Page 14 - Seniors Today - July 2021 Issue

not helping the business. There has to be
a strong fit between the organisational
strategy and the organisation culture. Let
me just give you an example: for a place
like AquaCentric, safety is very important.
Safety is crucial, in terms of safety and
hygiene. People should come here and feel
that, it’s a safe place for me to come. So that
means starting from the way we build the
place to the people we recruit and train.
Cardio workout at AquaCentric
Coming specifically to Marico, there’s a big
spike in our sales whenever innovation
succeeded. I was very clear that I wanted
to create an organisation which was
innovative on a perpetual basis, not
just one innovation and stop. So how do
you build an innovative culture in an
organisation, is a big challenge. How does
innovation happen? You need to have a
very diverse set of people first, because
diversity brings in innovation, it brings in
different thoughts. I’m not talking about
just gender diversity, I’m talking about
diversity, whether it’s education diversity,
or geographical diversity, including talent
from outside India as they come from
different backgrounds, and they have a
different way of thinking.. But merely
having diversity is not enough, you need
to combine diversity in a culture which is
very open.
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Harsh Mariwala at a Marico Innovation Foundation event
Openness is another pillar of a culture
where people should not be scared to open
up. If I want to talk to somebody three
levels below me, I don’t have to talk to
his/ her boss. Everybody calls each other
by first name. And when you combine
openness with trust, dialogues happen.
Innovations are not happening just in
R&D labs, innovations happen because
you get ideas, and you want to explore
with someone else. Then the idea develops
and then you prototype an experiment
and if it is successful, you scale it up. You
encourage people to innovate and prototype
and experiment. People know that when
I meet them, I’ll ask them a question on
innovation. So there is a certain expectation
which is set in. And we have Innovation
Awards in the organisation. All the
innovations are celebrated at our annual
event, which is a physical event conducted
at all our locations.
We have innovation facilitators,