Analysis of Leaders in Innovation
Leading Innovation in the Global Organization
Dr. Jane Gibson
Capella University
Timyra L. Carter
November 10, 2015

Introduction
A global trend is a general development or change in a situation that affects many countries of the world. Innovation is a creative idea, process or product. The two together are a powerful team. Without one or the other a company is likely to fail. Global trends provides direction for a company and affects the company’s strategic plans for the future goals.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze and identify the global trends that influenced the need for Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technology, to create a more innovative organization, explain the relationship between the global trends and Nayar’s role as a leader of innovation, evaluate Nayar’s use of the five discovery skills and make recommendations for improvement of Nayar’s use of the five discovery skills.
When Nayer was appointed as president of the Delhi-based IT services provider HCL Technologies he had many challenges. Even though HCL Technologies revenue was growing by 30% a year, it was losing market share and mindshare and its competitors were growing at the rate of 40% or 50% a year (Nayar, 2010). The IT service industry was changing rapidly, customers didn’t want to work with an undifferentiated service provider that offered discrete service; they wanted long term partners that would provide end to end services (Nayer, 2010). Within four years Nayar was able to triple the company’s annual revenues, doubled its market capitalization, ranked as India’s best employer by Hewitt and pioneered a unique management culture call Employees First, Customer’s Second. How did he do it? He spoke the truth as he saw it, offered ideas, told stories, asked questions and made the leap himself (Nayar, 2010).
Analysis
Employees first, customers second is the business model that Nayer believes is the way to be innovative and successful. He believed that if the work environment was improved by making its employees passionate about the work that they do, so would employee performance. Employees create value and an organization should be focused around that value (www.youtube.com). Nayar branded the employees. He came up with this concept by speaking with customers and realized that the customers were not talking about the products, services or technologies but the frontline employees. However, the concept did not happen overnight, it took work by first breaking down the current model and rebuild it upside down by putting frontline staff at the top of the pyramid and the CEO at the bottom. Nayar used four keys to transforming HCL Technologies. Nayer first ensure that the employees were aware of the current condition of the company in hopes of getting them to buy into the change that needed to take place. He also built a culture of trust within the organization by sharing financial data rather it was good or bad and used transparency to review performance and strategic planning. He also made support functions and executives accountable to frontline workers and he transferred ownership of change from the desk of the CEO to the employees. According to Nayer (2010), HCL Technologies had done something that many IT companies didn’t do which was include frontline employees in determining ways to weather the storm.
Assessment
Innovation is the lifeblood of our global economy and a strategic priority for virtually every CEO around the world (Dyer et. al., 2011). To be a leader of innovation requires five discovery skills and they are associating, questioning, observing, networking and experimenting. These skills are especially essential during the first stages of creating innovative ideas, products, services or processes as Nayar endure during the initial changes to take HCL Technologies to the next desired level of making the employees first and customers second. Association is very important in being a leader of innovation. Having the ability to connect unrelated questions, ideas or problems are necessary to being a successful business leader. According to Dyer et al. (2011), innovative leaders cross pollinate ideas in their own heads and in others. Leaders of innovation influence others to be creative thus creating an environment of innovation. Companies such as Apple, Amazon and Virgin connect wildly different ideas, objects, services, technologies and disciplines to dish up new and unusual innovations which speaks volume when one looks at how successful and innovative each company is. To master the skill of association it is important that the leader subject oneself and employees to different, diverse experiences and engage in the other discovery skills. Association is a very important skill in impacting innovation in a company because this is the stage that the leader will recognize or come up with the solution to a problem that may not have been evident to a leader that lack this skill. Exercising this skill in an organization will mean that no idea will be looked at as not a good one because it may in the end be more related to the problem than the obvious ones. With this mindset staff will be more likely to share ideas. This reminds one of a conversation that one had with the CEO of the community college concerning offering BSN to nurses. The CEO immediately dismissed the idea stating that the school is not designed to do that but today the school is currently redesigning itself to offer a BSN degree to students. The school board just had to think outside of the box and find a way to give students what they want and to stay competitive because of the push for nurses to obtain a BSN degree.
Questioning is the creative catalyst for the other discovery behaviors (Dyer et al, 2011). Innovators ask many questions and the difficult ones that challenge the normal way of doing things and it questions those things that are not usually questioned. Questioning is necessary to get the creative thinking and brainstorming going in a company. Questioning is the norm for innovators and it is important to make it a norm for employees in order to encourage an environment of innovation and being a leader of innovation. A.G. Lafley changed the game at P&G by asking lots of questions (Dyer et al, 2011). Innovation is not just asking any question but disruptive ones. Questioning can be used to impact innovation in an organization because it forces leadership to look at situation in a different way if the question is asked in the correct context. A leader of innovation may ask question that there is no answer to yet however, it gets the innovative mindset going by trying to find the answer to the question. It also challenges the leader and employees by asking challenging question. An example was when one had to get employees to look at hourly rounding differently by not looking at it as an extra task but group it with another task thus not requiring more time to complete it. This can be done by questioning the patient specifically about pain, their position and toileting all while also giving them their medication therefore, it is not perceived as an extra task. When an employee states that they are too busy to do hourly rounding that is a time to ask the challenging questions that causes them to think outside of the box and come up with a solution to the problem. As a leader of innovation, employees should be encouraged to ask questions. Asking questions will help employees and leaders tap into their innovative side because finding the answer to the question will take research and asking even more questions.
Observing is watching the world around you (Dyer et al, 2011). Observation is how many innovators get ideas on how to improve their product, service or new ideas. When thinking of observing, Scott Cook is one that comes to mind because he has created many products and services by observing. He founded Intuit by observing how his wife work on their finances and listening to her frustrations (Dyer et al, 2011). This is also a key skills in being a leader of innovation. At one’s organization staff will work with equipment that doesn’t meet their standards and complain to other staff members about its limitation instead of to the manager or a person that can solve the issue. This is where observation would help leaders understand how to improve staff satisfaction, efficiency and ultimately patient satisfaction. Observation will get down to the root of the real issues therefore helping the leader come up with innovative ideas. According to Dyer et al (2011), observing is a key discovery skill for most innovators who tend to generate business insights. If a leader really want to know how to take their organization to the next level it must observe its day to day activities and look for ways to improve the processes or products. Another way is to have employees observe others and give their insight on how to make improvements, this will motivate them to be innovative and involved them in changes therefore getting buy in.
Networking is a process of linking the ideas in your area of knowledge with those who play in different boxes, who are outside your sphere (Dyer et al, 2011). Innovators ensure that the people or groups of people that they are networking with are from different background than their own. Networking is very helpful to leaders that are innovative because a person that handles problems differently can give insight on how to solve a problem or issue in a way that wasn’t thought of. Networking is something that is done often at one’s organization with patients. Listening to patients share concerns for their care is an easy way to gain the knowledge needed to be innovative in improving process and services. Networking challenges one to network outside of the healthcare field and look for ideas where one wouldn’t expect to find them. Networking can be used to impact innovation in an organization by sharing one’s ideas with a person that does not work in healthcare to get a different perspective and idea. Something that comes to mind at one’s organization was the use of Lean System Thinking (LST). LST is an innovative idea developed by Toyota to eliminate waste in order to work smarter not harder. This way of operating was first used in the automobile industry and now is being used in healthcare. This is a perfect example of how two unrelated industries can use the same method to improve its company. As a manager, one can attend conferences outside of healthcare for new ideas and build a network of professional that are outside of one’s own profession. These new ideas can be presented in one’s organization therefore possible coming up with innovative ideas.
Experimenting is best suited for generating data on what might work in the future (Dyer et al, 2011). Dyer et al (2011) also stated that experiments are key to innovation because they rarely turn out as you expect and you learn so much. In one’s organization the experiments that are conducted are called trials and it is usually first tried on one unit before moving on to the next with most of the problems solved. Experimenting impacts innovation in an organization because the leader may implement an idea that actually works and brings value to the company. To be a leader of innovation it is important that when an employee comes up with what they think is a great idea, it is important to find a way to trial it. By at least trying it to see if it will work will build their confidence to bring more ideas and the team can work to figure out what is working and what is not. Many nurses do this more often than not because they have to be creative in caring for the many different patients that they see each week. One is reminded of the time when it seem like a great idea to find a way to invent tape that did not stick to gloves because it slowed a nurse down during dressing changes. This may have gotten further had one had a leader that supported and encouraged innovation. With that in mind, it pushes one as a leader to be more supportive and take all ideas into consideration when trying to solve problems on one’s unit and organization. It seems that the biggest barrier to staff being innovative is the lack of innovation in leaders.
Nayer

Evaluation
Nayer was able to do that by turning the organizational pyramid upside down. Nayar was able to connect the importance of focusing on the frontline staff by networking with customers and realized that they spoke about the employees more than the products, services and technologies. Initially he was interested in knowing how the customers felt about the products, services and technologies thus focusing on those but instead learned that his focus needed to be on the frontline employees. He then had to be creative and come up with a strategy to engage, encourage and enthuse employees which was the Employees First, Customer’s Second (EFCS) model. This concept was different and innovative because it was unusual for companies to put the accountability for change on the frontline staff versus the CEO and leaders.

Conclusion

References