Is it a phone? A camera? A
GPS device? A movie player? A book reader? A gaming device? When thinking
of smartphones the answer could be one of these, a combination thereof or all
of them. It depends on the perspective of the user. The phone is the same with
all the attributes it has but what it is perceived as depends on the user and
the attributes which are significant for them or they are aware of.
This essentially is the
premise of the ancient Indian Jain doctrine of “Anekāntavāda” – doctrine of
non-absolutism or non-one sidedness or non-exclusivity . A classical
elaboration of the doctrine has been the parable of the Six Blind Men and the
Elephant where each man depending on where they touched the elephant described
it as a spear (tusk), snake (trunk), wall (side), fan (ear), rope (tail) and
tree (leg), with none of them able to visualize the animal itself.
This has a bearing on all
aspects of innovation where the breakthrough innovator or platform disruptor
needs to exhibit the ability of visualizing or grasping all aspects and
manifestations of a process or technology (the “elephant”) while all existing
players have been caught up with the spears, snakes et al. This may well be the
philosophical premise behind the – customers often don’t know what they want-
quote attributed to Steve Jobs.
Also could be a precursor or corollary to what we are familiar of today as
thinking out-of- the-box.
How can an Innovator develop the ability to see beyond what others are
seeing? How can this approach be built into the innovation process as a
systemic and systematic component?
A potential solution lies in an integrated use of Anekāntavāda which
encourages stepping back and seeing the big picture with two other related
concepts from the same philosophical stream - syādvāda—the theory of
conditioned predication and nayavāda—the theory of partial standpoints.
The theory of conditioned predication would require the innovation process
to answer a series of seven questions which as an example I am applying
to the smartphone innovation I started the piece with:
- in some ways, it is a phone, How? Why ?
- in some ways, it is not a phone, How? Why?
- in some ways, it is, and it is not phone, How? Why?
- in some ways, it is a phone, and it is
indescribable, How? Why?
- in some ways, it is not a phone , and it is
indescribable, How? Why?
- in some ways, it is a phone , it is not a phone, and
it is indescribable, How? Why?
- in some ways, it is indescribable. How? Why?
Each of these seven
propositions will help the innovator examine the complex and multifaceted
nature of the innovation from a relative point of view of time, space,
substance and mode enabling him/her to see facets which can otherwise
stay hidden.
The “indescribable”
questions will help the innovator see beyond the current timeframe- It
may be indescribable now but what can it be described in the future. Could it
be described as a payment transaction processing device, Voila, Square is born.
Can it be described differently for different points of time – say night vs.
day ? Voila, we get the flashlight feature for the phone.
If it is not a phone and
is on my body can it measure my heartbeat or perhaps detect my mood or maybe
detect how I react when I am served my coffee at a temperature I am not used to
by a store which I frequent? What is it? What is it not? If yes, why? If not,
why not?
Is it a guitar, No. Why
not?......mmmmm sure it can be one, let’s build an app for it.
The theory of partial
standpoints or viewpoints would then help to arrive at a certain inference from
a point of view. A smartphone has infinite aspects to it, but when we
describe it in practice, we speak of only relevant aspects and ignore
irrelevant ones. This does not mean it does not have other attributes,
qualities, modes and other aspects; they are just irrelevant from a particular
perspective. For example , when we talk of a "white iPhone" we are
simply considering the color and make of the phone. However, the statement does
not imply that the phone does not have other attributes like volume,
screen size, camera quality etc. This particular viewpoint – “white” is
a partial viewpoint. Splitting up the attributes like this can enable the
innovator to see the total picture part by part, functionality by
functionality. This will help resolve design conflicts arising out of a
confusion of standpoints since it clearly establishes where the standpoint is
arising from.
There is nothing new with
the precepts outlined here. They have been around for a few thousands of years
and have generally just been viewed as philosophical doctrines. But as shown
above they can very well still be leveraged to create breakthrough innovation
in an organized, systematic way. Scholars have said “because anekāntavāda
is designed to avoid one-sided errors, reconcile contradictory viewpoints, and
accept the multiplicity and relativity of truth, the Jain philosophy is in a
unique position to support dialogue and negotiations” which can very well be
the cornerstone for a successful Innovation Process Framework.
Reference: Wikipedia: Anekantavada
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