This is one of the better known
management books to be written – Frugal Innovation:
How To Do Better With Less; thus I was actually looking forward to this, in
the hope that I can draw some lessons, practical real world lessons, from this book;
and enhance my understanding and knowledge. In a nutshell, that was only
partial. As a concept, the book does its job – that of frugality being essential.
But, for the rest, it is by and large an acecdotal book with little relevance outside
a limited circle of applicability. This does not meant the book is bad; just
that it is a niche book, limited to Western Markets and Technology Intensive
Manufacturing. I rate it 3.0 stars maximum. That said, there is a lot to be
learnt – if you can look beyond the
stated, and draw conceptual learnings for yourself. In fact, that is the
only reason this 2 stars worth books gets to 3.0 stars.
THE BOOK
The theme of the book is around doing
better with less; it sticks to this theme throughout – laying out the overall approach
and the fundamentals. Let us get straight to the fundamentals – for the rest is
just fillers, and highly anecdotalal. It proposes an eminenty usable framework
that all of us can adapt to our industries; this
is where the book fails big time. It missed the opportunity to derive the
fundamental conceptual learnings these excellent collection of anecdotes
offered the unique chance of doing. For that is the principal difference between
anecdotes & case studies – lessons that we can learn in fundamentals.
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The framework is based on 6 key
elements : engage & iterate; flex your
assets; create sustainable solutions; shape customer behaviour; co-create value
with prosumers; make innovative friends. Engage & Iterate talks about
customers, and engaging with them. The second and third need no explanation –
simply involving proper optimal use of resources {Money, Resources, Time} &
creating environment friendly solutions. Shaping Consumer Behaviour deals with
altering consumer behaviour in a desired direction; prosumers are the most
proactive consumers who can be engaged with to develop new solutions. The last
is simply collaborating with small companies, partners etc who are adept, fast
and can add value to the larger company. The book closes with a chapter on
fosteting a frugal culture.
THE ANALYSIS
It is beyond argument that these 6
parameters are vital, and offer a conceptually brilliant framework that can be
adapted and further developed to generate competitive value for whatever function
you are in charge of. The thing – all of these work in just about every
function; this is frankly an obsolete approach, us vs them. The modern method is
one in which each person external to your department is a customer; looked at
it that way – this framework transposes into a powerful base tool that can be
further developed into a useful managerial intervention or strategy in general
terms.
In one of the companies I worked in,
the Ops department and the Sales department had a joint meeting, understanding
each-others issues, skills and shortcomings. We understood their issues &
limitations, how & where they had to stretch – how we could help; they saw
the same for us; it took two active managers {prosumers} to engage; innovative
people; and so on. Engage-Flex-Sustainable solution-shape behaviour-prosumers-innovative
friends in a nutshell, within two departments of a company. These concepts can thus be internalized to
any function, department, company, industry or nation. These are basic
conceptual skills of good management.
The bigger issue is nowhere in the
entire book has the issues of people, skillsets been dealt with. It seems to me
that if you are attempting to build-in frugality into your organization, the
first question you should be asking is does your company have the right people –
and/or do they have the right mindset? Then, even if they have the right
mindset, do they possess the requisite skillsets to achieve it? The book does
touch on culture, but culture is too broad a concept. We need to focus with
eagle attention on the core – The people, the mindset, and the Skillsets
required. That is the tactical part of it, and that is where all strategies fail;
the attention to detail, the minutiae and the razor sharp focus. You cant afford to be so general and
overarching. As a leader implementing a
strategy, you need to have a razor sharp focus on the minutiae – which is
entirely different from micromanagement.
Next, the larger issue of how does it
all come together in one grand plan has been left unsaid. You can have all the
steps in place, in a sequence; that does not a strategy make. I didn’t find
this irritating; it made me connect the dots and try to figure out the grand
scheme – enabling a deeper conceptual understanding on a very fundamental level.
The most critical problem – this is a book based on large organisations, for
large organisations, and for Western people living in Western nations. It does
have applicability in emerging economies – in some companies & industries,
but even then, it has to be translated to the local cultural realities. All in
all, a half-finished effort, a book that could have been much better, a book
that promised a lot and delivered lesser value than it promised…
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