Based on hundreds of interviews, as well as the author’s consulting work within companies, Jugaad 3.0 Hacking the Corporation will prove that every organization’s best chance, to survive and become better than ever, lies within itself. Against the decidedly progressive, action-oriented, and above all restless backdrop of disruption, the DNA of established business is starting to realign. It’s the beginning of a groundswell that has started to make lean entrepreneurship a core competency within big business.
We had a chat with the author, Simone Ahuja. Read all about it below!
What was your favorite part while writing this book? Any particular interview was very interesting/enlightening?
My favorite part of writing is always interviewing intrapreneurs and innovation leaders. This allows for a more authentic and compelling story since I learn from their real experiences, victories, and challenges, and compare notes with experiences I’ve been through with my clients. It’s the anthropologist in me that likes to access practitioners from various backgrounds, and then synthesize and analyze the information they share to help others solve similar issues. My readers come from a diverse range of backgrounds, so it was important for me to provide interviews from an equally diverse range of fields.
One of my favorite interviews was with L’Oreal chemist, Balanda Atis, and Stanley Black and Decker’s PR manager, Sarah Wyndham. They demonstrated key characteristics of successful intrapreneurs (including passion and purpose, being frugal and managing ambiguity) to drive their innovations forward. Both intrapreneurs knew that they could not create their vision alone, so they “enlisted” others in a win-win collaboration to push their ideas into reality since the DIY methodology calls for curiosity, humility, a willingness to experiment and deep collaboration.
One piece of advice for a budding intrapreneur?
Definitley to partner with others. Finding mentors and sponsors in crucial in the innovation process since they can provide intrapreneurs with valuable lessons, networking opportunities, and varied perspectives. High-quality mentors and sponsors can take an intrapreneur to the next level of success because of their previous experience and resources, the air cover they can provide, the doors they can open, and the fingerprints they may be able to help keep off of your initiative.
What was your writing routine for this book?
I started this book by searching for intrapreneurs across the world and across industries. We then took deep dives into their journeys to understand their successes and barriers to intrapreneurship until I was fully immersed. Finally, I began to synthesize and analyze my interview data which is what resulted in the principals that I share in Jugaad 3.0.
Any challenges you faced while writing this particular book?
Writing a book is all consuming and I had two births this year: the birth of this book and the birth of my daughter, Zara. Writing can be an immersive process, so it’s a challenge while also working and raising my two-month-old daughter alongside my 4 and a half-year-old son. This year has been extraordinarily busy and exciting, but these births made my priorities were very clear. Anything superfluous easily fell to the wayside.
How was it different from writing Jugaad Innovation?
Writing this book was quite a different experience for me since I wrote this one on my own. My editors and publishers supported me immensely, but in the end, it came down to my judgment and decision making – and at times that can be a lonely road! Being a solo author was unlike writing with co-authors; I enjoyed the camaraderie and collaboration of writing Jugaad Innovation, but I also fully enjoyed the experience of writing this book on my own, especially because it is so closely linked to my work and solving a problem (moving ideas through to execution) faced by so many of my clients.
Jugaad 3.0 Hacking the Corporation offers a spectrum of carefully crafted archetypes to help people see themselves in this trend and allow organizations identify the innovators in their midst.
