An i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I for an i for an I...

(final version published on 2-Apr-2024🔔)

Dear Reader,

Excited to be able to share a blog after a long time. I had some in draft state but never got to completing them and then I got involved in an effort at my workplace on the topic of Innovation which triggered my interest in writing a blog on the same topic.

Innovation: Definition & Wikipedia entry

lowercase i: small innovations

uppercase I: big innovations

Innovation is a deep subject and innovating is cool. I'm certainly no expert on it. There is no inherent rule book on innovation that says, 'If you follow these steps, you are guaranteed to innovate'. It does not work that way and there are numerous examples; from some of the greatest innovators in history to support this. But what we can do is put together some thoughts, some structure, some processes, some checkpoints to facilitate innovation.

So, here is my attempt at facilitating innovation.

I went back and reviewed all my MBA courses to see if I could find something but could not gather enough to put something together. The topic of innovation was spreadout across multiple courses and touched upon a different aspect of it each time. There was not one course on Innovation. Then I chanced upon the HBR book "HBR's 10 MUST READS: On Innovation" and used it as a basis for this blog.

I first read the book in Dec 2023 and my thoughts were all over the place. Where do I start? where do I end? what happens in between, who can innovate? and when is it a good time to innovate? at what scale does innovation happen?

So, I read the book again, made notes of all kinds and then came up with a first draft (pic of the first attempt below)

It still didn't feel like I had concrete answers. I kept asking myself, if I were to build a culture of innovation, provide a means for innovation to flourish and facilitate its growth - what are some the key things I would do? And not necessary that I need to innovate in a way that works for me but allow anyone to innovate in a way that works for them.

I tried a top-down approach, where in, I categorized the content into how relevant it is for a sr. leader, mid leader, and first line leaders; but this categorization automatically meant that certain people in an org do certain things and are responsible for it.

Naaa... you can't break innovation into silos. It is a whole in itself. A great idea can come from anywhere, from anyone (even from outside the org), and any time - so why silo it.

I then assigned some key words to each chapter in the book to capture the essence of the information the chapter was conveying. After a couple of iterations, I brought it down to 5 keywords: Sources, Catalysts, Planning, Sustaining, & Traps. In other words,

1. Sources of Innovation
2. Catalysts to Innovate
3. Planning Innovation
4. Sustaining Innovation
5. Traps in Innovation

I ended up with something like the pics below:

The keywords helped in putting things into concepts and I also did a wheel of innovation (as most commonly seen in management consulting presentations) and also a moat to signify traps, myths, pitfalls, and things to avoid. As a result, I lost all the important details that are essential to innovation.

This had no details. It is up levelled for someone who wants to get a gist of what to do to Innovate but it does not have sufficient details in it, such as, what traps to keep in mind to ensure an innovative idea is assessed correctly and is executed right?

So, I redid this and below is a picture of my second attempt to get this right. More as a means for me to understand everything myself and to convince myself.

I finally fell back to doing a mind map to capture the keywords and the details in them with sufficient references to where I can find the third level details by going back to the book whenever I wanted to.

Below is the mind map. I'm not going to explain the mind map in this blog. It is meant to be self-explanatory (as far as possible).

Links to PDF versions of the files: Page-1, Page-2, Mind Map

There is a chapter in the book with an example of Innovation at GE (now GE Healthcare). I tend to think of it as bonus material. I couldn't pick one specific takeaway from it. Instead, I came across a 'disruptive' way of thinking about innovation that Edison implemented during his formative years as a great innovator and in all his experiments. The disruption was, in how he brought together the scientists, designers, makers, and testers together in one place. A scientist theorizes an idea; goes to the next room and gives it to the designer, who designs it; who goes to the next room and gives it to the maker, who makes a prototype; who goes to the next room and gives it to the tester, who tests the prototype. What is happening here is the time from idea inception to idea validation with a real prototype is reduced significantly, which allows one to try many things quickly and continuously improve on the previous. Fail fast and iterate to succeed . 

The key here is not 'in one place' but reducing the time from idea inception to idea validation. At that time getting all the key people in the same place was important, it reduced the distance and time of collaboration. These days distance is not an issue so it is not required that everyone is in one room, per se. But time to collaboration is still important to be able to go from idea inception to idea validation as quickly as possible.

I'm going to go one step further and say idea validation in 2024 is not just customer validation and/or positive feedback from customers BUT a tangible, quantifiable and positive impact on income statement in some form or the other.

Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Until next time... possibly a blog on 'Pricing'.

Regards

Jyothin

What's your leadership style?

Dear Reader,

All leaders have an innate style of leadership that comes naturally to them. In B-school, I was taught how successful leaders have historically demonstrated a strong inclination towards one style and supplemented their success with the other styles.

There are four traditional styles of leadership.

Is one style better than the other? Certainly not, but every leader has a natural inclination towards one or the other and must ensure gaps in his/her leadership style are covered by other leaders in his/her team, either peers or direct reports. A holistic view is key when making leadership decisions. To consistently make the right decision you need to be a leader with a strong inclination in one style otherwise you cannot be 'Right A Lot' all the time.

There are drawbacks to each style. A strategist can get so caught up strategizing that they lose sight of the vision, lose the support of their team and are unable to show the value of a strategy. A visionary can paint a grand picture but have no way to realize the vision. A motivational leader can come across as someone who just talks without actually doing anything. If you are leading your team by example and fail to reach said goal, you risk everyone doubting you.

Are these the only leadership styles. Mostly yes, as most styles can be bucketed into one of the above four.

But there is more... a new leadership style has emerged in 'new age' organizations. This is not specific to technology companies and can be applied to any type of organization.

Problem Solver: Are problem solvers in thinking and win by solving real problems, removing barriers to progress, removing blockers, and take the organization in the right direction. Ex: Page & Brin.

A problem could be of any kind, a customer problem, a people problem, a process problem, a technical problem, a financial problem, a combination of problems, a problem of a problem, it could be visible, it could be hidden, etc. Identifying the right problem is the first step. The problem solving mindset works great when you are surrounded by a team of similar mindset. Would everyone like to solve the problem in the same way? Maybe not, there may be more than one way to solve a problem and that adds to the fun of problem solving.

If you are leader of style 'problem solver' and as an outsider you see a solution to a problem that some has solved, you have a Aha! moment, and realize that a solution that appeared weird earlier now makes perfect sense. The trap in problem solving is coming up with a very complex solution. Instead look for solutions that are simple to implement, easy to execute, and that you can build upon. Elegant solutions require out of the box thinking and multiple iterations to arrive at a good solution. It is hard. There is no playbook for solving a problem. But there are methods to identify the right problem.

I've come to like the 'Problem Solver' style and I actively use it in my work. However, my natural leadership style is inclined to 'Lead by Example'.

What is your leadership style? Tell me in the comments section or spend some time finding your leadership style and playing to your strength to get ahead.

Lastly, be mindful of the 'Moron' style of leadership where you just have to be a moron. It is most prevalent... and works very well too!

Until next time.

Jyothin

Pick Yourself Up

 Pick Yourself Up

Fred Astair version

Frank Sinatra version

Ella Fitzgerald version

Nat King Cole version from Breaking Bad - Breaking Bad Video

Peter Tosh version

Still applicable even in 2023

3 questions that help you get through the day

Dear Reader,

Hope you had a great start to 2023.

I was watching a business update by 2 business leaders and it included a short non-work related conversation between them. One leader asked the other leader, tell us a little about yourself by answering 3 questions,

1. What is your morning routine like?
2. What is your favorite vacation place?
3. What do you do to energize yourself?

Long after the video ended, I kept thinking about how I would go about answering these 3 questions. It did not turn out to be very difficult for me to get the answers. So, here are the answers and a nice way to let you know a little bit about myself.

1. What is my morning routine?

I don't miss making my bed and doing 10 mins of stretching every morning.

The habit of making my bed was a habit that my parents asked me to inculcate since my childhood but it never really became a regular habit but felt more like a daily chore. Years later, I read the graduation address given by a US Admiral in which he explained how making your bed gives one a sense of achievement. That really put this simple daily chore in perspective and it became a regular habit.

Body stretches help me literally 'wake up'. There are days when I feel lethargic and feel I just need another 5 mins of sleep. Stretching helps me overcome that and literally wakes me up and gets me active.

An afternoon routine that I got habituated to is 10 mins of deep breathing exercises (normally done as a daily calm). And yes, it helps get over any afternoon blues :-)

2. What is my favorite vacation place?

Beaches

I cannot get enough of a great beach time. Going for a swim, playing in the sand, listening to the soothing sound of the waves, watching the sun rise and set, eating healthly seafood, and just thinking deeply about things close to me.

3. What do I do to energize myself?

Cycling to work (and back home) helps me get some alone time, reflect on things and a 'cycling high'.

In fact, any physical activity that gets my blood flowing is a great way for me destress and energize myself. I also swim & play racquetball as an alternative to cycling. But cycling to work also serves the triple purpose of meeting my 'commute to work' requirement and lowers my petrol bill (and in turn save the plant).

Other activities that help me get energized are; reading a nice book/cooking a nice meal :-)

What are your answers to the above 3 questions? Let me know in the comments section.

Until later.

Jyothin

The Tree of Mindless Fruits

Dear Reader,

What would you choose given the below 2 options,

1. 100 low-quality fruits that give the health benefits of 10 fruits
2. 2 high-quality fruits that give the health benefits of 50 fruits

I've picked an analogy based on nature because I felt nature always has an answer to the way we can make some decisions.

You get the point about the Mind and the Tree.

In the past 2-year time frame, I've worked on both kinds of projects.

#1 yielded poor results, no new learnings, mediocre outcomes, unmet goals, unnecessary stress and wasted time in building wasted relationships. Some people prefer this, and I don't know why they would go with this option.

#2 yielded great results, new learnings, fantastic outcomes, goals met, a stress-free environment and I made new friends. Some people prefer this.

Then there is the factor of who owns the end result. If I own the end result then #2 makes sense. If I don't want to own the end result then, I would be indifferent to #1 or #2.

Then again, there is also the factor of how much #1 costs vs. #2 costs when there is a difference in the costs. If you have all the money in the world, throw as much money as you want on #1 and forget about it. If you don't have all the money in the world you are better off with #2.

Let's also consider another important factor that is normally overlooked - 'Mindless'ness. Does it matter if the mind matters over matter? If it does then go with #2. If 'Mindless'ness is fine for you, #1 is your preferred choice.

Have you faced such situations in your life? Let me know in the comments section.

Happy Reading!

Jyothin

God, keep this school and all who herein dwell...

... Safe from all harm, and evil’s mighty spell.

Teach us to live, so one and all maybe

Proud of this land, and man’s equality,

God, grant that we may live in liberty.

Lead us along the path of good and right,

Lead us to greatness, always in thy sight.

All in this school who grow from year to year

May know the truth that thou art always near,

And give their best, without regret or fear.

So in the end, this school may grow in fame,

All who are here may loudly sing its name

And through the years and from each day to day

May we have cause to rise and proudly say,

God bless this school and all who herein dwell.

That's my school song. We sang this song every morning in the school assembly.

Dear Reader,

I passed out of HPS (Begumpet) in 1994 with ICSE. In 2021, the school celebrated the passing batch's silver jubilee anniversary. Officially I am part of the class of 1996 batch and hence it will be 25 years in 2021. I got the opportunity to visit my school in Dec 2021, take a tour of the school, eat the school lunch, meet my classmates and batch-mates, and reminisce about old times. It was a wonderful experience that brought back tons of old memories.

Below is a short video created as a collage of all the photos that we took from those years. Thanks to all my batch mates for sharing these memories.

When touring my school a fellow schoolmate from another batch quizzed me about what did I get out of the school. The simple answer I gave him was 'so much that I can't even put it in words' besides a world-class education. But that got me thinking about what is it that I 'really' got from the school that laid the foundation for me in the future. Hence I've jotted down some of my key lifelong takeaways from school.

Getting back to BASICs (Academic Studies)

At school was where my interest in studies was taking shape. English (Panorama - A Selection of Poems, Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', short story classics by famous English authors), History (dynasties in India, historical places of significance, Indian Civics), Geography (countries, deserts, grasslands, etc.), Mathematics (algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus), Physics (pinhole camera, convex and concave lens, refraction, light), Chemistry (physical, inorganic, organic), Biology (plant biology, animal biology, dissecting cockroaches, looking at a dissected frog, etc.), Hindi (एक और एक ग्यारह). Our foundation was on these subjects and what we learned then formed the basis of the paths each one of us took in the future.

Mathematics, as they say, is the language is science. Without mathematics, you can't talk about science. Physics was my favourite subject,  I guess because it allowed me to understand how the world works. Biology was great for knowing about living things. Chemistry was always my weakest subject and I really had a hard time getting my head around it.

I was a big-time astronomy enthusiast. We didn't have an astronomy club in school then. Nevertheless, it kinda made a lot of sense to me. The movement of the planets, gravity, forces, the math behind them and how it all affects us.

I even won prizes in Physics and Biology... fun stuff.

(that is not my handwriting!!)

I wrote my first computer program in school. I still have a soft copy and a hard copy of the program. It was like a 3rd language to me in the 10th grade and that was also the year when computers and computer science were introduced in my school. I was fortunate to be part of a gang that spent hours playing computer games and exploring software. We first learnt Logo and then GW-BASIC. My computer project was in GW-BASIC and it still runs today!! Here is a link to the program on Github. And a link to the project report.

Getting back to GW-BASICS... I had as much fun getting it to run on an emulator today as I had written the program 27 years ago. Using DOSbox , GW-BASIC.EXE and following the instructions on how to run it in this stackoverflow question I was able to run my program. The entire GW-BASIC code is now made available by Microsoft on GitHub.

Today, years later, I still write computer programs and software as part of my daily work and career. Something that I learned and started 27 years ago in school is my daily bread and butter. Below are some screenshots of my project report.

Not Just Academics... Thinking Outside the Box

Structured thinking was encouraged at my school. We were encouraged to try new things, try different things and let us explore our interests. One such non-academic interesting course we went through was the EREHWON thinking program. It was super interesting at first but the course kinda fizzled out and we didn't actually complete it. I think it was only introductory and not many kids were interested due to the extra work we had to put in to do the exercises in addition to the homework from regular classes. If I remember correctly it also ate into our sports/games time so that was a bummer.

Here is a link to the course contents in 1991. The EREHWON Thinking Programme is a structured way to think in different ways with techniques to solve problems creatively and innovatively. It is still a paid program today. Link to their current paid program. And an online news article about it.

Sports & Teamwork

Sports and games were a big part of my school. We had a dedicated 60 mins of sports every day. In my time, sports (or as we used to call them games) were any kind of physical activity. The school was limited in its sporting equipment but there was no limit on space, grounds and classmates to play with. We even invented games to play if we had nothing to play with. And we had fun doing it. We cramped a fun game even between classes, running from post to post to make the most of our spare time.

A sporting highlight of my 6th grade was when we beat the 7th graders in an inter-class middle school football (soccer) tournament. No one expected the 6th graders to beat the 7th graders, it was just not heard of. Even we didn't expect it to happen. It was high for my class and as class captain (leader), it was an honour for me. It just showed that teamwork, skill, and passion sometimes beats everything else. Of course, we lost to the 8th graders in the final but we gave them a tough fight. Pretty much the entire middle school was there watching the finals. There was no pressure as no one expected us to even make it that far. Most competitions are inter-house and this was one time when the school decided to have inter-class competitions.

A big learning from those days is teamwork. A much-emphasized word. At that time, it went without saying, if you were part of a team you played for the team and as a team. There was no individual. It was just a natural way of playing a sport and it came to us naturally as kids. The team worked together with a single-minded intention of scoring a goal. It was just that simple. And if someone fumbled or goofed up, we just moved on, chided each other and pushed forward. No hard feelings.

At that time, we never really paid too much attention to the word teamwork. Now, teamwork becomes centre stage in every organization and is emphasized so much in the corporate world. I'm glad I learned the importance of teamwork early on. And for that, I thank my school.

Art, Music & Social Studies

My school had an active arts, music and social studies culture. We had regular inter-house competitions in these and they contributed the overall points to the house everyone wanted their house to win the cultural and sports shields. It was not all academics.

I loved painting in school. I think the fact that you are given a blank white sheet and asked to paint anything you like; gives your mind the freedom to be as creative as you want. I also won some prizes in painting and below are a few of them from 25 years ago. I never continued my painting skills in later years but it was the foundation of my going digital with tools like GMIP, understanding layers, colours, photos, and videos; all of which I use all the time.

The social study subject was a combination of learned skills in carpentry, bookbinding, knitting, social service, and... I can't remember the other things we learn. Most of us looked at it as something that we just needed to get done to get a Passing grade and sometimes we just made it more fun by mixing it up with games and being competitive about it. Years later, I think of these as vocational skills that could have become a mainstream profession for some and a hobby for others. For me, music turned out to be more of a hobby. 

Social studies also allowed us to interact with other people. I remember we had a donation collection event in 6th grade for Help Age India and those with a significant collection got a lapel pin, a certificate, and an autographed poster from the entire Indian cricket team and then captain Krish Srikanth. Who could say no to that! The competition was so fierce that we compared our collections every day to see who would top the list and spent the next day chasing that target by going to neighbourhoods that we never went to, knocking on doors we had never thought of before, saying hi to people we never met and explaining to them why we are doing this. I can't remember how much the school ended up collecting at the end of the day and donating but it was a significant amount in those days and we students were the ambassadors of the whole event.

More than anything it helped me build my social skills.

Leadership

I was the captain of my class from 6th grade to 10th grade. Being a class leader not only meant maintaining discipline in the class but also setting an example, representing the class, interacting with other class leaders, taking initiative, etc. all the while watching out for your classmates. I even had to take one for the class at times. An early lesson I learned was that rules are applicable to all and as a leader, you cannot show favouritism even with your closest friends.

I was also the troop leader for my NCC Airwing B-Troop and was voted the NCC Best Cadet. That meant leading a troop of cadets in the investiture march past ceremony, NCC camps (unfortunately we didn't have one in my year due to a nationwide strike), and instilling honour and discipline. It is not easy. During the national strike, all of us were at home due to curfew restrictions and we had no information regarding our camp. I ventured to the nearest NCC Directorate in Secunderabad, met with the then-leader there and asked him if we can expect the camp to be conducted or not. I think he was impressed that I was so passionate about the camp. But said that the camp will not be conducted with a probability of 99% due to the ongoing national strike and the threat to the safety of students coming to the camp from all over India in case the camp was held.

Here is me receiving the best cadet award.

My school is now one of those rare private schools that are certified for the NCC B-Certificate Program.

The Grand Finale

The 25th Reunion of the batch of 1996 was... ahem fun. Got to meet a lot of old boys and girls (our school alumni are called old boys). Most of whom I don't even remember or recognize. But some recognized me 😊. Here is a pic from the celebration of those who could make it.

And yes, yes... I gave a short speech (voluntarily).

It was even more special because my dad (who paid for my schooling) and wife (who wanted to see my school) attended the celebrations.

Conclusion

There is so much more that I can't possibly put into words. Everyone cherishes their school days and so did I.

Until next time.

Be Vigilant

“Sitaron se aage Jahan aur Bhi hain

Abhi Ishq ke Imtihan Aur Bhi hain

Tu hai Shaheen Parvaz hai kaam tera

Tere Samne Aasman aur Bhi hain”

"There is a world beyond the stars

Still, there are more tests of love

You are the eagle, it is your work to fly

There are more skies in front of you"

🦅

Logo with :turtle: (U+1F422)

Dear Reader,

I was first introduced to programming in middle school with the programming language Logo. It was super fun and what it made it so much fun was the fact that we could visualize the output of the programs that we wrote. If two people wrote the exact same program with the same logic it gave us the same output. Initially it was fun to figure out how to draw all kinds of shapes and visually see  them. When we ran out of shapes it become more fun to compare code to see who wrote the best code and in as few lines as possible.

Standard coding/computer/programming geeky things... and yes it was a lot of fun. I was most fascinated by how we could draw a circle with just a few lines of code.

CLEARSCREEN

To MY_CIRCLE

  REPEAT 360 [ FD 1 RT 1 ]

END

MY_CIRCLE

I never thought I would get into mainstream software development at that time. But now, it is my bread and butter. I like how Logo made it easy for anyone to learn programming.

Here are some links to Logo interpreters that you can still use today,

• jslogo
• papert

Nowadays, thousands of software programming languages are suited to particular applications and use cases. But the fundamentals remain the same and Logo taught a lot of those fundamentals really well.

My interest in programming grew over the years and after my first year of college, I took extra out of college classes at a local computer institute called NIIT. And thanks to my Dad who helped me select the courses that I needed to take. At first, it was hard. The jump from Logo, where one can visualize the output, to Unix and C Programming was not easy. I could not practice outside the classroom of the private institute and the software was not free. The course just become something I had to finish because I enrolled in it. Moreover, the trainer never bothered to show interest in my training or answer questions that I had. I was given course material and asked to go through it and learn by myself. I was probably the only college kid in institute where everyone else was much older and took computer courses only to get a job. No one took me seriously. It just made things more difficult but nonetheless, I endured and became a C and Unix guru. I cleared the final assessment and got my certificates.

Years later, I took an operating system course in college and had a student exam exercise to emulate the Dinning Philosophers problem. I was in a team of 3 and due to time constraints my teammates and I did not have enough time to write the program. So, we did what most students in the class did. We copied it and submitted it. We didn't even change the variable names. There was no time for it and OS stuff was tough to learn back then, so why to bother ;-). And as expected, everyone in IITB is smart so the tutor figured out that the WHOLE CLASS submitted the exact same program for the assignment and threatened to fail everyone if we don't redo it and resubmit it again. And yes, I took the lead, used my training in Unix and C and rewrote the whole program in original and submitted it. We passed with flying colors and thus learned about semaphores and mutexes.

Fun stuff.

Until next time.

Regards,

🐢