Solving an Innovation Challenge

Where is Osama bin Laden?
Hmmm… Probably somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan. We have not seen him in West Hartford, Connecticut, USA.

How old are you?
We get this question all the time. I am too old to run a triathlon, and too young to know everything about life. If you want the other answer, call Pam at 860-233-0011 x817. J

What is your definition of innovation?
“The ability to adapt, alter, or adjust that which already exists for the purpose of adding value.” “Creativity in work clothes.” The word “innovation” comes from the Latin “innovatus” meaning “to make new.”

What is DeSai's purpose/mission?
To help organizations harvest the extraordinary latent human potential to grow their businesses.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Our lawyers have advised us to not explore such questions due to our signed agreement with the federal government and the GSA pricing schedule. We are very sorry that we are not at liberty to divulge any further information on this subject at this time.

What does The DeSai Group really do?
We are in the business of Innovation – specifically “Innovation Execution”. We are a consulting firm, helping our clients build sustainable innovation capabilities for continuous growth. Our consulting, learning, and research primarily focus on the question: How to create an organization that adds sustainable value to customers and investors using innovation?

What are your core competencies?
Innovation, future thinking, creativity, leadership, strategic thinking, execution, and learning.

Hey Dad, are we there yet?
Oh... in about 15 minutes or so.

What kind of industries have you worked with?
Pharmaceutical, financial services, insurance, retail, manufacturing, public utilities, high tech, telecommunications, entertainment, construction, transportation, fashion, chemicals, education, government, and interactive media.

Why did you start DeSai?
Three reasons: First, back in 1983, the two founding partners (father and son team of Harshad and Jatin Desai) both had a strong fascination for entrepreneurship, technology, innovation, making money, and changing the world. Secondly, we realized that our solutions were great, but the execution and implementation managed by our customers was not very good. Lastly, we realized that leadership at the top was hardly committed and aligned with authentic sponsorship for most corporate initiatives. This led us to realize that most organizations were operating as machines and not harvesting the creative power already available to them for sustainable growth. Too many political games, too much waste, not enough creativity, and disengaged workforce is mostly what we observed. Bottom line, we saw a need that was going unmet and jumped at the chance to make a difference in a way that was consistent with our own skills, dreams, and passions – to help create Living Organizations through the craft of Innovation Execution.

What is the process of engaging your services?

Call us at 860-233-0011 (USA) and ask for Dan “The Man” Browne, he's our head of Business Development (he's known also as a tough coach for young kids in soccer and lacrosse teams).
Tell us about your needs and desired outcomes
Invite us to submit a proposal (although we prefer to talk to you first)
Review our proposal and say “when can you start”
Sign the Purchase Order or Letter of Engagement

How many people in your organization?
Fifteen and growing. Most of us are full time, some are part-time. Most of us are easy to work with, except few that are still trying to figure out life's deepest questions and don't have time to be nice to others. Overall though, we're pretty good and committed to your satisfaction, and great at what we do.

If we are all born to be loving at the time of birth, what happens to us later in our life?
Good question, we are not your shrink but we know someone who plays that on TV. Call us, we'll help you out. Or you can read about our company culture called HeartShip to get some ideas.

If the Earth gets its light from the Sun, where does the Sun get its light from?
What are you kidding me? Everyone knows that answer! You need a creativity class. Please visit our workshop offering on Creativity 101.

To what do you owe your success?
Our longevity, our collective experience in domains of leadership, execution, enterprise learning, and technology roots. Also, our relentless commitment to integrity, openness to new ideas, fascination with changing technological changes, nimbleness, adaptability, commitment to lifelong learning, teamwork, perseverance, gratitude, and sense of humor.

What differentiates you from your competition?
According to some of our clients a) We're lot of fun; b) Relative to the BIG consulting firms, we are more responsive and more customer focused; c) DeSai's advisors you talk with on the phone are the ones who do the work; d) We are best when we are experiential. (It's more about learning and developing deep insights than it is about knowledge and information). e) While our work is based on sound research, concepts, and theory, our work sessions are practical with very little “consultant-speak.”

Who is your goofiest partner?
Our good Friend Alain “KOI” Rostain.

What companies have you worked with?
The Hartford, Merck, Bristol Myers, Wal-Mart, Prudential, ESPN, Aetna, MassMutual, ING, United Technologies, Dean Foods, Innophos, Fidelity, Cigna, HP, Glaxo SmithKline, Anthem, Playtex, Humana, etc.

How well do you understand my specific industry?
Enough to be able to make a difference. DeSai is operating on the level of “core principles” that apply to all human beings and all organizations. We do not need to become experts in your particular field in order to have an impact, though we do make significant effort to understand the nuances and challenges of your industry and specific company culture.

What are your “Core Principles” as a company?

All is One: Everything is connected. Innovation requires one to see what is not seen or being ignored. Innovators must find deep interconnections and interdependencies - at the level of macro and micro - within an organization. Real innovators understand that their work has ramifications beyond what is currently being visible.
Thoughts → Words → Action → Outcomes: Future Thinking brings awareness of what is possible. This causes development of ideas, both incremental and radical. When ideas get mobilized in form of passionate energy, it leads to new business conditions. Therefore, new thoughts create new outcomes. To success with innovation, people must practice Future Thinking.
Everyone is Creative and Innovative: All human beings have the ability to create – from birth. When we create, we find meaning and purpose in our work. When we work from place of meaning, we are most engaged and are able to tap into our highest potential.

What type of successes have you had with your clients?
For 25 years, we have recorded many. Check out our case studies.

Can you provide us with references?
Sure. Give Dan a call at 860-233-0011 x860, or send him an email at dbrowne@desai.com.

What do you really offer if I am interested in innovation?
We offer 4 primary services if you are ready to play the game of enterprise innovation for your organization:

“Innovate This!” – Project oriented consulting when you want to solve a innovation problem within a short time frame; with a clear scope and budget.
“Innovation Consulting” – Bring us in to help you drive innovation in every part of your organization. Don’t call us for this if you are not fully committed and sponsored at the top. This part of our craft is a serious game that will change your climate and culture – permanently.
“Innovation Workshop” – We have series of training and workshops to build appropriate skills and competencies at all levels. We can certify your internal staff to use our programs as well.
“Assessments and Research” – For individuals and teams, we offer online assessments to better understand their profile for creativity and innovation. For organizations, we have field-based assessments to help benchmark (and baseline) your organization’s propensity to drive innovation across 45 components and 15 dimensions of innovation; this can help you develop a customized Innovation Roadmap for your organization.

Can you train our trainers?
Yes. We can train them to facilitate few of our core programs: Creativity and Innovation 101, Manager of People 201, Manager of Mangers 301, Facilitative Creativity and Innovation 401.

What kind of results can we expect?
Increased ownership of the innovation effort for all, strong sponsorship for innovation, pipeline of powerful new business growth ideas, development of the innovation competency at all levels, line of sight and solution of specific business challenges, creative and effective teamwork, improved employee engagement, decreased stress, benchmarking information about your innovation investment, and improvement of your company's overall climate and culture of innovation.

Can we do the whole thing in 90 minutes?
Well, we can do something in 90 minutes. Once we are clear about your needs, we will be very straight forward with you about what results you can expect in the time you have available. We are not going to promise you the sky when all you have time for is a couple of lightning bolts.

Why did you name your company “DeSai?”
The owner's last name is Desai; it is a very popular last name in western part of India, where both owners were born. Our corporate name is “Desai Systems, Inc.”. We started to note that our customers were spelling it with the capital ‘S’ and it was easy for them to remember us that way here in U.S. So, we decided to brand the company name that way. Not very creative huh? Oh well.

Why are you headquartered in West Hartford, CT?
Harshad emigrated from India in 1971 and lived in West Hartford at the time. Jatin went to middle and high schools in West Hartford. Besides, the Hartford area is a beautiful place with a great community of diverse people from all walks of life. It's a great place to raise children, and excellent location to some of the best education and research in the world – Yale, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Brown, Wesleyan, University of Connecticut, Boston University, etc, are all within 2 hours from West Hartford.

What do you promise to your clients?
Remarkable New Culture of Innovation. By practicing our craft – Innovation Execution – with our client partners, we are able to assist employees and leaders at all levels to innovate. We do this by applying our Strategy-Driven Innovation^(sm) framework and our proprietary innovation execution methodology based on applied research and case studies. The result is an organizational culture with powerful new ways of thinking. For individuals and teams, this helps to expand organizational knowledge by 'open innovation' through events, forums, conferences and networks.

How do I get my boss to realize that you guys are for real?
That is easy, as long as you believe in us. You can: 1) Set up a face to face meeting; 2) Set up a conference call or web-call; 3) Invite him/her to talk with some of our clients; 4) Show him/her our client list and testimonials; 5) Tell us what his/her main concerns are and we will send you the appropriate materials to help address their concerns.

Who do you think will win the World Series?
The Boston Red Sox of course.

What's the next big thing after the internet?
Nanotechnology.

Do you have your own ‘DeSai' framework for innovation?
Yes we do - we call it Strategy-Driven Innovation^(sm)framework. This framework(SDI) assures innovation is aligned to your organization's strategic intent (not just strategy), helps you develop new insights and ideas for venturing, and incorporates execution methodology to mobilize ideas for commercialization.

What is so unique about your framework versus all others?
The SDI framework brings together three critical elements not always present in most organization - Alignment, Insights, and Mobilization. “Alignment” is set if activities that creates leadership sponsorship and commitment for innovation. “Insights” is a process, just like budgeting or customer service, designed to generate large pool of ideas – generally by leveraging all internal and external relationships. Mobilization is all about execution of ideas for venturing into marketplace, or targeted internal outcomes, or overall growth.

At DeSai, what is the difference between Insights and Ideas in your language?
Insight is nothing more then a very deep and large idea. From an Insight, you can develop lots of other ideas to mobilize. Insights requires you to conduct purposeful future thinking, study external trends, connect the dots, and make some future assertions about what can happen. Insights helps you develop forecast that ultimately leads you to planning for the future. Insights are input to strategic planning process. Ideas are developed from insights and strategic direction the company is committed to go to. Ideas have to be selected, tested, and are final deployed for results.

What is the biggest barrier to innovation?
“Oh it can't be done”. The attitude of impossibilities. The barriers humans beings put up to separate the “possible” from the “impossible”, and not having the courage to want to explore due to fear of failure, fear of losing their job, fear of hurting their back pocket, fear of being judged by their peers, etc. You get the idea…

Can you send us your bio?
Sure, just go to our website and check out Our Team page.

What kind of clients do you love to work with?
We go gaga over clients that get it. They get that without innovation, might as well close the doors. They get what it will take, and how to play the game of enterprise innovation. They are committed people who are thinking long-term. They want to grow the top-line and generate real wealth, not just moving numbers around on the balance sheet. At the individual level, our best experiences have been with people who have a sense of humor. They are passionate about their work. They love to talk about our partnership with them to others. Our best clients live by their integrity – alignment of thoughts, word, and action; and they demand the same from us.

Where is DeSai heading, five years from now?
Continue towards a biological growth pattern of experimentation where resiliency, nimbleness, and agility become the dominant driving forces instead of any specific product or service we might have. We figured, if we can become more of a biological organism, it doesn't matter what game we are playing as long as it adapts quickly to the environment. We have learned a lot from dinosaurs - big and strong is important, but if the environment changes, we must learn to adapt quickly, else the size and strength of our firm won't matter, we'll become extinct. If we figure how to build such an internal culture – based on ‘natural’ systems, we will always be doing fun stuff for us and our clients that make difference. Having said that, we will continue to empower our clients to accelerate internalization of our various offerings and quickly learn from ever growing field-research capabilities. Be more cooler. Strong international brand in the field of innovation. Written few books. On the cover of Fortune Magazine as the most admired company. Eventually our own reality-TV show.

Where can you travel and deliver services?
Besides United States, we have worked in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and India so far. Although we'll go wherever you like us to go.

Is it possible to change a company's culture for innovation? If so, how?
Culture cannot be changed. Behaviors can be changed. Proper collective behaviors, leads to new culture. DeSai cannot change behaviors or culture either. Company's themselves have to change their own culture. All of this is impossible, unless the individuals within that company feel the importance to change. DeSai can do lots of things to move the culture change process forward, but our success is intimately tied to the depth of our client's commitment.

What do women really want?
If you figure that out, let us know. We have been trying to figure that out for last 25 years.

What's your sign?
Don't Stop.

What is Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 (link to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 ) is the next big thing. It is not just technology, but a platform that an organization can(must) embrace to engage with all stakeholders, for growth, service, and support. In our opinion, it is the biggest opportunity for a business to compete and prosper in the ever-changing global marketplace. It is also the biggest threat facing large highly bureaucratic organizations. Web 2.0 and Social Networking are about to change the game of post-industrial marketing and communication practices and turn many of the talent management, marketing, product development, customer service and business planning processes on its heels. If an organization is not experimenting with it, right now, it may become extinct in less then five years. Don't fall behind.

Do you have any cool activities for teambuilding we can plug into our upcoming conference?
Yes, indeed. You know the drill, email or call Dan “the Man” Browne: 860-233-0011 x860 or email at dbrowne@desai.com.

Is it possible to send your invoice into four separate invoices for easy payments?
Of course. Once you know us, you'll understand that we'll do whatever it takes to get paid on time.

How much do you charge for keynote speeches?
$6,000 — $20,000 + travel and expenses.

In our culture today, we just don't have time to have fun. We're too busy executing. When we do have time, we lack techniques to have better brainstorming sessions. Can you help us?
Here are some ideas on conducting good brainstorming session:

Assure you invite people who really want to be there and are committed.
Make sure people know why they are coming there. That is, make sure you are working on the right target/question/challenge you are solving for.
Most important tip: make sure the facilitator knows their stuff about brainstorming and ideation sessions, and are experienced with facilitating such sessions for the level of audience you are inviting.
Get agreement before hand, that no one leaves the room until you have a clear picture of next steps and who's doing what.

“Holly crap”, do you actually think anyone is going to read all of these FAQs??
Of course, see you are! Unless you bail out on the next few questions — the answers to which may reveal the secret to happy prosper life, help you become independently wealthy, and how to have great relationship with your significant other.

What are your favorite movies of all time?
Caddy Shack, The Godfather, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, E.T., Raging Bull, Blues Brothers, Schindler's List, Apollo 16, The Devil's Advocate, Analyze This, Analyze That, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, The Score, Oceans 11-12-13, Million Dollar Baby, Escape from Alcatraz, Magnum Force, Wizard of Oz, West Side Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Casablanca, Roadhouse.

What are your favorite TV Shows?
M.A.S.H., Seinfeld, Hawaii Five-O, Manix, Heros, 24, I Love Lucy, All in the Family, 60 Minutes, The Sopranos, Hill Street Blues, Cheers, Friends, ER, Raymond, Frasier, The X-Files, The Rockford Files, Taxi, Bewitched,

Do you have to be of Indian decent to work for DeSai?
No just ask Dan – he is a mutt…

If you had to do it all over again, would you work in Innovation Consulting?
Absolutely, it is the most challenging yet rewarding work ever!!!

Why is money green?
Most of the world's money is not green and until the Civil War, the US did not have green money either. During the Civil War, the US Treasury Department developed a special green ink that would make counterfeiting more difficult. It was used on the back of all currency (hence the term “greenbacks”. Ever since that time, 1862, US currency has been green.)

I am tired of asking questions, can you just tell me some stuff I don't know Sure, happy to…
-The length from your wrist to your elbow is the same as the length of your foot.
-Your heart beats 101,000 times a day. During your lifetime it will beat about 3 billion times and pump about 400 million liters (800 million pints) of blood.
-Your mouth produces 1 liter (1.8 pints) of saliva a day.
-On average, people can hold their breath for about one minute. The world record is 15 minutes 2 seconds, by Tom Sietas.
-The human head contains 22 bones.
-On average, you breathe 23,000 times a day.
-On average, you speak almost 5,000 words a day - although almost 80% of speaking is self-talk (talking to yourself).
-Einstein's brain was of average size (1375 grams - 49oz).
-Earth and universe: the order of the planets, starting closest to the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
-The one place where a flag flies all day, never goes up or comes down, and does not get saluted, is the moon.

Are you hiring?
Yes we are. We are looking for people all the time. Feel free to email us your resume to info@desai.com. We promise someone will read it and get back to you within 5 business days.

What are the names of the three wise monkeys?
They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).

Why should I do business with The DeSai Group?
Main points to remember about us are:
1) Longevity: we have been in business for 25+ years and continue to sustain viable in the marketplace;
2) Established: we are well known in the industry and have deep experience working with all levels of organizations to make innovation happen;
3) Tell Truth: we listen to and care about or clients - enough to give the good news as well as bad when needed. Time and resources are gifts. We don’t want to waste either for you or us;
4) Fun: we like to have fun in our engagements – you can count on us to make you laugh and bring out the best in everyone around us…even at our own expense;
5) Culture: our unique company culture, HeartShip, gives us strength, clarity, and employee engagement to serve our clients, partners, and community.