INNOVATION SPECIAL.......Cos seek diversity to boost innovation

Cos seek diversity to boost innovation  Workforce Drawn From Different Cultures And Regions Widens India Inc’s Talent Pool Mumbai:A decade ago, Punebased Cummins faced a peculiar situation which probably a lot of other companies may still be facing. Almost 99% of its professional workforce was Maharashtrian. It was not by design but by virtue of Cummins being based in western India that it attracted talent predominantly from this region. Like any progressive organization, Cummins, too, believed that it should have a diverse mix of professional workforce because diversity brings about a mingling of different thoughts that can lead to innovation.     It is a well-documented fact as to why diversity, not merely in terms of gender, but even ethnicity, region and age is important for the growth of an organization. Over the years, Cummins drove hard the message of regional diversity across the organization. To begin with, Cummins expanded its recruitment drives across all four regions. This resulted in a positive outcome, with almost 50% of its professional workforce hailing from other regions of India.     A regionally diverse team, Cummins believes, assists in ideation and leads to better performance. “Our teams scout around for people across regions. Today, we are seeing people moving from Jamshedpur to Phaltan (where part of Cummins’s manufacturing is based) and even from Indore to Phaltan,” said Nagarajan Balanaga, VP (HR), Cummins Group, in India.     “It’s good to have diverse people sitting around the table and thinking — people who are differently wired, think differently,” said Balanaga. Part of Cummins Inc, Cummins in India is a group of eight legal entities with a combined turnover of approximately Rs 10,500 crore and it employs close to 14,500 people across 200 locations in the country.     Cummins is not the only company gunning for diversity of its workforce. The Aditya Birla Group, where the top deck at one point was largely of Rajasthani origin, has over the years seen a transformation with leaders of other communities joining to create adiverse mix. This was driven more by changing circumstances brought about by economic liberalization. Ethnic diversity came about at the group as growth outstripped the supply of people from the ethnic social network.     Historically, even large corporate houses such as the Tatas, Godrej and Reliance were seen to be attracting talent from a particular community. Over a period of time, as more jobs and posts got created, they saw talent flow from other communities.     Among the newer homegrown companies, the intent of starting with an open diverse culture appears to be upfront. Marico believes its culture of openness, transparency and empowerment plays a pivotal role in the sustenance of innovation. “At Marico, innovation does not happen only in labs but also through dialogues occurring in different parts of the organization and through interactions with consumers and thought leaders,” said Harsh Mariwala, CMD, Marico.     “We look at diversity through a ‘fish-eye’ lens and nurture it in several ways — beyond gender and age diversity which everyone knows and talks about, we also practice domain diversity. Thus, when a key project calls for a task force, we instinctively look for adiverse domain group. A typical task force for a brand-related project would be a crossfunctional team that comprises people from various domains — research, creative, media and PR. Some of these may be people who do not otherwise work on that brand. Their newness to the brand fetches a unique ‘outside in’ perspective. Such diversity spurs out-of-the-box thinking. It also keeps our thought processes fresh. It is then just logical that we should often find newer ideas to succeed,” said Mariwala.     Frans Johansson, founder and CEO, said, “Those companies that purposefully create a diversity culture have a better chance of coming up with something innovative and outstanding. Given its diversity in culture and ethnic groups, India has a very big opportunity to be innovative. It can leverage this diversity because it has the raw material for it.”     Johansson cited the example of Michigan-based Menlo Innovations, where CEO Richard Sheridan started making employees work in pairs on a single computer screen. The pairs switched every Monday, in effect making intersections and driving innovation through ideas. “It is important to create diverse teams working in an organization because you increase your chances for unexpected insights, connections and ideas. It’s these unexpected instances that will distinguish you from a competitor,” said Johansson.     Johansson, who was in Mumbai in connection with Medici Institute, which is driving innovation in India, pointed to IBM. The company has undergone innovations in hardware and software through an incredible focus on diversity in terms of culture, race, gender, countries and ethnicity. EMPLOYING A GOOD MIX • Cos believe diversity of gender, ethnicity, region and age is vital for an organization’s growth • Inter-mingling in a workforce with a rich mix of backgrounds can lead to innovation • Analysts believe cos have ready ‘raw material’ in India’s diverse culture & ethnic groups • Move got boost after liberalization when one community or region couldn’t keep up with needs of expanding businesses Namrata Singh TNN TOI121221