Make in India… organizations need creative leadership.

Modi government has declared the “Make In India” initiative to attract the FDI in India. This is another way to create the manufacturing base in India. When the manufacturing base is increased,  lot of dependent business start flourishing, employment is generated and it helps economy to develop as spending power of consumer also increases. However this task is not easy.

Is it just making products in India or developing products with global quality? Question still remains unsolved. This question is because, there are no inventions happened in India for last few decades. However we trumpet the old saga of inventions. We call ourselves creative and innovative, but we never think about the future. There are very few innovative ideas which goes in commercialization and end without any results, because these ideas are based on “Jugad” which really is shortcut to get the results.

There are few successes which are copied by others for failures. Just see how many e-commerce companies are there around.   

The question still remains unresolved because we hardly think innovation and creativity. Students are not allowed in schools think beyond their books. Organizations propagate creativity and innovations but doesn’t give the freedom to think differently. They give the “boundary lines” and employees are expected to think within that “boundary lines.” There are innovation, R&D labs, but I doubt how much new inventions happened in those labs. These are put for branding and getting tax benefits. There are consultants who work for you to get such exemptions. With this all, if any company is really series about innovations, they mislay the focus after 3 -4 years when they don’t get expected results in spite of huge costs.

There is another problem which is related to creative leadership. Leaders need to think differently but they also need to be creative. As creativity is the catalyst for innovation, leaders who wish to promote innovation must embody creativity and create an environment that stimulates people to be more creative and innovative.

There are two approaches to creative leadership:

• To develop a creative approach to problem solving,
• To create a culture of creativity and innovation,

Creativity, however, cannot be left to chance. Much like learning any new skill, leaders need to develop or enhance their creativity skills by learning and trying on new behaviors, and putting those into practice.

I think, we need to take it next level where we don’t only sit on computer and work on simulations, developing some grades in the products or working only on analysis on the innovations which actually is happening somewhere in US or Europe.  

Creativity is contagious. Organizations need leaders who can fire up the imagination of people and create a vibrant work environment, so that people willingly contribute and come up with out of the box solutions.