ASK THE EXPERT
Bhaskar Chakravorti
B
y innovations expert Bhaskar Chakravorti’s definition, there can
never be any innovation unless we are able to first identify the
unmet need. Chakravorti, senior associate Dean for International
Business & Finance at The Fletcher School, Tufts University and author of The
Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World,
says a large part of sustaining innovation is keeping an eye on the gaps.
For this Pulse issue, this former leader of McKinsey’s Innovation and Global
forces practices, former Harvard Business School faculty and distinguished
scholar at MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship,
goes to the bottom of what innovation truly is, its barriers and how to sustain
innovative thinking in the health and wellness industry.
1.
Why is innovation, especially in health and
wellness, so important today?
First, it is important to understand that innovation is not
about physical products. We often think of, for instance,
Steve Jobs, Mac, iPhones or iPads when we hear the word
“innovation.” This definition of innovation distorts our view
of what innovation is truly all about.
Innovation is a response to an unmet need. Innovation is
finding a solution. When it comes to health and wellness, for
instance, we have made great strides over the last centuries in
diagnosing and even potentially curing human diseases;
however, the human condition continues to be frail. Our early
approaches to health don’t quite get to the core of what’s
causing the disease, how to prevent it and how to get the
general feeling of well-being. Because of this unmet need,
there is plenty of room for innovations and to tap into different forms of solutions which could involve conventional
Western health care in the form of compound medicines, traditional treatments from different parts of the world or
alternative solutions like diet, fitness or spa.
2.
What are the innovations in health care today
that would likely impact spa and wellness
tomorrow?
The biggest innovation is the recognition that there is a very significant connection between the mind and body. Increasingly,
the medical establishments and other innovative groups are
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June 2012
beginning to recognize the connections among physical,
mental, experiential and contextual elements in the person’s
sense of well-being. The recognition that we can indeed
combine and bring multiple schools of problems and
approaches is innovative in itself because the tradition has been
for people to get into these tribal corners (eg. scientific versus
traditional). Today, there is a greater openness in the scientific
establishment to acknowledge that non-chemical intervention is
an important part of the prevention and treatment process, and
the spa industry plays an important role here.
3.
What do you think are the biggest barriers to
innovation, especially in the area of health and
wellness?
There are four barriers I see in innovation:
l Tribalism. This barrier often puts people to a tribal corner
which shuts down innovative thinking.
l Mental barrier. It is this mentality that if I don’t know or
understand something, I won’t trust it.
l Existence of multiple stakeholders. Often, the medical
establishment doesn’t change its treatment of preventative
options because there are multiple stakeholders whose
decisions matter and whose behaviors have to change.
Along those lines, innovation in the health care industry
comes with political implications as other stakeholders
who stand to benefit from the status quo will most likely
be unwilling to make a change.