Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, Welingkar Education: Pathways to Democratization of Innovation: Removing Barriers and Promoting Triggers to Innovation[/b]’ at 3rd Global Innovation conference by AIMA at Taj Palace .
If recession becomes so frequent a visitor to the global village then definitely it is high time for the leaders of the world economy that they gave it a rethink. We need to , dwell deep into the folds of the economy and zero in on the root cause. But who are these orchestrators of the economy and market forces. Are these the global managers whose decisions would have a domino effect on the world economy? Are we training them suitably to meet the volatility of market forces?
Dr Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research offered some priceless insights into the prevalent innovation scenario as he outlined the bottlenecks and the possible pathways. Here are a few excerpts taken from his address at 3rd Global Innovation conference by AIMA at Taj Palace, 22-23 Nov, 2011 at Mumbai. Dr Salunkhe was chairing a session on ‘Pathways to Democratization of Innovation: Removing Barriers and Promoting Triggers to Innovation’ The other speakers on the dais were Mr Arvin Baalu, Director, Harman International India Pvt Ltd and Mr Raghu Gullapalli, Senior Consultant at Accenture Ltd.
Juxtaposing the old economy with the new, bringing out the radical transformation it has gone through, Dr Salunkhe he highlighted the intense need of the educators, corporates and the leaders of our society to be more creative, farsighted and imaginative. The present economy thrives on change, unpredictability, technological advance, innovation and design. Somewhere we have become anachronistic in our approach; what worked yesterday is not sure to deliver today. We need to rethink how we train our workforce; will it help them sail through the dynamic (read volatile and chaotic) world they are going to operate in.
We have to remove the fear of failure or aversion to unknown from the psyche of our modern workforce. We as academia, corporates and leaders have to buffer our talent pool against the fear of failure, rejection or punishment. Let us not snuff out the creativity and innovation of the young creators and risk takers; we need to stand by them when they show a willingness to create something new.
Most of us avoid the prospect of failure to such an extent that we at times forego attempts to success, settling instead for a life of mediocrity. If we can engrain the philosophy of being the best or quit the field, it will make tremendous sense. It is not that the we need only the top players but yes the thought and spirit to be the top players will make each one deliver the best.
Our entrepreneurs should guard against siloed existence. Such confined existence stifles smooth interdisciplinary transactions with related domains and stakeholders. Very brilliant domain knowledge but unsatisfactory interdisciplinary skills make for lopsided professional personae. We should make sure that our managers have domain knowledge with sound interdisciplinary approach. After all, no business thrives in isolation.
Mentioning of the team spirit, he said in the best of times and worst of situations it is the team spirit which keeps one going. But sadly Indians are very individualistic when it comes to it. As global citizen managers we should develop an extraordinary team spirit in multiple disciplines. Many leading players have realized the drawback and are already working on it. We can devise out educational clusters and with various faculty and branches under one roof, we are trying to do that in Mumbai University. We have already signed up with TISS for Social Service,Industrial Design Centre (IDC) of IIT -Mumbai and VJTI for engineering.
Before wrapping up the session Dr Salunkhe also dwelt upon the significance of the role of a teacher as a leader. If the head of the institution has leadership qualities s/he can pass on the same to his students and work wonders to their perspectives, approach and vision . Considering the same, the onus of grooming an entrepreneurial talent that can take in its stride the myriad fluctuations and managers which will be leading players in the world economy lies on our academics or teachers today.