Do you want to excel in life?

Robert B Tucker, the President of the Innovation Resource and Author, has been analysing the
ways of innovators and innovative companies for over two decades today.
Tucker said that innovation is about coming up with an idea and bringing it to life.
Q: The big question is, what really is innovation in the sense that you are using it. Is it
invention?
A: I define it very simply as coming up with ideas and bringing them to life. So, when you come
up with an idea and bring it to life successfully, you are essentially innovating. When you come
up with a new product idea, a new service idea or a new process behind the scenes to cut cost,
it becomes more efficient. To manage and motivate differently is also innovation.
Q: You are saying that innovation is not the preserve of the R&D and marketing
department of companies, it is something that can go across the organization?
A: Absolutely, the old definition was that it is R&D. Unfortunately, that sort of relieves everyone
else of the opportunity and the responsibility to create value and to innovate. That is the sea
change that is occurring across the world today. We are asking for innovation from every
department, functional area, manager and from every individual.
Q: Are these traits to be able to innovate the same as being able to think creatively?
A: There are some people, who are specialists in just coming up with ideas. But they do not
have a clue or the skills to bring those ideas to life. You have to have a special set of skills to do
that and they are kind of uncommon skills. But to come full circle and to derive that value, to
create something for the customer, you need people who are really creative and maybe need a
little help implementing the idea.
June 2007, the world waited in awe as Apple finally launched the iPhone. It was perhaps the
smartest ever product from Steve Jobs stable, that left millions of gizmo lovers mesmerised.
But the iPhone success is not a new phenomenon with Apple. Innovation for this hardware
major is a way of life, whether it is the iMac or the iPod. Imagination and niche technology are
its twin growth drivers and a product innovators Mecca.
Q: For instance- the iPhone is now the latest gizmo from Apple. Would that be a product
innovation?
A: That is a breakthrough product already. I just read that they sold a million units. A process
innovation would be Toyotas production system-Kaizen. It came just in time and there are a lot
of elements and constant improvement. And the customer never sees that; they just know they
are buying a quality vehicle. So, process innovations are equally valuable, needed and
necessary, but they are behind the scenes.
Strategy innovation is the third category we focus on. A good example of that in India, would be
a brand-new business model of Air Deccan. It is taking some existing ideas, benchmarking
other countries, other low cost, no-frills airlines; but bringing that to the people of India and

enlarging the market. They are giving people a choice of going by plane at a very low margin.
They know they are not going to get top flight Air India service necessarily, but that is a value for
them.
Q: How do you ensure that the innovations are not one-off and the ability to innovate is
not a random incident? How do you ensure as individuals, that we realise that we need to
innovate? What are the few things that we can do to create this attitude?
A: When I worked with companies like IBM, Nokia, Satyam and many others as a coach,
consultant and adviser; I basically said that look for a process for innovation. People are so
incredibly busy today; they are running at a frenetic pace.
Thomas Friedman wrote, The world is flat. That flat world is running flat out. So, if you dont
have innovation on the agenda, it probably wont get done. If you are depending on happy
accidents to drive innovation and growth in your company, forget it; it wont happen.
Q: Give us a few tips that make us more open or create a process for ourselves to being
innovative or to come up with innovations?
A: There is an elaborate sort of process, so let me just break it down. What we find in these 23
companies that we studied is that they are getting systematic, are embedding innovation and
are introducing idea management systems, so that no good idea gets lost or falls in the hands of
competitors. They are becoming much more customer centric.
Q: Is there something that they do to finehone this ability?

A: It is a funny thing. The most creative executives, that I have studied and interviewed, have an
elaborate personal process. If you say how do you get ideas, how do you regenerate when you
are feeling burnt out, they have got specific answers and have a process. For e.g- Doug
Greene, CEO of New Hope Communications, takes every month a Doug Day. He said that
every month he has an appointment with himself; without any mobile, technology or meetings. It
is a day where he just goes off for a walk to a quiet restful place. He takes out his idea notebook
and starts doodling. He says that he gets more ideas on a Doug Day, than at any other point
and he owes his success to it.
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Q: This is fascinating. We need to hear more?
A: Absolutely, when I talk about that to mid-level managers, to senior managers, to business
owners, CEOs, small companies or big - its a universal thing that technology, the change is
coming so fast, it is wonderful. But unless you set some boundaries you are going to burnout
and this is an area where you need your creativity to be at maximum, at peak, at excellence all
the time.
Q: You recommend reading a lot. It sounds like the oldest rule in the book?

A: Yes, absolutely. Reading good materials like biographies of people who you admire,
entrepreneurial success, comebacks ? people who fail come back an succeed ? those are the
things that inspire me and get my creativity juice flowing. I start jumping up when I am reading
something like this. I make notes and start working on my self. I take that energy and transfer it
to my audiences and to the people that I am working for. Everybody is going to have a different
way of regenerating and keeping their juices flowing. I know you get to talk to some of the top
executives from all over the world and especially from here in India and that keeps your creative
fires at peak level. But for all it is going to be different. What I want to suggest and recommend
to people is that you got to tune into your creativity. This is an era of creativity and innovation
and it starts with us inside.
Q: Do you want to give us 5-6-10 tips, or give it to people in small capsules, or in mantras
from a guru?
A: I also recommend that there is a blinding flash of the obvious. Try downloading your ideas
and getting them down on paper instead of trying to remember. When you see two people in a
hallway or corridor they are working a common problem or a common opportunity. They start
chatting about and somebody comes up with some idea and they start chuckling and say hey,
'That's my work.' Then, they go their merry ways and nobody has written it down. Well as an
innovation coach, I am saying wait a minute here. Ideas are like butterflies, they flutter away. If
we say ideas are the assets of companies, you cannot allow that. You can start a revolution in
your team, in your company, and in your organization simply by getting people to pay attention
when they have an idea.
Q: You need to be brave, isnt it? You cant be risk averse if you want to innovate as an
individual?
A: Thats right. Brave is a good word. We need to live our lives from the point of bravery without
taking foolish risks but speaking our truth. I love the title of a book by Mahatma Gandhi where
he said, Experiments in Truth. So often in organizations we sell out and we dont speak the
truth. There is this type of person whom I call the maverick personality and they are so essential
and valuable in an organization.
It took the genius of a maverick Pat Farrah, co-founder of Atlanta-based The Home
Depot, to propel a mediocre warehouse to the second largest home improvement retail
chain in the US. Home Depots success is often credited for its independent and
outstanding ideas. Today, a new store opens every 43 hours. From happy mediocrity to a
USD 100 billion enterprise, Home Depot is a classic tale of a turnaround driven by the
sheer power of ideas.
A: They beat to a different drum. It is part of their sort of constitution. The value they see in
things is from a different perspective. If you and I see things exactly the same, somebody is not
needed here. We are just echoing each other. So, what they do is they see it from that way,
what about, or what is another way and that is the spirit that we need to engender.
Q: Any tips that we could use to inculcate and develop this attitude of being able to
innovate?
A: Well, a lot of them. I really believe in writing in a journal, keeping a journal, and keeping a
diary. Things are happening so fast today that you have to take a few moments everyday to kind
of recall your thoughts, feelings, ideas, aspirations or goals. So, set boundaries and have some

barriers. Technologists right now are creating new ways for us to be connected even more. So,
that will be one.
Q: How critical is the challenge to be innovative for companies, because there are other
challenges to deal with the digital age, globalisation, the changing big paradigm shifts
that are taking place in the world? Where do innovation and the need to be innovative,
rank in these challenges, among these challenges where companies are concerned?
Robert: I think it is vital and absolutely essential in the 21st century, because look at what is
happening here. Look at India in the last four years. India is foisting a slew of new companies
becoming multinationals. Mahindra and Ranbaxy and many others are becoming global brands
and they are threats, disruptive threats to the incumbents. I see this as being a global innovation
revolution.
So if you dont have a capacity to innovate on an ongoing basis, you are not going to be in the
game. It is like 25-30 years ago Edward Deming introduced quality management. So pretty soon
if you didnt have the essential level of quality, you arent in the game. What I see today
happening and it is happening faster than even I predicted is if you dont have innovation
process, a well-oiled idea factory, you are not in the game.
Q: How do you ensure that the individual is encouraged to keep innovating?
Robert: That is the work of leadership. Leaders have to realise the era that we are in and they
have to encourage in teams and managers and their senior leadership. The way you encourage
it and the way you foster innovation is you look at what you reward. All too often companies
have rewarded playing it safe, make your numbers, do not take risk, think short term and by
golly, dont fail. But if you want a reward innovation, you need to praise and reward.
By reward, I dont mean monetarily, I mean recognition. But you want to recognize and reward
different things. People who step forward to offer up new ideas, people who step forward to
volunteer on innovative projects that are going to take them even more time when they have got
a day job. It is already all consuming. People that go the extra mile for the customer and figure
out creative solutions to satisfy this customer in this situation as oppose to saying well it is not
my job.
Q: What do you say to other companies that have done this the best so far in your study
of all these companies?
Robert: I think my all time favourite would be right now Apple, because in the late 90s they
were given up for dead, many people just wrote them off and Steve Jobs took over the
company, took back over the company that he founded and was kicked out of. He said we are
going to innovate ourselves back to greatness. We are going to innovate ourselves out of the
hole that we are in. That is exactly what he did. That is the kind of vision and look at their
products. Steve Jobs will not accept products that are not user friendly, cutting edge designed,
on a world-class level. That inspires me because, that is the technology and the marriage with
the consumer, what the consumer wants and is forward looking.
Q: Would you say that young teenager from New Jersey who hacked the iPhone - is he
an innovator?

Robert: There are some people in Taiwan right now that are already copying and doing rip offs,
counterfeiting the iPhone and the iPhone has not even been introduced into China yet. So, it is
a major problem.
Q: How do you protect your innovations?
Robert: It is increasingly a major issue. However innovation is always been a better temporary
varnish. You have a partner that expires eventually. Thats definitely coming down and more
and more people ask me why bother to innovate if I am just going to be copied tomorrow and it
is a legitimate question. But here is my point, copiers never prosper like originators.
Now it is true that originators have to keep originating, keep improving their products before the
other guys catch up with them. Thats the innovation arms race that we are talking about here.
But the people, who originate, look at Home Depot, any of the brands that are your favourites.
Yes, they have been copied; left and right, fashions on the Paris runway are being copied
instantly. But does that mean we gave up, rollover play dead- absolutely not.
Q: So keep innovating?
A: Thats right.