communicating for innovation

7/28/2019 Communicating for Innovation

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Communicating for innovation is about creating the conditions where people say, Let us March!

The kind of communication it takes to lead a team or organization towards innovation is often quitedifferent from communicating for keeping the organizational engine running or merely reaching out

to or connecting with employees. Innovation journeys are riddled with uncertainty and often self-

doubt. How leaders manage and navigate this uncertainty and keep the momentum going in the faceof the inevitable dark nights that innovation journeys face is often a function of how well they areable to communicate with, and align the team or organization.

In working with innovation teams, or really in any transformation area, the way you communicatecan often be more important than the resources you provide. Because teams will always find a way to

deal with lack of resources but they find it extremely hard to deal with communication that disablesor at the least doesnt actively enable. In working with innovations and innovation teams for over a

decade, Ive found the following 5 Principles to be among the most effective when it comes tocommunicating for innovation or transformation.

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that was it. There was too much space left over in his mind for others to come in. And what couldhave been a world-impacting innovation spluttered and petered out. $

$As my friend and communication expert Rajesh Vetcha says, Mind space is like a vacuum and

nature abhors a vacuum. And if any vacuum is allowed to exist, it will be filled in by someoneelse and then you have to scramble for a toehold.

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JK Tripathy as Commissioner of Police at Chennai, runs a 20,000 strong police force. Hescreating change in a notoriously rigid, hidebound organization like the police. His intent is to

bring down crime, transform police-public relations, drive decision making to the front rankswhere the policeman connects with the public, ensure probity and transparency in the force and

get the public to take greater responsibility for their city and immediate environment. These seemlike diverse goals, but the route to all these is the strategy of community policing that hes done

so well with at Trichy as Commissioner of Police there. And the key elements here are of coursethe community and the police.

As Tripathy says, when transformation is the agenda communication cant happen throughregular channels alone. There has to be one-to-one connect using various forms. Tripathy is

always on the go sharing his message. He visits police station after police station, makes fieldvisits to policemens beats, all the while both constantly sharing his message and listening to

their challenges and constraints. Its also not unusual to see him at busy junctions directing trafficin his trademark polite manner. He does it himself, demonstrating that every job is key but

doesnt do it in a manner thats shouts Demo. He just does it in a hands-on, business-as-usualmanner. And this perhaps speaks far more powerfully than anything else.

Tripathy estimates that around 60% of his time is spent in communicating with people down the

line. Tripathy says he makes hundreds of communications in a day and each communication hasto hold interest by linking meaning for his target group why they should do it, how they benefit.

Thats using communication strategically. He uses the police radio not to just give orders but totalk, to connect. And when he has to send written messages to the field, his standing instruction is

that they are not to be just put on the notice board, but to be read out to the Police Station teambefore being put on the board so that the personal connect is still maintained as far as possible.

All this is also done with the community. There are neighborhood groups created that meet every

Sunday with the police and other departments too attending where issues are discussed and

shared. NGOs are involved, people are constantly asked for inputs and ideas and there is anoverall sense of connectedness at all levels.

N=1 is alive and well and it is done through different methods using NGOs, using the press,using police radio, one-on-one meetings, publicizing the commissioners mobile phone number

so that anyone can reach him, field visits, and so on. Its not surprising that the transformation ofChennai Police is gathering steam. Tripathy reaches everyone individually.

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