Interaction with Prasad Kaipa
Building a Community to Ignite the Genius Within
Professor Prasad Kaipa, Executive Director , Centre for Leadership, Innovation , and Change (CLIC) envisions the Centre to be a premier destination for knowledge creation and dissemination in the areas of leadership, innovation, and change management for India, the emerging economies, and the world. In an interaction, just a day before the CLIC Conference ‘Igniting the Genius Within’ began, Professor Kaipa explained about what is unique about this Conclave, and what CLIC proposes to take away from the sediments of the three day long interactions.
Tell us something about the unique format of this Conference. The concept of World Café, that you have integrated, generates cross pollination of ideas and creates a sort of global community. Was that your purpose?
The format of the conference is designed to build a community. There is a saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. I would like to say that it takes a community to ignite the genius within participants of that community. When the structure, process, engagement, inspiration are designed around bringing the best out of people in that community, then igniting the genius does not become accidental, it becomes intentional and allows for genius to self-ignite.
There are several elements that we are paying special attention to. First the structure - the Conference is organised in School Atrium instead of a traditional auditorium. One reason for this is that when people sit around tables and have access to microphone, and not everybody is facing the speaker, it empowers people in a silent and clear fashion. It is not just about what happens on the stage, but also what happens around you. So the focus shifts from ‘giving Gyan’ to provoking, inquiring and engaging people to look within, explore deeply and see what are the real or perceived limitations that are blocking the way of their individual genius.
The Second element is the process – By giving about half the time for speakers and other half for participants to discuss with their table mates, we are honouring and respecting that each member has something to contribute.
Third, the Conference uses three lenses namely wisdom perspectives, scientific principles and management best practices, to look at each theme. In fact, they represent three primary colours and the integral lens called life contains all of them. At the end of each day, we have the World Café which is like a coffee shop where people choose to engage in what they got, where they are, etc. We allow people to mingle to share and explore their lessons, practices, principles and perspectives from the day. Many times people get surprised at what others are taking away from the same talk, and that opens people’s minds and hearts and gets them thinking, changing and re-learning.
The Conference examines three areas – Leadership, Innovation and Change – Do you think that the three themes will melt into one another during the course of the Conference? What do you aspire to achieve at the end of the three days?
The three themes are like body, mind and heart of a living person. They are separate parts and together make up a whole. Leadership is about action, and practicing what one preaches. Innovation is about bringing human creativity (mind) to focus on a problem or a possibility to come up with an innovative solution, business model, discovery, product or process. Change of hearts is the only way to guarantee sustainable change in people. In that respect, leadership focus without paying attention to innovation and change leads to blind loyalty to tradition or belief. Innovation focus without paying attention to leadership and change issues allows people to come up with products and processes that die without executive or leadership support and nobody commits to making them a success. In other words, innovation is like a beautiful orphan with an uncertain future. Also, change management focus without leadership and innovation to support it is unsustainable.
Successful leaders in the 21st century recognise that one has to learn to manage change effectively. Take the example of Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways during the recent flip flop around employee layoffs. When he did not manage change properly, his leadership credentials were questioned. Similarly, without innovation, the top-line growth is at risk.
To summarise, I look at the three themes as interdependent and integral to the success and transformation of individuals and organisations.
A Conference like this is not just an isolated event and will generate more expectations. Can you tell us something about the road ahead? How will CLIC use the Conference to further its vision?
You are right. The conference is just an appetiser. We have in the pipeline thought leader forums in the areas of wisdom perspectives, on each of the three themes -Leadership, Innovation and Change. This means inviting academicians, practitioners and consultants to come together and explore how we can bring different perspectives based on Indian wisdom. It is not just about religious rituals or tenets. It is not even about adapting spiritual principles as they are, but on focussing what wisdom perspective means. How would a 21st century CEO act if he/she was to be Arjuna and Krishna was to speak? In fact, what form or role would Sri Krishna take if he were to incarnate in 21st Century? Similarly, if Jesus Christ or Prophet Mohammad were to be alive now, what would their message be to the business leaders and money lenders of today? Based on our conversations during the Conference, we plan to release a ‘Wisdom Series’ of books and articles to help global leaders.
Similarly, we are planning a series of articles and cases on various innovative developments that are taking place in India. We are also documenting some key change and transformation stories of large organisations, and how they lead and innovate differently from organisations in developed countries. In fact, in partnership with Young Global Leaders (WEF), we are studying leadership styles of Indians and other leaders from Asia and emerging economies and comparing it with styles of western leaders. We are also having executive education programmes during the first week of December. I am doing a four day transformational leadership course for the fifth year in a row. This is for CEOs, entrepreneurs and other senior leaders to clarify their own paths and develop a different kind of leadership. Professor S Ramnarayan, Clinical Professor of Business at the ISB, and Management Committee Member of CLIC, is co-authoring a book on transformation of Indian Railways.
Tell us something about the profile-mix of the participants?
We have about 150 participants and 30 faculty members coming in from various locations and countries. We have about 20 plus people coming in from outside the country. Among the participants, over 65% are senior managers (General Manager and above). 25% of them are middle managers. In terms of sectors, about 25% of them are from consulting sector, 15% from Agro business, 13% from IT industry, 9% are from Infrastructure and construction business, 8% are from education sector, 7 % from Electronics and telecom. Finally, we are dominated by men as only 6% of the participants are women.
