Stop Celebrating Jugaad
Do you know how many building combinations are possible with just six regular eight-stud Lego bricks? According to howthingswork.com, six regular eight-stud Lego bricks can be put together in more than 900,000,000 different ways.
Frugal yes, Jugaad no
Most people restrict themselves when they think of the constraints. The creative people treat constraints as triggers for innovation. Today there is a name for this. It is called frugal innovation or jugaad.The evidence is everywhere in India. That simply means that we look at the constraints as a puzzle that must be solved. The barriers form the maze through which one must navigate. We have always had a culture of jugaad and frugal innovation.The Tata Nano was after all driven by a challenge – to produce a low cost car that could make car ownership go to the masses. That was the dream that triggered the innovation. From using washing machines to make lassi and creating mittikool, the highly effective refrigerator made out of clay by a potter, Indians have cracked jugaad. Now is time to design the future.
Focus on design and value
While we keep the frugal innovation projects going, we need to simultaneously move up the value chain. Else there is the danger of us becoming a nation that can only find work-arounds. We must be the ones to build the next big thing. We must create products and services that are original and not tweaked versions of what exists somewhere. Frugal innovation is about a mindset that views constraints as problem definitions.New products and services are created based on insight and design. That means going beyond the use of design for aesthetics to strategic shifts. We have to stop being satisfied with a “good enough” solution that fixes an immediate need and builds for the future. Unless we think long term, we cannot create value for the customer.Prof Vijay Govindarajan talks about the 3 Box-Solution. Box 1: Manage the present to maximize value (so don’t stop frugal innovation). Box 2: Break away from the past (ask what about the past is not valid any longer). Box 3: Think of a non-linear future (rethink the future from first principles). That may be sound advice from a guru who is known for his passion for frugal innovation. He was, after all, part of the $300 house for the poor challenge. Given that almost every incumbent will get disrupted by the digital tsunami, his advice may be very timely.
A mindset of abundance not scarcity
We need to drive this shift in our mindset. We need to get away from a scarcity mindset that drives frugal innovation and adopt a mindset of abundance. We have to stop being a nation that is obsessed with succeeding in exams. Coaching classes are a symptom of this malaise. Instead focus on deep learning and a passion that will help us build expertise. That means being comfortable with risk taking and failure. Only then can we imagine a future that does not look like a somewhat modified version of the past.We must believe that the digital world will create abundant opportunities. But the rules for success will be different. To be a nation of original thinkers we need people who can build from first principles.Let us not paint our ceiling after getting inspired by the Sistine Chapel. Let us get inspired by the spirit of the Renaissance movement.Like the sketchnote? Download it here.
Written for my blog on The Times of IndiaJoin me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduriRead more about The Digital Tsunami <click here>