In­no­va­tion is the eco­nomic re­li­gion of the 21st cen­tury. Like all eco­nomic ac­tiv­ity, it has its own com­pe­ti­tion. It is no longer enough just to be dif­fer­ent from the bunch. To thrive to­day, one needs rad­i­cal in­no­va­tion, per­se­ver­ance, per­sis­tence and the hu­man touch, says men­tor and mo­ti­va­tion wiz­ard Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia. She nar­rates the in­no­v­a­tive ideas of Guru Sahibs and also how Sikh hu­man­i­tar­ian aid in­sti­tu­tions have done amaz­ing cre­ative work dur­ing the Farm­ers Mor­cha and the Oxy­gen cri­sis in re­cent times.

INNO­VA­TORS ARE THOSE THAT CON­TIN­U­OUSLY EVOLVE, they are nei­ther sta­tic nor fixed in ideas, thoughts, be­liefs and at­ti­tude. They re­peat their suc­cess each time and every time with greater per­fec­tion. In­no­va­tion and cre­ativ­ity help us rein­vent our­selves in every sit­u­a­tion, in every ac­tion, if only one learns to re­spond to a sit­u­a­tion rather than re­act. The In­no­va­tor is the one who keeps go­ing while oth­ers are naysay­ers.

Change is the only cer­tainty in these un­cer­tain times. It’s the only thing af­fixed in this dy­namic and fluid en­vi­ron­ment. It’s the only re­al­ity in this il­lu­sion­ary world. The process of change is kick-started by in­no­va­tion. It’s the first most crit­i­cal and in­cred­i­ble step. 

Cre­ativ­ity is lov­ing your work. it is not do­ing the work you like but lik­ing the work that you do. The un­der­ly­ing spirit is to in­tro­duce a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive in all do­mains -to take the path less trav­elled, to test and hone your skills. 

Change is the only cer­tainty in these un­cer­tain times. It’s the only thing af­fixed in this dy­namic and fluid en­vi­ron­ment. It’s the only re­al­ity in this il­lu­sion­ary world. The process of change is kick-started by in­no­va­tion. It’s the first most crit­i­cal and in­cred­i­ble step. 

Every op­por­tu­nity gives scope for in­no­va­tion and every in­no­va­tion trans­lates into op­por­tu­nity. Win­ning a 5 mil­lion lot­tery by a labourer is an op­por­tu­nity, con­vert­ing it to 500 mil­lion re­quires tenac­ity and in­no­v­a­tive skills. 

Covid19-re­lated lock­down, work from home are all op­por­tu­ni­ties for many for in­no­va­tion. In fact, in­no­va­tion thrives on en­cour­age­ment, dies with rou­tine, reg­u­la­tions and bu­reau­cracy. 

Covid, lock­down, work from home are all op­por­tu­ni­ties for many for in­no­va­tion. In fact, in­no­va­tion thrives on en­cour­age­ment, dies with rou­tine, reg­u­la­tions and bu­reau­cracy. 

To­day’s strate­gic pri­or­i­ties must fo­cus on in­no­vat­ing for the fu­ture rather than at­tempt­ing to im­prove the past. Ideation is the key and cre­ative think­ing should out­shine pure logic. ‘Think Dif­fer­ent” is the key to suc­cess. In­no­va­tion hap­pens when one can find the gaps. Give the cus­tomer what they need, work on their unar­tic­u­lated needs, ob­serve the fa­mil­iar with fresh eyes and lead with a pur­pose. 

Ap­ple, Dis­ney are or­ga­ni­za­tions whose trend­set­ting ca­pac­ity is the re­flec­tion of their lead­ers’ be­liefs. De­velop a cul­ture that aligns em­ployee be­hav­iour with the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s in­no­v­a­tive strat­egy. Noth­ing re­mains the same, noth­ing re­mains sta­tic, which way a thing changes, de­pends en­tirely on you -get out of the knowl­edge trap and be­come in­tu­itively cre­ative.

The tenets of Sikhism have ex­em­pli­fied that Sikhism is not just a re­li­gion or an ide­ol­ogy, but the Sikh way of life has brought in in­no­v­a­tive con­cepts which have with­stood the test of time and are uni­ver­sal in na­ture. Sikh Gu­rus were rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies and they stood apart from the crowd of the op­pressed pop­u­la­tion of those times. They cre­ated a clear iden­tity free from dogma.

Guru Nanak was one of the great­est of re­li­gious in­no­va­tors of all time as the founder of Sikhism. He was an orig­i­nal spir­i­tual thinker and gave ex­pres­sion to his learn­ing and teach­ings through re­li­gious hymns.

Guru Nanak was one of the great­est re­li­gious in­no­va­tors of all time as the founder of Sikhism. He was an orig­i­nal spir­i­tual thinker and gave ex­pres­sion to his learn­ing and teach­ings through re­li­gious hymns. He cre­ated the ground for de­nounc­ing the caste sys­tem and any kind of in­equal­ity on the ba­sis of work, caste, gen­der or sta­tus. He em­pha­sized that God was nei­ther in­car­nated nor rep­re­sented in idols; rather his spirit could be ex­pe­ri­enced within one­self and out­side through Naam Sim­ran –med­i­ta­tion and re­mem­brance of Him. 

The Sikh Gu­rus with their in­no­v­a­tive ideas were game-chang­ers. They saw and acted on op­por­tu­ni­ties, used crit­i­cal think­ing to re­solve dilem­mas, broke through com­pro­mises and em­ployed their re­source­ful­ness to power through ob­sta­cles. The sit­ting arrange­ment of lan­gar -the com­mu­nity kitchen and food tra­di­tion and prac­tice, is a very dis­tinct in­no­va­tion -every­one sits in a straight line nei­ther ahead to lay claim to higher sta­tus nor be­hind to de­note in­fe­ri­or­ity.

In­no­va­tors main­tain a laser fo­cus on out­comes, avoid get­ting caught in the ac­tiv­ity trap and proac­tively ‘ex­pand the pie’ to make an im­pact. Re­gard­less of where they start, in­no­va­tors per­sist till they suc­cess­fully change the game. 

He cre­ated ‘Sant Sipahi’ who knew how to bal­ance spir­i­tu­al­ity with coura­geous ac­tions. He gave us both Naam Sim­ran and the Kir­pan -the sword of benev­o­lence. His brav­ery is ad­mired with awe and his good­ness is pro­foundly revered.

The bless­ing of Guru Gob­ind Singh in giv­ing a dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter, im­age and shape to Sikh fol­low­ers was an ex­tra­or­di­nary feat, de­liv­ered unto us through the lin­eage of the Gu­rus over 239 years of piety, wor­ship, self­less ser­vice and char­ac­ter build­ing.   Un­der the lead­er­ship of Guru Gob­ind Singh, Sikhism fur­ther evolved from be­ing mere teach­ings to a prac­ti­cal way of life and com­mit­ment to per­sonal and so­ci­etal ethics.  His fo­cus was on in­te­grat­ing spir­i­tu­al­ity along with car­ry­ing out worldly re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. He cre­ated ‘Sant Sipahi’ who knew how to bal­ance spir­i­tu­al­ity with coura­geous ac­tions. He gave us both Naam Sim­ran and the Kir­pan -the benev­o­lent sword. His brav­ery is ad­mired with awe and his good­ness is pro­foundly revered.

He cre­ated the Khalsa, Singh and Kaur and gave a code of con­duct. He trans­ferred the spirit of eter­nal Guru to Guru Granth Sahib which there­after con­tin­ues to be our eter­nal guardian, teacher and Guru. 

Be it the Kissan Mor­cha -the Farm­ers strug­gle on the bor­ders of Delhi or the ab­solutely rev­o­lu­tion­ary phil­an­thropic ef­fort of pro­vid­ing make-shift “Oxy­gen Lan­gar” on the roads and ve­ran­dahs of Gur­d­waras, in the even to fail­ure of the sys­tem to pro­vide this ba­sic life-sup­port in hos­pi­tals and care cen­tres, this egal­i­tar­ian in­no­va­tion by the Sikhs, with­out prompt­ing by any­one, com­ing straight from their hearts, in­flu­enced by the teach­ings of the Gu­rus to have pre­cept and prac­tice on par, can be seen as a pin­na­cle of in­no­va­tion.

In­no­va­tion is not just re­lated to tech­nol­ogy or dig­i­ti­za­tion. It is an evolv­ing tool to re­spond to the needs of so­ci­ety and cre­ate a so­lu­tion.  The Oxy­gen Lan­gar is one such break­through in­no­va­tion that proved that the ba­sis of so­lu­tion need not be com­plex de­sign or tech­nol­ogy-dri­ven or re­search-based. The Ghazi­abad Gur­d­wara lead­er­ship set in mo­tion a sim­ple tech­nique em­u­lated all over Delhi and var­i­ous parts of In­dia. The roy­alty that they won for their in­no­va­tion was the bless­ings of those cured and the hearts they won for the Sikh com­mu­nity. 

Sim­i­lar was the case of many other or­gan­i­sa­tions which con­tributed im­mensely be­yond the call of duty. True in­no­va­tors are self­less be­cause they see the use of their in­no­va­tion for so­ci­ety. It could be as sim­ple as the in­ven­tion of the ball­point pen or even bet­ter the gel-based pen over the ink pen, which in­no­va­tion has ben­e­fit­ted mil­lions. 

US-based Gurtej Singh Sandhu has more patents than Thomas Alva Edi­son. The Sikh writer and the­olo­gian -Bhai Vir Singh raised the Pun­jabi lan­guage to a lit­er­ary level, hith­erto not at­tained. Narinder Singh Ka­pany de­vel­oped the op­tic fi­bre, et al. 

With mas­sive op­por­tu­ni­ties knock­ing on our doors, the res­olute and en­ter­pris­ing spirit of the Sikhs, with their never-say-die at­ti­tude will cer­tainly raise the bench­marks never be­fore at­tained through cre­ative and so­cially re­spon­si­ble in­no­va­tion.

Ti­tle im­age cour­tesy: Inc.com

Harpreet Kaur Ahluwalia is a cor­po­rate coach and men­tor, a ma­jor in Eco­nom­ics, a renowned pub­lic speaker on cor­po­rate af­fairs and an ex­pert ad­vi­sor in Em­pow­er­ment, En­tre­pre­neur­ship, Re­la­tion­ship Man­age­ment and Ado­les­cence chal­lenges. She is the wife of late Ka­mal Jit Ahluwalia, a per­sona par ex­cel­lence snatched from us by Covid19-re­lated lack of treat­ment in Delhi.