Bold, experimental decisions drive innovation in eye care
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LAS VEGAS — Being bold, brave and embracing disruption will lead to innovation among eye care professionals, according to a keynote presentation at Vision Expo West.
“If you want answers, ask Alexa,” Shawn Kanungo, an innovation and disruption strategist, told attendees. “But if you want to innovate, you have to ask bold questions.”
In his presentation, Kanungo said to discover never-before-seen insights into the future, those in the eye care industry should be brave. One bold action he suggests is prioritizing luck.
“Luck doesn’t happen in optimized environments,” he said. “In order to create luck, you have to increase the velocity of experiments within your organization, across your practice, across your organization. That’s No. 1. No. 2 is to publish your ideas more openly without any expectations, without expecting anything in return. No. 3 is to measure what you can control.”
‘Embrace waste’
With the digital world taking significance out of efforts by those in the eye care industry and eliminating all elements that are wasteful in transactions and experiences, Kanungo said professionals need to “embrace a little bit more waste.”
“As digital becomes more a part of our lives, and technology becomes more ubiquitous, when things are moving fast and they’re digital, I believe that we should be investing in slow things,” Kanungo said. “I’m not saying invest in dial-up. I’m saying, how do we invest in things that are more meaningful, magical and memorable at the end of the day? How do we invest in these things in our practices?”
According to Kanungo, psychology — not technology — is the answer to innovation. He said wasteful journeys filled with unfocused play and exploration create hot streaks and prolific individuals.
“In terms of your career, this is how you can have and do your best work, which is to embrace wasteful journeys,” Kanungo said.
Power shift
Kanungo also brought up the significance of power in innovation and how individuals today are gaining power. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are willing to switch their profession or leave their job, he said, which has become known as “The Great Resignation.” Kanungo, however, coined this time, “The Great Reimagination of Work.”
Individuals have also gained the power of communication through handheld media, he said.
“What organizations and individuals are realizing is the most precious asset in the world is attention,” Kanungo said. “You’re thinking to yourself, ‘Well, this doesn’t apply to us. We’re dealing with patients and health care.’ Let me tell you: The game is changing. Attention is the new currency, and it’s tougher and tougher every single year, because we have so much content now and we are so unhappy.”
Kanungo added that power given to individuals is affecting competition in the eye care industry.
“What’s interesting is that today, as eye care professionals, you’re not only competing with other companies in this industry, you’re competing with individuals teaching others on platforms like TikTok,” Kanungo said. “This is where people are getting their information.
“At the end of the day, the power is shifting from institutions to individuals,” he continued. “I believe that in this new era, we have to empower our talent with the tools, technology and space to be rockstars. We have to utilize media to develop our own leverage.” Ultimately, he said, this means we must treat patients like rockstars because the balance of power is shifting to them, too. “They have all the information now: It’s at their fingertips, so we have to treat them like rockstars.”
The importance of disruption
Moving into the future of the eye care industry, Kanungo said uncovering secrets is important, and the best way to do this is by adopting the mindset of a “deep generalist with a specialist focus.”
“A deep generalist is someone with range, somebody that’s a polymath, somebody that has an understanding of not only what’s happening within eye care, but what’s happening across finance, media, economics, science and beyond. This is somebody that can work with different types of individuals.”
Kanungo said disruption comes with uncovering the deepest secrets. Although it goes against the eye care industry’s manner to run like a “well-oiled machine,” he said professionals should learn to be vulnerable, disrupt themselves and slowly unlearn from 100 to zero to adapt to change.
“So many of us are wrapped around our titles or positions at work,” Kanungo said. “You introduce yourself with your title, and I think it’s important to define ourselves not by what we do, but why we exist.”
Lowering one’s status and being bold are two more ways to unlearn and disrupt oneself, Kanungo said.
“I know status is an ugly word, but place yourself in lower status situations, get the coffee, do the meeting minutes,” he said. “Place yourself in these situations, and you will start to disrupt yourself. ... Embrace uncertainty and those disruptive ideas. This is how you start to disrupt yourself.”
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Source: Kanungo S. The future of eye care is human. Presented at: Vision Expo West; Sept. 14-17, 2022; Las Vegas.
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