This is a summary from the book Nanovation. It is the story of how one of today’s most influential global leaders, Ratan Tata, true practitioner of conscious capitalism, inspired a game changing innovation. NANOVATION is a how to on getting people to think big, act bold, and improve the world in the midst of overwhelming challenges. It concludes with eight transferable rules for driving innovation in any business and teaching people to achieve the possible in what appears impossible

1. Learning From nanovation
Bhavesh Shukla

2. Summary
• This book is the story of how one of today’s most influential global
leaders, Ratan Tata, true practitioner of conscious capitalism, inspired
a game changing innovation.
• NANOVATION is a how to on getting people to think big, act bold, and
improve the world in the midst of overwhelming challenges.
• It concludes with eight transferable rules for driving innovation in any
business and teaching people to achieve the possible in what appears
impossible

3. Key Learnings
• The Nano Story :
• Defining Nanovation
• Part Three: Finding What’s
Next!
• Nanovation Begins With Noticing
• Leading Nanovation
• A Culture Of Thinking Big,
• The Nanovation Team
• The Search for Nanovation
• People Ignore Design That Ignores People
• From Silos to Seamless
• A Cause Becomes A Movement
• Start With Less, End Up With More
• No Apology Products
• Return On Innovation
• Leading Through the Crisis
• Moving at the Speed of YES!
• The Eight Rules of Nanovation
1)Get Wired For Nanovation 2) Lead The Revolution
3) Build A Culture of Innovation 4)Question The Unquestionable 5)Look
Beyond Customer Imagination 6)Go To The Intersection Of Trends 7)Solve A
Problem That Matters 8)Risk More, Fail Faster Bounce Back Stronger

4. People ignores design that ignores people
• Dig deep to understand the customer. Innovation starts with
experiencing your customer's experiences. Customer may not be able
to tell you what exactly they want but spend enough time with them
and they will show you what they need. Stretch goal challenge what
you believe about yourself and expand your capacity to innovate.
• Questions:
1. When was last time someone in organisation spent enough time with the
customer to see how they use your product and really understand their
need?
2. When someone uses my product and they identify with my life and work.
3. Stretch goal identify leaders who can influence others without any
authority.

5. Listen, learn, let go and move on.
• Resilience requires optimism, belief that tomorrow will be better. Optimism
requires a leader who believes in you but won’t let you off the hook.
• Have no shame in ideas that don’t work. Learning what doesn’t work is as
important as what does.
• Questions:
1. is your culture seamless cross-functional?
2. Do you routinely gather diverse people to share idea and learn from each other?
3. If you didn’t have a title, anyone follows you?
4. Does your culture reward for trying new thing even that don’t work out?

6. Making a difference while making profit
• When business became a cause, people finds meaning and significance and
bring more of themselves at work. People find courage to think big and act
bold. The focus is making a difference while making profit. Super stars who
thrives in solving big problems opt in. Idea becomes more important than
titles, job description and tenure. People are bonded by a common sense
of outrage and hope for better tomorrow.
• Questions:
1. How bold and daring is your organisation while choosing the problem that it takes
on.
2. Is your company or your project that defines in terms of cause that fight to
liberate world from limiting conditions?

7. Characteristics of a movement
• Consider these characteristics of a movement; Movement is driven by deep seeded desire for
change the world for better. Movement is born from intolerance and intense dissatisfaction with
status quo. It demand self-sacrifice and single-hearted legends. Members of movement did not
know they couldn’t do it. People are sustained by hope for the future. People gain sense of
purpose, confidence and belonging by identifying with the movement. A movement give people
something worth changing for, it inspires commitment instead of compliance.
• Questions:
1. What was the last time you invited your associates for participating in something, which was
unprecedented, transformational and dangerous.
2. Do your associates have direct line of site for the cause?
3. Do they see their contribution support the cause?
4. Have your people been recruited for compelling, noble and heroic cause?
5. Do they poped in or you figure out how to get them buy in?
6. Are your associates doing just a job or are they caught up in movement.
7. Are you breeding commitment or compliance?
8. Do your people bring maniacal focus and missionary crusader zeal to the game?

8. Less is more but only when less is better
• It is about achieving most elegant solution with least amount of effort and
resources. Choosing to see limitation as opportunity instead of liability.
Resisting the temptation to make excuses for lack of innovation. Making
the pursuit of low cost, low-tech solution a badge of honour. Pushing
boundary because the prevailing paradigm will entice you to cry for more.
Avoiding the trap the feature creep and developing discipline to keep it
simple.
• Questions:
1. Do the people in your team choose to see limitation as threat or opportunity?
2. Knowing Limitation can force creativity how would this change your business?
3. What are some limitation that currently stifling innovation.
4. How can you redefine those limitation as opportunity to radically differentiate you from
your competitor

9. Focus on price and quality, not just price
• No apology product come from designer desire to make customer proud. Cheap
does not mean inferior. People are proud, not ashamed to fly southwest airline,
to shop at home depot, Target and drive Nano car. Focus on price and quality, not
just price. Passionately fulfil a need knowing that profit will follow come from
designer who experience the customer pain and pressure point by walking in
their shoes.
• Questions:
1. Have your decision maker lived where your target customers live?
2. Do they truly know what it likes to experience, problem you trying to solve?
3. Have your designer understand the needs and dignity of end users
4. Do your customer aspires to own your product or engage your service the way apple
customer do?
5. Are you in diaper business or baby development business as P& G, Are you in paint and
brush business or the business of helping contractor to be successful as Sherwin William?

10. Keep it simple
• Simplicity elegance and impact are lessons learned from unveiling approve
of concept. Keep it simple, Make it elegant, instead of crowding with text
and PowerPoint bullets, the screen were filled with compelling images. Go
for impact, special effect and dramatic music was used for audiances
attention.
• Questions
The next time you present idea or prototype to room of VIP consider these questions
1. How we will get their attention?
2. How can we make idea the star of the show?
3. Is there a compelling story with which we can unveil the idea?
4. Can we convey the idea in just one slide?
5. Can we use images instead of word to explain our concept?
6. Have we developed counter points for critics concern?

11. Conscious capitalism
Make a difference while making profit by taking in the consideration of following
• Assessment: let the recipient of your Giving activity teach you about what are their
need and want.
• Skin in the game: create dignity and sustainability by encouraging people to
participate in solving their own problem.
• Meaning: Give worker opportunity to personally make a difference to giving activities.
• Collaboration: Partner with the best activist and nongovernmental organization to
cast wider net and have greater impact.
• Transparency: Let people see every aspect of your company’s impact on all of its
stakeholder.
• Core competence: Make giving a way of doing business, make it a criteria for every
strategic initiative and every dollar spent.

12. Focus on bigger picture, the larger cause
Innovation is full of roadblocks and misstep. When things going south, stay focus on
bigger picture, the larger cause. Pick your battle wisely; nothing is worth
compromising the wellbeing of your people. Focus forward on the solution, Casting
blame and ruminating on the problem is wasted energy. Dig dip, you are normally
more capable of coping than you think you are and coping can be contagious. If
after honest debate and good feedback the coach calls a play, which you don’t
agree with, it’s your job to make that play work.
• Questions:
1. A culture of innovation built upon trust and trust is often created or destroyed depending
on how one lead through crisis. When faced with crisis where do you find your leaders, on
the front line, in the trenches, at the point of action or somewhere else?
2. The courage of conviction exemplified in leaders unbending resolve to do what is right give
followers hope and willpower to persevere, how do you measure up in crisis.

13. ‘Yes fast’ culture
12 characteristic of ‘yes fast’ culture?
1. Anticipate and plan for future scenario instead of waiting and reacting.
2. Known for Organizational flexibility instead of rigidity
3. Majors in opportunity led change instead of crisis led change.
4. Ask What if and why not instead of yes but.
5. Redeploy talent where it needed, it choose fast instead of fighting over player.
6. Chooses cross-functional collaborator over trivialism, silo building and turf
protection.
7. Is decisive, it does not procrastinate and pass the buck
8. Has people think and act like owner instead of being complacent and indifferent.
9. Has people who take initiatives not orders
10. Employs people who assumes responsibility for developing new knowledge and new
skill instead of company to offer training.
11. Has leader who trust people to get it done instead of command and control.
12. Establishes a record of constant on going experimentation rather than perfected and
then try it.

14. ‘Yes fast’ culture
• Questions
1. What is your organisation’s dominant default response to new idea, new way of
doing thing and unusual customer request? Yes or no?
2. With Crisis or disruption dictate, the need to move with speed how quick and
agile is your company.
3. When they are faced with adversity and major setback, how much
encouragement and support your leader extend to rest of the organization.
4. When they are faced with doing something they have never done are your
people reticent or willing do what ever it take to learn and adept to move?
5. Is your culture adaptive?

15. Get wired for nanaovation
• There is a new world order a global economy flew by internet shrink the distance
between people from different places. Today 4 billion people around the world have
cell phones and computers, they are connected internet and to the each other via
social network. Do you know what it means, connectivity in real time connection
enable us to communicate more easily connect faster, spread idea quicker, find
solution sooner and bring innovation to market place with unprecedented speed? You
are going to be part of this new world order or you are going to wake up one day and
wonder what happen today.
• Crazy ideas will revolutionise industries, what seems bizarre today could be
tomorrow’s established way of doing it. You can lead that change or you can be swept
along by it. In the end, you have to live with little of both.
• You must let go, right now someone somewhere is creating product or service to
displace yours. It would be better, faster or cheaper it would be more accessible or
easier to use, it will solve a problem or addresses need your customer did not know
they had. Nanovators are hungry for the change because they know that if they do not
let go old product and services and replace them someone else will do it for them.

16. Get wired for nanaovation
• You must be aware of past success, success is never final you have to earn it agin
and again. Each success only keep you in the game. The problem with success is
that it will make you vulnerable to arrogance; inflexibility and complacency
because it dupe you in thinking that have all the answers. If you think you are
smarter than you are, it will be easy close to learning and it will be hard to learning
new possibility. Now not leading yesterday’s headline does not mean you throw
out you already learn from past win, it means you are not going to let successes
limit your thinking about the future.
• Customers are on the move, There want and need are in constant state of flux.
Standstill and they will blow right by you. May be you will be able to catch up may
be you will not. Wouldn’t it better to keep moving to, wouldn’t it better to play
critical role in shaping their expectations.
• Questions
1. Do you make change happen through you, or do you just let it happen to you?
2. Is your organisation changing faster than industry?
3. Are you changing faster than your organisation?
4. Think about majority of major changes in your organisation, have they been
opportunity led or crisis driven?

17. Compelling story
• What is your story, so, you got a great idea, before pitching to board,
investor, CEO, suppliers or media, ask your team, do we have compelling
story that will make this idea stand out then consider these questions.
1. Will our story get people’s attention?
2. Is it simple, will they understand it?
3. Will they remember it?
4. Does it paint a picture and they can see themselves in?
5. Does it engage them emotionally?
6. Will they care about it?
7. Does it stick
8. Is it worth repeating?

18. Compelling story
• Questions:
1. One way you know that nanovation is become a permanent part of your
cultural DNA, is there constant buzz and excitement about people are
working on cool thing. Spirit of hopefulness prevail the place, Whether it is
on shop floor, on cafeteria or at executive’s room what stories do people
tell, Are they talking about next big thing, new idea for the group is working
on, or new marketing /advertising campaign that people cannot wait for
you to see?
2. Are people talking about latest blockbuster product that sending
shockwave throughout the industry?
3. Are they talking about in the way your latest innovation change customer
life or transform the other one works?
4. Or stories about making quarterly numbers, coping with new regulations,
raising productivity and having better execution or are that any other story
being told?

19. Creative Ideas for nanovation
• When are you most creative, think back to some of your best idea or most
creative ideas that have come to someone you know? When you got the idea,
where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? The answer to
these questions will help you to identify how and when creative idea comes to
you. They also might need you to finding and creating environment that is
conducive to nanovation.
• Create a board of nanovation advisers invite five energise, desperate destructive
and unpredictable people to join your board of adviser. Find five diverse people,
weirder the better from outside your company, outside your industry and outside
dominant gender and generation make up your associates. Ask them to
participate in forum virtual or face to face , it doesn’t matter. Design to look at
your business model, products and services for their unique perspectives. The
mission is for them to ask questions and challenge you to think like a outsider. For
example What would we be doing differently, if we operate our business in your
industry?

20. Creative Ideas for nanovation
• Questions
1. What taken for granted assumption drive your organisation?
2. What do people in your industry believe absolutely impossible?
3. What is politically incorrect question in your organisation?
4. How would you define incumbent mentality in your company?
5. What if , challenge set aside a day three times a year, get away from office
and have what if session with your team. Get as many idea out on the table
and then choose 2 or 3 to explore further. What if we do not have
hierarchy, no bosses, What if associates decide what they would work on,
What if we make all meeting voluntary, What if all meeting we conduct
standing up? What if we went on voice over IP to everything over IP.

21. Help Customer to find What they want
• Are you waiting for customer to tell you what they want? If you are you might already be
behind and force to play catch up to someone else is making the rule. Here you should
listen to your customer but not taking their feedback as sacrament. Customer do not
always know what is possible in your industry. Customer are not always aware about
your future capabilities. When new product displaced the one they just bought,
customer are not always in right frame of mind to help you think futuristically. Ask those
customers what they want and they will tell you they want same only a little better
which tend you to be iterative and incremental instead of transformational.
• Questions
1. When was the last time you lived with your customer like Girish spent time with small
villager to find out what they wanted in small truck, Like bill jonick watching over 1200
cardiac surgery.
2. How is the mentality of “either or” hinder your organization from being more innovative?
3. What it would look like if you side step “either or” thinking and embrace “And” Real
affordable car and you are proud to own.

22. Next practices
• Opportunities exist in the white space where trends converge. If you pursue only
best practices, the best you will ever get is to be good number two. Breakthrough
innovations come from thinking about next practices.
• Questions
1. What trends reshaping the world in which you live?
2. Where do these trends intersect?
3. Do any of these trends or combinations of trends have the potential to disrupt your business?
Do they signal room for new product, service, or business model?
4. How do you become or stay relevant to customer who are already living these trends out loud?
What are the implication for the way you market to connect with these customers?
5. Are you in touch? Are you connected to the sources of information (report, Web, magazine,
journals, blog etc.) that will help you to identify future trends and the next big thing?
6. What if the best practice in a completely unrelated field became the new next practice in your
industry?
7. What if your company had a portfolio of next practices?

23. Lesson Learned from Failed Innovations
Consider these lessons learned from experiences of Segway, Webvan and Iridium
founders:
• Know the real problem you are trying to solve. Think about the underlying
interest of the people who would buy your product. What are they really trying to
accomplish? Are they buying a hammer, or they buying a wood deck overlooking
a gorgeous canyon? Do they want to know the weather conditions or they what
they should wear today? Are they buying a car or symbol of freedom, safety and
status?
• Double-check the assumption upon which your business case rests. Before you
launch a marvellous technological achievement, ask, how do we make money on
it? Is the value proposition clear and irrefutable? Don’t let the glamor or sexy
technology blind you from a weak business model. The Nano certainly doesn’t
have the stigma of sexy technology, but it isn’t design challenged like the Iridium,
and it is being launched in one of the fastest-growing car markets in the world.
• Do the trend still hold true- particularly if you have long product development
cycle? In Iridium’s case the trends shifted dramatically, but the company failed to
adept.

24. Lesson Learned from Failed Innovations
• Is your product or service compelling enough for the consumer to change their
behavious?
• Webvan thought people would gladly change their grocery-buying behaviour-
they didn’t. There is no question that global economic crisis has intensified frugal
consumer buying behaviours. This will serve the Nano well, what percentage of
approaching 18-million two-wheeler market can Nano convert? Can you build at
price for critical mass? Segway and Iridium establish price point only elite can
afford when the market have cheaper alternatives.
• Questions:
1. Does your product or service can solve a significant problem and serve the world in
important way? Or is it result of your fascination with cool technology?
2. Have you really nailed it in term of defining the problem you are trying to solve?

25. Redefine Failure
• Tata motor created environment where team Nano never had to fear
failure. It gave everyone freedom to think openly, take risk and leverage
creativity. Failure can become your one of company’s strategic weapon
when viewed as opportunity to learn faster instead of punishable offence.
The TATA group has dare to try award, and BMW has creative error of the
month award. These high profile awards are design to redefine failure and
remove stigma from taking risk. Here are few suggestion for stepping
through fear when you faced with taking a risk.
• Stay focus on bigger yes, the cause for which you fight. Remember that you were
never know what you are capable of unless you push the boundaries and test the
limit what you think you can achieve.
• Do not wait for guarantees, there are no guarantees.
• Rethink what it mean to fail, failure build resilience, exposes blind spot, broaden your
perspective and move you closer to solution.
• Stop getting ready and make something happen now.

26. Redefine Failure
• Questions
1. When was last time you rewarded someone for intelligent failure?
2. When was last time you challenge someone to think bigger?
3. How many people in your organisation playing it safe right now and
working on something right now which 5 year from now no one will care?

27. Nanovation effect
• The nanovation effect, movement of innovator asking how we can do in our
industry what TATA has done in their industry. How can we reduce our product,
service cost by an order of magnitude, and still deliver most of the desired
performance. Imagine a prosthetic knee for $20, Portable ultrasound device for
less than $10000, a Morden apartment that cost just $8000.
• Questions
1. Pull your most creative thinkers together who have pulse on the industry then ask among
our competitor who is most likely to create next example of nanovation, how will that
change our business?
2. What company is out there lurking ready to sell our product at 1/100th of our price?
3. What opportunity exist for reverse innovation?
4. How can you use simplicity to reduce cost, increase speed and improve service?
5. What seemingly intractable problems exist in your industry. Outside your industry? Do you
have capability to connect the dot and use it to use two problems to solve each other?
6. What would happen if you engage your supplier in stretch project that intern enble them
to offer more value to their other customers?