An evening with Dr Madanmohan Rao
Introduction
On July 25, we had a very insightful session by Dr Madanmohan Rao, an expert in the filed of innovation and creativity. He is the Co-founder of innovation platform MXR.world, Research Director at YourStory Media, and Charter Member at TiE Bangalore.
About Dr Madanmohan Rao
Dr Madanmohan Rao is a graduate of IIT Bombay, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (USA), and Loyola High School (Poona).
Dr Rao has given talks, lectures and workshops in over 90 countries around the world. He has written 15 books on knowledge management, innovation, and digital media. He has also published reviews of over 350 books on (https://yourstory.com/tag/bookreview), entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation .His hobbies include world music, jazz, and craft beer appreciation.
Dr Rao was earlier the Communications Director at the United Nations Inter Press Service Bureau (New York), Research Director at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (Singapore), Group Consultant at Microland (Bangalore), and Vice President at IndiaWorld Communications (Mumbai).
Dr Rao is the editor of five book series: The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook, The Knowledge Management Chronicles, AfricaDotEdu, Global Citizen and World of Proverbs. He is a juror for the World Summit Awards, and DEF's Manthan and mBillionth Awards for best digital content.
The Changemaker story canvas
One of Dr Rao’s pioneering contributions is the Changemaker story canvas. It provides a format for a start up to narrate where they are, what problem they are trying to solve and how they are attempting to change the world. The format is flexible: talking about the background of the founders, starting with the present and looking towards the future, starting with the future and working backwards to the present, etc.
Design Thinking
In recent years, design thinking has become a popular approach for increasing creativity and innovation. Dr Rao spoke briefly about the 8 Is of Design thinking.
Otto Schamer: The four levels of listening
Empathy is important in innovation. Listening and empathy go together. Otto Schamer has identified four levels of listening. These levels represent a progression from less engaged to more deeply connected listening.
Downloading: We are listening out of habit and trying to be polite.
Factual Listening: We start to pay attention to the information being presented. But our focus is still primarily on the content and facts being shared. We are not connecting with the speaker at an emotional level.
Empathic Listening: We put ourselves in the speaker's shoes and actively connect with the speaker at an emotional level and understand her experience. This paves the way for a rich dialogue.
Generative Listening: We are fully present and open to new possibilities and insights. We are not just hearing the speaker's words but also sensing her deeper intentions. This can lead to profound understanding and enable collective creativity.
Digital transformation
What does digital mean? We need to have some clarity. We can classify digital technologies into 4 types. Content, communication, collaboration and computation. And these play out in very different ways, internally and externally for the organization. Dr Rao provided an example.
Cognitive Biases
We must know what blocks our creative thinking. Here are some typical biases to which we are vulnerable.
Loss aversion: We don’t want to incur a loss or look foolish.
Sunk cost: We've already invested so much in something that giving it up and doing something else is difficult.
Herd mentality: We follow what others are doing.
Anchoring bias: We hear something and get biased by that idea. Even if things change completely, we are still stuck in the old way of doing things.
Tunnel Vision: We see the world narrowly from our own viewpoint depending on our function or role: sales, techie, finance, etc. We need to have a more holistic view.
Halo bias: The boss is right. The gurus are right. The experts are right. But knowledge gets obsolete very fast these days. If we want to get new ideas, we must question the established wisdom.
First idea bias: We may generate many ideas but often think that the first idea is the best idea.
Confirmation bias: Instead of evaluating an idea with an open mind we only look for support for the idea.
False consensus bias: We think other people are thinking like us.
Optimism, pessimism. Sometimes we are optimistic. AI is always going to be a force for good. Other times we are pessimist Luddites. The truth is always somewhere in between.
Overconfidence. We think we know everything and just dismiss new ideas.
Dunning-Kruger effect: We become overconfident, too fast. We may do one course or read a couple of books, and start thinking we know everything about that topic.
Idea Flow
We must get insights from everybody. We must track the idea flow in organizations. Ideas can come in various ways. We may read an article or a book. We may meet somebody at a conference. Our customers may be saying something. We may get ideas from Google, ChatGPT, our colleagues, etc.
Brainstorming
Creativity involves a lot of ideas, assumptions, hunches, intelligent guesses, educated guesses, wild guesses. This is where brainstorming becomes relevant.
Many people give brainstorming a bad rap because they think only extroverts tend to dominate it. They feel it doesn't give the kind of output that we need. But with very good facilitation principles and a culture of discussion, brainstorming can be very good for group creativity.
Combining: We can divide people in the organization into different groups. We can ask them to come up with ideas and then combine them to come up with new kinds of ideas.
Emergence: We can form groups of different kinds of people and get them to compete. We can cherry pick features from each group and come up with even better ideas.
Evaluation: We need to have different kinds of voting and ranking schemes, so that everyone feels this is a sufficiently robust and democratic process.
Long term assessment: Some ideas may not make sense right now, but we must park them for the future. A great example is the post-it note. When it was first invented, it would come off easily. Years later, use cases were identified for sticking something and taking it off, such as labels, bookmarks, etc. Creativity is about how to suspend judgment for a while and think of another context where we can use these ideas.
Brainstorming principles:
- Who calls for it? (senior/new employee; customer)
- Which topic? (current issue, future trend)
- Who participates? (internal, external)
- How long? (hours, days)
- At what cost? (internal, external)
- How often? (weekly, quarterly; on-demand)
- What are the supporting roles? (facilitator, rapporteur)
- Where will it be held? (online; hybrid; physical – in-house, off-site)
- How will the ideas be assessed and ranked - and by whom? (1st round, 2nd round)
- How will the ideas be captured? (eg. Idea Canvas)
- How will brainstorming be conducted in global organisations? (local weightage)
- What will be the outcome? (commitment, credit, communication)
Failure
This is a very important part of the creative process. Just like potholes are part of the road. A culture of admitting failures and learning from them is important. One of the top venture capital companies, Bessemer Partners has made outstanding investments. But on their website, they also admit that they rejected investment proposals from Google, Fedex, Apple, Facebook, Intel, Airbnb, ebay, Atlassian.
The thinking at that time was:
Google: We already have other search engines. Why do we need Google?
Apple: What is this box that you're selling? There's already IBM and Microsoft in the market.
The rejected companies became spectacular successes. So assessing the long-term impact of a creative idea is not easy. Indeed, if we knew how to predict the future, we would be living in a completely different world.
Types of creativity
There are many different kinds of creativity.
Tech creativity. For example, we may be good at video optimization code or generating an algorithm using Gen AI.
Business creativity. How do we build a business model around the technology and capture value for ourselves and for the customer?
Artistic creativity. This includes not just performing arts, visual arts, but also design. How do we take materials and design new kinds of products and services?
Social creativity. How do we help the rest of society along with what we are doing? How do we bring about financial inclusion? How do we promote empowerment of minorities and people in underserved, marginalized communities? How do we solve complex political problems like the Palestine issue.
Environmental creativity. How do we become more environmentally creative and come up with new kinds of ideas for fostering a circular, regenerative economy, to reduce pollution, impact on the environment, etc.?
None of us can be creative in all these 5 areas at the same time. We should try to build a T-shaped expertise. We can become creative in one area and know enough about the other areas to talk to other experts. Some recommend a pi shaped expertise, i.e. creativity in 2 domains and the ability to talk to the other domains.
Reaching out to communities: Where we don’t have the competencies, we should read about the subject and reach out to the experts to get expertise. There are professional communities of designers, techies, cyber security professionals. We need to go to their forums and learn from them.
Our job is to gather knowledge from outside the organization, contextualize it and then bring it back into the organization. Then we must give it back to the ecosystem. If the ecosystem doesn't grow, we will also not grow.
Consider the banking and fintech ecosystem of India. RBI’s Innovation hub is an example of how we can bring together startups, big companies, regulators, policymakers, educators, government to create new kinds of value out of emerging technologies.
Innovation conversations
Dr Rao is an expert in running innovation conversations. These are short, curated events 2- 4 hours long. Dr Rao organizes and embeds these events within larger organizations or within larger festivals.
Say we want to look at a sector. We invite startups and ask them what they are doing? We ask them to give a pitch. Then we bring in domain experts, business experts, academics, and so on. Some may see the idea has some validity. A few may say this is a bit too early stage. Others may ask questions like: Can we scale this up? Do we need some policy changes? Do we need some new kinds of data security laws to make these kinds of innovations possible?
At the Bangalore Literature Festival, Dr Rao is running a 2 hour event on AI inclusion and innovation. He has invited 5 startups to understand the innovations in workflow, in security, and so on. Experts from different fields may ask questions such as: What about inclusion of the marginalized? What about AI bias? What about exclusion of certain demographic groups? How about using Indian languages?
Proverbs of the world.
Dr Rao has published a few books on proverbs of the world. During the session, he shared a few of them.
Great deeds come from times of shortage. This is a Japanese proverb. Innovation is not about investing more resources. It is during times of crisis, such as the Covid pandemic, when there are shortages, that people come up with some of the most outstanding ideas. The shortage of masks is a good example.
Sitting alone narrows the vision, sitting with others opens the mind: This is a Malay proverb. Creative ideas come through creative turbulence.
People who have never broken anything would never learn to create anything: This is a Philippine proverb. We must try something, face a couple of failures along the way, learn and then move on.
A day of traveling will bring a basket full of money. This is a Vietnamese proverb. We should go to other countries where we don’t understand the language, their symbols, etc. Then we will be forced to evaluate ourselves. And that's how will learn a lot of things.
Q&A
How do we get ideas?
There are different approaches we can use.
- We can find out what problems interest us.
- We could check if somebody, we know, has a problem, and try to make their life better.
- We might see an interesting trend. Thus, everyone is looking at GenAI. What can we do in that space?
- Someone may tell us we have this talent, we may not even be aware of and should do something with it. This is why it is very important to expose ourselves to different kinds of people from different backgrounds.
How would we solve this particular thing?? What does our solution look like? Maybe we don’t have the means yet to do it. But what are we envisioning? What would the solution look like?
What have we done to commit ourselves to the idea?Can we develop a small prototype, draw a sketch and demonstrate what our solution looks like?
ImplementationMany people think ideas are cheap and easy and execution is more important. But it is very tough to get good ideas. We can be the best executor. But if we are working on a poor idea, it won't get us very far. We may have the best ideas. If we don’t have execution, it won't go very far.
The first step for incubators is to embrace the broader ecosystem. In the major metros, it is easier to get an investor, a successful startup, or a very progressive Government official. But for the tier 2 and tier 3 cities it is challenging. This can be a problem if they want to take ideas, to urban markets. Of course, if these ideas are meant for regional markets, they can stay in that ecosystem.
Today, budding, aspiring entrepreneurs are very creative. The way they think about digital technology is so different from older people. People used to talk about the generation gap, i.e. 20 years. Today, there are even mini generation gaps. Even 5- 10 years are enough to change people's behaviours. So we need to bring people from different kinds of mini generations to come and meet the entrepreneurs in colleges.
Many of the entrepreneurs in campuses have ideas to solve their problems. We must show how their ideas can connect to a broader ecosystem. We should be able to say: “This is a good idea and this is how you can scale it up.”
There are many metrics we can use to measure the success of an incubator.
Activities: How many workshops, hackathons, ideathons, etc are being held?
Ideas: How many ideas have been captured? How many new business plans have been developed? How
many students are getting involved? Have the number of ideas coming out in the last 2-3 years,
tripled?
Going to market: How many startups graduate out of the incubator into the real world?
External validation: Are people saying: Yes, I would invest in this venture, or I will mentor
these people, etc. How many VCs are committing to mentorship programs? How many investors are
willing to come and listen to the startups? If investors come to the campus at an early stage,
they can assess the ideas and provide useful feedback.
Cross functional: Very often the teams in campuses are only from one department. We must hold
cross functional events.
Patents: In case of high-end incubators, maybe IIT Bombay, IISc, etc, we should ask whether any
intellectual property is being developed.
So if we identify the metrics across this whole spectrum, we can see where different incubators stand in different stages of their growth. These can be annual benchmarks and benchmarks across 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and so on.
The first step is documentation. We must document the experiences of entrepreneurs. Some good documents and books have been published by IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, BITS Pilani. Independent writers like Rashmi Bansal have presented the entrepreneurial success stories in easy to access and understand style for the broader audience.
Some colleges hold events (hackfests, techfests) where outsiders also come. There are both serious and fun events. These events enable sharing of knowledge and experiences. We must connect the young generation to events they will enjoy.
35 start-ups fold up every day. 30,000 startups have folded up in the last three and a half years. How do we address this problem?
One reason is lack of focus. Some founders tend to do too many things at the same time. They are too restless, too ambitious, and go all over the place.
Entrepreneurs from campuses may be having internal conflicts. Should I do the startup, get into a corporate job, or go abroad for an MBA? If there are two founders and they are not aligned (one wants to stay, one wants to leave), the problem is greater.
There is not enough customer validation. The startup may onboard 3 or 4 customers and feel things are working. But this early adopter syndrome can be misleading. A few customers may be open to the idea. But we must understand the needs of the broader market and how they differ from the early adopters.
Technology is changing fast. A lot of ideas can become obsolete in just 6 months.
There's not enough patient capital to take it to the next stage. Government grants, incubator grants, etc may have got the company to this stage. But to go to market and scale up, they need bigger amounts from investors. The problem is that there may be too many startups trying to solve a very similar problem. Investors will pick only who they think will solve the problem the best.
So, it's a combination of various factors: The market doesn't want it, the founders are not ready, either individually or as a team, the traction has not gone beyond the first early adopter base or they are not able to get capital to scale up.
When it comes to a startup, we think the problems are all external. It's also internal. Entrepreneurs should be clear: Is this what we want to do in our life? Are we willing to give up a cushy corporate career?
Mid-career people, in the thirties and forties would have worked for a while, earned enough money, spotted good industry problems and may even know how to solve them. They are more likely to succeed as entrepreneurs. But typically, they are risk averse and would not like to do anything extremely radical. On the other hand, the youngsters on the campuses lack experience but embrace unconventional thinking and are more prepared to take risk. If they solve all these problems, they will succeed.
India is a huge market. For a startup, that's a great place to begin. To compete successfully in India, we must understand the Indian customer very well. Indian customers are very finicky. They're very price and value conscious. And to scale up the organization across the country, we need to understand the problems of different kinds of customers and go outside the urban areas. It's almost like 2 or 3 Indias that we need to address. We must understand all the different Indias within India.
If we want to go global, we need to position ourselves differently and go beyond desk research. In some sectors like software as a service, we can do a lot of research online. B2 B Saas is a tried and proven playground where many companies have succeeded by being based almost entirely in India, with only a few key managers, in the developed countries to do client facing market research and relationship building.
Eventually, we need to start working very closely with the client and hire people in the foreign markets. We should also customize the market mix for the local culture. The design of the product, the language, the use cases, the pricing points will vary from culture to culture. In very high risk areas like Fintech, we must ensure there is no loophole for leakage of data, etc. Others might be more forgiving and say, let's see if this works and how it goes ahead, etc. So, we need to find very good places and very good people to work with.
We also need to know the local partners in these countries who can help us. if we want to enter say southeast or East Asia, the local partners can help us. That is how many Indian design tech companies are helping companies like GRAB in Indonesia. Back-end work of these companies is also being done out of India.
Dr Rao is working with ignite Ignyte in Dubai. It is a flagship initiative under the Dubai Digital Economy Mandate, to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship. Ignyte aims to become the go-to platform for 100,000 start-ups and entrepreneurs, connecting them with 5,000 VCs and Angel Investors, 5,000 mentors and experts, 500 corporate and government partners. Ignyte wants to take Indian Fintech startups to Dubai. The key questions are: What schemes are available? What does it take to move money from here to there, and back to India? How easy is it to hire people there?
NASSCOM takes Indian startups on study tours regularly to Silicon Valley and other parts of the world. The Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) takes delegations from Bangalore to other parts of the world. There are funds and grants to attend big conferences in Japan, in Germany, etc. They will cover some areas like IP registration in those countries, legal representation, and so on. So, we should leverage local government support and industry associations to better understand the consumers and the markets.
The world is becoming tech centric. In India, we need an obsession and fascination with technology as opposed to a tech phobia.
When it comes to technology, senior executives can be divided into interested, unaware, scared. The way to change the mindset of these people is a combination of the carrot and the stick.
The board of directors could tell them that if they do not keep pace with technology, they must move out. This is harsh but it has worked in many organizations.
The second approach is the carrot. We could tell them to learn this technology as it can make a great impact. And this is where things like mentorship, sounding, boards, coaching, etc, become very important.
Three kinds of interventions can help.
Coaching. People can sign up with a coach. In a week or 2, people will get comfortable with the technology.
Mentoring: A mentor is a person who says: I don't know all the details of the technology, but I've used other kinds of tools in the past, and here are some general principles that you need to follow. There are many leaders who have made the transition. They can now be mentors to the next wave of leaders.
Sounding board: Coaching and mentorship are more formal. Sounding board is informal. We can touch base with colleagues, classmates, and ask them what they think about this technology. We could say: I got 5 years to retire but look at the GenAI wave. What do I do? Can somebody give me some ideas over a cup of coffee? But we should be honest to say we do not know. Unfortunately, most senior people find it difficult to say that they don't know something.
If we really want to succeed, we had better try to understand technology. And it's not that difficult. Other people have done it.
We should find different ways of nudging people into a different mindset: I need to change my thinking. I need to set these 2- 3 goals to learn. I need to talk to these 3 kinds of people. And if you can show me the roadmap, I can go in that direction.
Julie Sweet, the CEO of Accenture is a lawyer. She headed a few functions in Accenture. When the previous CEO passed away, she was made the CEO of the company. Other companies have faced massive disruptions because of tech changes. Accenture has made the transition seamlessly because it has a CEO who is a non techie but understands the importance of tech. So we can find examples like this and tell people: Look, you're not alone. We should tempt people with technology rather than pressurise them.
Earlier technology replaced manual labour. Now it is replacing knowledge workers. If we don't go a step ahead of AI, our days are numbered. AI is rapidly going up the value chain.
To stay ahead of the game we should be great at something that AI cannot replicate: inter interpersonal skills, empathetic listening, forceful communication. We can be excellent in connecting the dots which AI cannot see yet. We can bring together society, the environment, the arts, technology, humanities in some unique way.