The vital processes needed in innovation

It also takes passion and leadership to create the right ecology for genius and originality to thrive. Most bureaucracies stifle creativity because they want everyone to think alike. The greatest universities encourage their professors and students to think out of the box.

Sixth, you have to have process. The word “process” is so boring, whereas Innovation is so sexy. This is because most people associate Innovation with Product innovation, whereas the greatest achievements have been in Process Innovation and Institutional Innovation. Henry Ford did not create the motorcar, but he revolutionized manufacturing by inventing the assembly line process of production. The Japanese improved on this by creating the Just-in-Time assembly process, without famous engineers but through workers on the shop floor.

In my view, Genghis Khan must be one of the greatest of institutional innovators, because he created innovative teams of warriors out of individualistic nomad rabble. His teams invented new methods of mobile warfare and siege techniques. He destroyed the old order and conquered all the way to Europe, forcing the Europeans to respond through their cultural and scientific Renaissance.

Seventh, you have to execute or implement what you want to achieve. Most of us make New Year wishes, but by the middle of the year, we would have forgotten to execute that wish, because it was too difficult, inconvenient or we got distracted by something more exciting. Execution is tough, because it creates what Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”

There is no gain without pain. No wonder most of us do not achieve what we desire. The “last mile” problem is the most difficult and painful. We all want to be Olympic Marathon runners, but we cannot finish the last mile. As Napoleon used to say, execution is everything.

Finally, we must review our achievements, be honest where we went wrong and change for the better. The cycle of innovation begins anew. As a habit, I have always made a year-end review of what I achieved and where I failed. In 2009, I am grateful that my book “From Asian to Global Financial Crisis” was published. But this year, I failed in spending more time with my family.

My New Year wish for 2010 is to write a new book and spend more time with my family. Time is what we spend like water when we are young and treasure every moment when we are old. That is the cycle of change.

Happy 2010, everyone.

Andrew Sheng is Adjunct Professor at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur and Tsinghua University, Beijing.

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