What does a tech company that seeks to drive innovation have in common with American artistic gymnast Simone Biles? Not much, at a first glance. But let us look a little closer.

Biles, the most decorated American gymnast in American history, is extraordinary because she has won a medal in every event at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She is regarded as a superlative athlete because of her complete mastery of gymnastics as a sport, making many honor her as the greatest gymnast in history.

This ability to excel that Biles exemplifies—by pushing the boundaries of the known while leveraging a sound mastery of ground skills is exactly the kind of mindset that I believe technology companies require.

Fostering an engineering mindset

Why do I say this? Because never before has there been such a premium placed on creating and delivering ‘better, faster, cheaper’ software in the quickest possible time. As technology continues to empower customers with the freedom to demand what they want when they want it, tech firms are faced with two imperatives. To have teams that can hit the ground running with innovative products and services and, to expertly meet their customer demands for highly personalized solutions.

In this setting, what companies require most are not just developers who are undoubtedly great at what they are trained to do, but developers with an “engineering mindset” who can deal with any technology, tinker around its various versions, and confidently launch new improved products as and when there is demand. This is because it is engineers who have thorough knowledge of software and how it is built. As a result, they are uniquely equipped to apply the fundamentals of software development to any new version that they are tasked with creating.

Seeding a disruptive approach into the DNA of organizations

However, organizations are typically flooded with scores of developers, not engineers. So, how are they to inculcate an engineering mindset across developer cohorts so that developers begin to view software creation outside the syntax of what they were taught?

In a couple of ways. First, by having senior leadership making it clear that adaptability is a key competence. What tech companies are increasingly on the lookout for these days are people who understand every kind of software, or open source frameworks, whether Angular or React, along with the ability and daring to improve these quickly, cost-effectively and dramatically.

But to possess this vital skill, which is intrinsically related to innovation, organizations must invest in intellectual “funding”. At Mphasis, one of the ways we do this is by training batches of 10-20 people, both new and existing employees in “out-of-the-box” strategies, encouraging them to ‘struggle’ with difficult problems and finding their own solutions.

The blueprint for success: Balancing necessary failures against vital learning

Nevertheless, it is important to say that fostering an engineering mindset, which is key to innovation, doesn’t come without its fair share of ‘risks’. Learning to create, iterate, refine and on occasion decimate software does mean that developers will have to, on occasion, fail. Senior leadership at organizations will have to demonstrate their clear commitment to fostering this mindset by having standard procedures in place that assure employees they will not be punished if they fail to create something of value. The key is to have sandbox-like structures in place that enable developers to create quickly, figure out successes and then multiply them.

Recognizing this, tech giants such as Google and Facebook have initiated programs that allow employees to set aside 20 percent of their workweek to creative projects where it is possible for them to fail without the threat of any reprisals. The result? Innovations such as Gmail, Google Maps, and AdSense, which continue to impact the world today!

In summary, the organizations that succeed in fostering what I call an engineering mindset will be the ones that thrive in today’s crowded market and go far. Just as Biles stands out as a gymnast and athlete par excellence for being at the top of her game time after time, organizations that embrace and actively foster an engineering mindset will remain capable of taking on any challenge and turning it into their advantage no matter how different the “game” they are invited to play..

This point of view article originally published on Techgig.com, written by Sundar Subramanian, President, Global Delivery, Mphasis. TechGig is a competitive programming and technology community website. Techgig.com is a global community where more than 3.2 million techies from across the globe hang out!.

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