter, which lays down an agenda for the future, John Elkington recommends: ‘The Phoenix Economy can be more rapidly achieved with concerted actions around an Agenda that comprises three building blocks. A manifesto that drives necessary change in the public sector, a prospectus that shapes investor and business decision making and strategy, and a Syllabus that informs future business education.’

The role of, and need for, intermediaries such as grantmakers and other service providers (that seek to build the capacity of the social sector) may not always be well appreciated. The fact is that all ecosystems need intermediaries to facilitate the core activities and oil the wheels of the marketplace. The editors did full justice to this by including three chapters on the ‘capacity builders’.

On a different note, social media, naturally identified as a key trend in the book, could have been dealt with at greater length, given its game-changing potential. In the chapter on technology, Robert Chew does say ‘the key value of new media is that it is simple, instantaneous, and viral’. Elsewhere in the book, Chris Cusano says ‘a vibrant citizen sector will ensure that society distils its highest empathetic ethics into the real hard stuff of social change’. My argument is that social media have the power to improve the vibrancy of the citizen sector and therefore merit much more space.

After reading this valuable one-stop-resource on the social sector, what else could one ask from the editors? Maybe an action-oriented epilogue! My personal experience is that ecosystems work when there is an orchestrator. Without a powerful orchestrator, participants in such a complex ecosystem as the social sector will find it difficult to act in concert. The epilogue could have identified potential orchestrators from within the ecosystem, and described what it would take for them to play such a role.

All in all, when you are done with this book, I am sure you will have a ringside view of the fascinating social ecosystem: what it is, what it could be, and where it could be going. You may even discover some innovative ways in which you can shape that journey ...

Shiv Sivakumar is chief executive – agribusinesses of India's diversified conglomerate, ITC Ltd. He is the architect of ITC eChoupal, an innovative business model that raises the incomes of small farmers while delivering sustainable shareholder value. Email sivakumar.s@itc.in

The World that Changes the World: How philanthropy, innovation, and entrepreneurship are transforming the social ecosystem
Willie Cheng and Sharifah Mohamed (eds) Jossey Bass $29.95/€24/£19.99
ISBN 9780470827154

To order
www.worldthatchangestheworld.com