Innovation at Work: Challenge the Status Quo or Fade Away

    How Sri Lanka reinvented cricket in 1996 and Intel survived its Valley of Death — the innovation trait that separates workplace stars, plus the TOLOPOSOGO framework to make it a habit.

    Innovation at Work: Challenge the Status Quo or Fade Away

    Innovation at Work: Challenge the Status Quo or Fade Away

    In 1992, Sri Lanka finished second-last at the Cricket World Cup. Four years later, with almost the same players, they lifted the trophy and rewrote how the game is played to this day. They had no new talent and no new budget. What they had was one dangerous question: what if we did it differently? That question is the heartbeat of Innovation, the eighth trait of a workplace star.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Innovation is a trait on the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) — the left side — of The Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). People assume innovation is a technical or R&D skill. It is not. Before it is a skill, it is an emotional capability. It takes courage to question the status quo, humility to accept a better idea from someone junior, and comfort with discomfort to keep experimenting when you might fail. That is why it lives on the EQ side. Your Winning Kite has four sides — EQ, RQ (Relationship Intelligence) and PQ (Productivity) all lifting toward Success at the top — and you rise on balance, not on any single strength. Innovation is one of the winds that keeps the EQ side aloft.

    How Sri Lanka changed cricket forever

    Go back to 1992. Nine teams, one embarrassed side. Sri Lanka finished second-last, ahead of only Zimbabwe. Their strategy was outdated, their approach conventional, and the critics wrote them off. They went home embarrassed.

    Then, over the next four years, the same team — roughly 70% of the same players — made a bold decision: they would not play the game the way everyone else did. At that time, the conventional wisdom was fixed. Openers protected their wickets in the first 15 overs. The middle order accelerated later. Fast bowlers opened the bowling. Every team followed this playbook. Sri Lanka asked the different question: what if we didn't?

    They innovated on four fronts. First, aggressive batting from ball one. Their openers, Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana, attacked from the first delivery. In the first 15 overs — when other teams scored 40 to 50 runs — Sri Lanka were scoring 80, 90, even 100. Commentators called it reckless. Opponents called it foolish. It worked. Second, unorthodox shots: Jayasuriya popularised the reverse sweep, a stroke rarely seen then, which disrupted every bowler's rhythm. Third, spin bowlers to open instead of fast bowlers, picking up early wickets and applying instant pressure. Fourth, the pinch-hitter strategy — even a number-nine batsman could change a game in a few overs.

    Here is the beautiful twist. In the final against Australia, Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana fell early. But every rival had studied those two aggressive openers so obsessively that they had barely studied Sri Lanka's third and fourth batsmen. Aravinda de Silva and the middle order stepped up, played brilliantly under pressure, and Sri Lanka won the 1996 World Cup. More than a trophy, they left a legacy: aggressive powerplay batting, the reverse sweep, unorthodox field strategies — all standard today. It all started with a willingness to innovate.

    Innovation is an openness, not a job title

    Innovation is about being open to novel ideas and flexible in the face of change. And here is where most organisations quietly kill it: when someone with a low designation suggests something, people in senior positions often don't take them seriously. Picture a software team. The leader and the project manager are experienced and long-tenured. A newly hired junior developer has an idea for a feature that would clearly improve the user experience — but hesitates to speak because of the seniority gap.

    This is exactly where stars are made. A star — whatever their rank — is open to ideas no matter who suggests them. If that leader is a star, they hear the junior developer out and judge the idea on merit. In real teams I've worked with, that tested idea often becomes one of the product's most loved features. The opposite of a star is the idea killer — the person who instinctively views things negatively, hunts for reasons an idea won't work, and shuts it down. Idea killers don't just miss opportunities; they teach the whole team to stop offering ideas.

    Intel's "Valley of Death": innovate or die

    Resistance to change is not only an individual problem — it can sink entire companies. In the 1970s, Intel was at its peak, dominating the market for memory chips. Then their sales in Japan began to fall. At first, leadership dismissed it as a temporary slump. When they looked closer, they found the hard truth: Japanese manufacturers were now making better, cheaper memory chips. Intel was losing its own market.

    Andrew S. Grove, who later became Intel's CEO, called this moment the "Valley of Death" — the point where a company realises that what made it successful in the past will no longer work in the future. Intel had a choice: protect its identity and slowly die, or reinvent itself. They chose to innovate. They stopped being a memory-chip company and became a microprocessor company. Memory chips were their identity — it was a massive risk — but the market had moved on. By the 1980s the world knew them by a new phrase: "Intel Inside."

    Contrast that with the graveyard of companies that refused to change. Kodak invented the digital camera but buried it to protect film. Nokia led mobiles and missed the smartphone. Blockbuster ignored streaming while Netflix — a DVD-rental startup — embraced it and now dominates. Meanwhile Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Amul and Byju's kept evolving and stayed relevant. The lesson is blunt: innovate, or become irrelevant.

    Why we resist: homeostasis

    If innovation is so clearly rewarded, why do so many professionals avoid it? The deepest reason is homeostasis — the mind's and body's natural resistance to change. When you get a fever or a rash, your body works to restore balance. Your mind does the same at work: it prefers stability, predictability and familiar routines, so change feels like a threat to be corrected. On top of that sit four everyday killers of innovation: fear of failure (experiments sometimes fail, and failure feels dangerous), comfort with the status quo ("it has worked for years, why change?"), hierarchical thinking ("innovation is for leadership or R&D, not me"), and a closed mind to others' ideas.

    I see this constantly with IT professionals. Many spent years mastering C++ and Java and became genuine experts. Then the industry moved — Python, AI, Machine Learning, Big Data, Cloud, Ethical Hacking became the new standard. Some adapted fast and stayed relevant. Others said, "I've done this for 15 years, why start again from scratch?" and slowly got left behind. Not for lack of talent — for lack of willingness to adapt. In a field where something new emerges every day, adaptation isn't optional; it's survival. As the psychologist Carol Dweck might frame it, the difference is a growth mindset versus a fixed one — but the choice, and the emotional courage to make it, is entirely yours.

    Small changes, big difference: Sumant Moolgaokar

    You don't need to invent the next iPhone to be innovative. Sometimes innovation is a small change that makes a big difference. Sumant Moolgaokar was Managing Director of TELCO (now Tata Motors), Vice-Chairman of Tata Steel, and non-executive Chairman of Maruti Suzuki, honoured with the Padma Bhushan in 1990. But what made him exceptional was his openness to insight from the most unexpected sources.

    At Tata Motors, all the top executives ate lunch together in the company cafeteria. Moolgaokar was never there. He would vanish at lunch and return only after the break. His colleagues were puzzled — some thought he didn't want to eat with them, others assumed he was at five-star hotels with dealers. One day, a few curious executives followed him. They were stunned: he wasn't at any five-star hotel. He was at a nearby dhaba, eating with truck drivers.

    Why? Because he wanted feedback straight from the people who drove Tata trucks every day — what was working, what was breaking, what could be improved. He didn't wait for feedback to arrive through formal channels; he went out and got it from the people who mattered most, and turned it into small, thoughtful product improvements. Those small changes, compounded over years, helped build Tata Motors into a giant. Fittingly, the Tata Sumo — one of India's most iconic SUVs — is named after him: Su from Sumant, Mo from Moolgaokar. That is the power of small innovation driven by a willingness to listen, learn and adapt.

    The TOLOPOSOGO framework: make innovation repeatable

    Telling a team to "be more innovative" is useless. Innovation needs a method. My favourite is TOLOPOSOGO, a five-step process from Edward de Bono, the pioneer of creative thinking. It turns a vague slogan into a workable sequence you can run on any real problem.

    StepWhat it means
    TO — where are we going?Define the end result. What problem are you solving? A clear destination keeps you focused.
    LO — look at the factsCollect all relevant data. Analyse objectively. Don't cherry-pick facts that flatter your existing view.
    PO — possibilitiesThe creative phase. Generate options, alternatives, provocations. Ask, "What if we did it completely differently?"
    SO — so what?Which ideas actually matter? Select the practical, high-impact ones worth pursuing.
    GO — take actionImplement the best ideas. Innovation without action is just dreaming.

    Here is TOLOPOSOGO on a real shop-floor problem — improving a manufacturing process to cut waste. TO: define the goal, a more efficient, sustainable process. LO: gather data on current waste and energy use. PO: brainstorm widely — automation, process redesign, material substitution. SO: evaluate each option on cost, environmental impact and safety, and pick the ones that move the needle. GO: implement, track impact, and iterate. That is how "be innovative" becomes a Monday-morning action plan.

    How to build the innovation habit

    Innovation is a skill you can develop, not a gift you're born with. A few practices that work in any Indian workplace:

    The choice is yours

    Sri Lanka didn't have the best players in 1996, the biggest budget or the most experienced team. They had one thing more powerful: the willingness to innovate. They asked, "What if we played differently?" and that question changed cricket history. The same principle applies to your career. You don't need to be the most experienced person in the company, have all the answers, or hold a corner office. You need to keep asking, "Is there a better way?" — and act on the answer.

    Innovation is one trait among the 25 on the EQ side of the kite, and it works best in balance with the others. If you'd like to see how it connects to Commitment, Initiative and the rest, start with the full map in The Winning Kite. And if you want to build this into your team as a live capability, my signature programs and corporate training topics turn these ideas into practice.

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    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is innovation as a workplace trait?

    Innovation is not just inventing something new. It is being open to fresh ideas, challenging the way things have always been done, and being flexible when the market or the work changes. In my book Stars at India Inc., innovation sits on the EQ side of the Winning Kite because it is an emotional capability first: it takes courage to question the status quo and humility to accept a good idea from a junior colleague.

    What is the TOLOPOSOGO framework for innovation?

    TOLOPOSOGO is a five-step innovation process from Edward de Bono. TO: where are we going (define the goal). LO: look at the facts objectively. PO: think through the possibilities and generate bold ideas. SO: so what, select the ideas that will make a real difference. GO: take action and implement. It turns 'be more innovative' from a vague slogan into a repeatable method any team can run on a real problem.

    Why do most professionals resist innovation?

    The root cause is homeostasis, our mind's natural pull back to what feels stable and familiar. Add fear of failure, comfort with the status quo, hierarchical thinking, and a habit of dismissing ideas from junior people, and you get teams that stop experimenting. Companies like Kodak, Nokia and Blockbuster died from exactly this, while Intel survived only because it chose to reinvent itself instead of protecting its old identity.

    How can I become more innovative at work?

    Start small. Evaluate every idea on merit, not on the seniority of who suggested it. Question at least one 'we've always done it this way' each month. Run one real problem through the TOLOPOSOGO framework. Learn from failures instead of hiding them, and keep learning new skills before you are forced to. Innovation is a habit of constantly asking, 'Is there a better way?'

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