Jugaad to Help Fight Economic Sharks


NEW YORK (MainStreet) —Navi Radjou, co-author of Jugaad Innovation wears three hats. The first one is made in India, the country that gave the world the most powerful number called zero. The second hat comes from France with vestiges of Renaissance thinking. The third one which he now prefers to wear links him to America, the modern world’s El Dorado.

To be born in India is to be born with the "jugaad gene." In Hindu mythology, when Ganesha beat his elder brother Karthik (the commander of the divine army) in the race across the universe, he gave to India the spiritual philosophy, which recognizes the ‘mother’ as the real universe. We can also call it "spiritual jugaad."

There can be no better example of the power of political "jugaad" than Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent movement for India’s freedom from British rule. Subhash Chandra Bose (another Indian freedom fighter) tried to achieve the same goal by following the Western model of armed combat and failed. Gandhi did not need money to raise his army of freedom fighters; Bose did.

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In the social sphere of the third world the joint family was the "jugaad" to keep expenses down. Markets exploit, families don’t. In moments of financial crisis Indian men turned to their grandmothers, mothers and wives for an “economic bailout”. Indian women intuitively knew the importance of running the household within the earning capacity of the breadwinner and saving for the proverbial rainy day. That is, perhaps, the reason why when the rest of the world suffered the consequences of the 2008 economic meltdown, India got away with minor injuries.

The meltdown aroused the "jugaad" gene in Radjou who decided to share with corporate America and the rest of the Western economies the financial wisdom contained in this atom. Radjou is trying to split this atom for the financial world to reap the benefits of frugality. He explained this to us in more detail in an exclusive interview.

How did this idea (Jugaad Innovation) actually come?


How did you go about achieving this objective?


Why emerging markets?
Radjou: Because we had noticed that (throughout the 2000s) emerging economies had grown at double-digit rates despite the sheer complexity and resource scarcity that characterize their societies. We intuited that if entrepreneurial companies in India, China, Brazil and Africa are able to grow fast in such adverse and resource-limited environment, then they must be using some "secret formula."


Did you find that formula?
Radjou: Alas, after spending several years meeting and interacting with dozens of entrepreneurs in EM we realized that these innovators didn't rely on any special "technique" -- rather they all share a unique mind-set. It's a resilient mind-set that enables them to turn adversity into opportunity and do more with less in resource-constrained settings. That frugal and flexible mind-set is what (for the lack of a better word) we labeled as "jugaad." Jugaad is a Hindi word that means an "innovative fix--an improvised solution born from ingenuity and cleverness".



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In the West, people talk more about minimalism. Would people in West prefer jugaad or minimalism?
Radjou: I think ‘minimalism’ and’ jugaad’ go hand in hand. Minimalism is a lifestyle choice made by a growing number of Americans who are "downshifting" their hectic, complex lifestyle and choosing to lead a simple but more meaningful life. Studies show that 15% to 28% of Americans have already voluntarily adopted simplified lifestyles. Unfortunately existing products and services sold in the West are too complex and expensive to cater to this growing market of "minimalist" consumers. That's where jugaad can come in handy. When leveraged cleverly -- using a jugaad approach -- technologies like mobile devices can actually help "simplify" people's lives.



You also talk about corporate America and mainstream business. How Jugaad will find a place in mainstream business when we talk about money, investment and other such parameters?


The recent healthcare reform is going to force U.S. medical device makers and pharma companies to totally reinvent their "bigger is better" R&D model in order to cost-effectively serve the needs of the 50 million Americans who currently are uninsured and need to be covered.

How different is Jugaad from DIY? When there is DIY in America, why do they need a third world concept of "Jugaad"?
Radjou: DIY and Jugaad share the same spirit of ingenuity and improvized creativity. But DIY has traditionally been practiced in the fringes of Western societies -- primarily led by amateurs -- and tends to be perceived as a hobby. But now we are seeing that with the success of the MakerFaires in San Mateo, Calif. and New York and the democratization of 3D printers, the DIY phenomenon is going mainstream and becoming serious "business". On the other hand, jugaad has long been the only dominant approach to innovation in emerging markets and it has been practiced on a much larger scale by billions of people in India, China, Brazil, and Africa. In particular, I do believe that American firms can learn much from emerging markets how to bring the DIY spirit inside their large organizations.



Radjou:I see the biggest challenge is convincing senior executives in large Western corporations to empower their employees so they can improvize solutions as they see fit -- rather than expecting their superiors to tell them what to do. Ultimately jugaad is about catalyzing "bottom up" innovation by unleashing and harnessing the ingenuity of all employees.


The good news is that enlightened leaders in forward-thinking organizations across sectors in the West -- such as 3M, Unilever, Siemens, Renault-Nissan, Mayo Clinic, and FEMA -- are empowering their employees to think and act as nimble jugaad innovators. My hope is that in the coming years more Western organisations will emulate them and follow their lead in adopting the frugal, flexible, and inclusive principles of jugaad.

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