In their book ‘Exprovement: Exponential Improvement Through Converging Parallels’, authors Hersh Haladker and Raghunath Mashelkar illustrate, with examples, how approaching a challenge from an entirely new perspective can result in exponentially improved outcomes
Exprovement, in simple terms, is exponential improvement. It is a perspective that addresses problems or inspires growth in hitherto unexplored ways, as explained in Exprovement: Exponential Improvement Through Converging Parallels by Hersh Haladker and Raghunath Mashelkar. So, how does one approach exprovement? The answer, according to the book, is simple: ask the right question.
While improvement is incremental, exprovement is an exponentially improved outcome to an existing or foreseeable challenge, accomplished by creating something that is currently not part of the ecosystem within which the problem exists,” the authors say in the book.
The unexpected connection is more powerful than the one that is obvious. That is the theme of the book, illustrated in different contexts by 15 stories. The idea comes forth right in the introduction where the authors say, “The clean slate is NOT about beginning from scratch. It is about beginning with a NEW PERSPECTIVE.”
Exprovement: The Gist
Perspective is what it takes to address problems or inspire growth, in ways people had never thought of before, as the book points out, adding that the perspective of exprovement that allows companies to start on a new footing—can be gained by looking for parallels outside of one’s industry.
Following is an excerpt from the book. According to the authors, this part is a “great representation” of how unrelated parallels can make exprovement happen.
“Phil McCrory was watching a TV news report on the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 when he noticed that the fur of an otter who was a victim of this environmental disaster had soaked up a lot of oil—so much so that the water surrounding its body was completely free of petroleum! McCrory’s inquisitive mind got thinking, and drawing a parallel with all the waste hair that was collected at his salon every day, he decided to experiment. He gathered a bunch of hair clippings, stuffed them into a pair of his wife’s pantyhose (so they would be contained, yet remain absorbent) and put the spongy device into a children’s wading pool filled with a mixture of water and motor oil. His intuition had been correct—within minutes the hair-pantyhose ‘sponge’ absorbed the oil from the water, turning it crystal clear! McCrory’s idea went on to be manufactured and sold by World Response Group as OttiMat, which has also been tested by NASA and has been used in clean-up efforts of oil spill disasters such as a 2,50,000-litre fuel oil spill in the San Francisco Bay in 2007 and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. World Response Group also started manufacturing SmartGrow (based on McCrory’s other patent), a hair mat used to fertilize plants.”
Innovating on the Go
Haladker, an innovation practitioner, loves working on innovations and building and making things. The book, he says, is about a space he has studied, learnt and practiced. “Being able to articulate how it is done is what inspired the book,” he adds.
In case of Mashelkar, a science and innovation leader, the inspiration came from his classroom experiences. “My lectures on serendipity over the years led me to an audacious thought of ‘organised serendipity’. That inspired me to think about the method and madness of converging the parallels to create breakthroughs,” he elaborates.
One concern for the authors was of staying relevant at all times. “Books tend to get outdated,” observes Haladker. The question was, how to keep their book up to date with the latest happenings, like anyone would in the digital world. Then came the big idea on the go.
We discovered that we can have QR codes in every chapter that can give access to more information digitally. We bridged the gap between the physical and digital worlds—making the book phygital,” beams Haladker.
What Next
For his next book, Haladker has been toying with the idea of “negative space and time” and what it can do. “An example of negative space and time is what movie theatres do at 6 am. So may be, (I can) explore this a little more,” he says.
Mashelkar, meanwhile, is working on a “subject that is even more intriguing” than the one on.