There Is Nothing Called Culture of Innovation

One of the traits that make us humans is the ability to endow resources with the ability to create wealth by moving it from a lower level of productivity to a higher level of usefulness to other humans. From the stone age to the information and knowledge age, humans have been known to innovate.

In the stone age, man transformed the stone into a tool for farming and other household and industrial uses. The advancement of humanity is based on this trait in all of us humans to create and make resources useful. We love to transform whatever is before us into something that will enrich our human experience and make life better for us.

It’s strange when people talk about creating a particular culture that fosters innovation. Innovation is an outcome, not an input. It is an outcome of humanity. John F. Kennedy informed the world that they will be going to the moon in ten years and it happened in less than ten years. Did he focus on building a culture that will help people become innovative? He did do that. He just gave them a task.

I kept asking myself why do we have more innovation in countries like the US, Canada, UK, Japan, Russia, China and North Korea but not in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Congo, Tanzania and Cameroun. Recently we have started hearing of innovations taking place in Rwanda. Why don’t we see more innovations in African countries? Are the people in Africa not humans? Or will we attribute the lack of innovation to the fact that we don’t have innovation cultures in African?

We are starting a project to document the innovations that happened in Nigerian villages long before Nigeria became independent and compare that with the rate of innovation after independence. We want to understand whether formal education and exposure have made Nigerians more innovative and productive or rather more consumptive. When compared with the higher population of literate people in Nigeria today, one will say that Nigerians were more innovative then than now. It’s a hypothesis that needs to be tested and validated.

I got to understand how innovation happens while researching to develop the concept and tools for the Truly Human Culture. Maslow's Hierarchy of needs gave me that direction. At the base of the hierarchy are people who are trying to survive. We become less of humans when our focus is survival and more of humans when our purpose is self-actualization. Innovation happens when the culture of an organization moves people from survival to seeking actualization.

This explains why we have more innovation in the US than in Africa. In Africa, everyone is seeking to survive. And the more they have a government that doesn’t understand this, the more they remain in survival mode where they are robbed of their potential and ingenuity to create and innovate. In the US, most people have ascended the hierarchy to the peak. They are not worried about survival but have a cause that helps their self-actualization. As such they unleash their human ingenuity to create and innovate. Innovation is the last thing on the mind of anyone who is surviving. They have scarcity mindset.

Humans are enterprising, focused on others, empathic, intentional, creative and possess an abundant mindset. You may be able to motivate people into good behaviour and performance for a while, but you can motivate them into sustained innovation. They need to be inspired by a purpose and a cause that is bigger than life. When humans are inspired they unleash their ingenuity to make life better for everyone: elevating our human experience. If people are not inspired to self-actualize, they will gravitate to their base animal traits.

Innovation is the outcome of human activities; activities that are conscious and focused on serving others. God has given humanity the power to innovate and create value for others. Only humans can see bare land and dream up an amusement park as Walt Disney did. Only humans can handle filaments and turn them into electric bulbs as Thomas Edison did. Only humans can see a piece of iron and bring out of it an engine that powers a car like Henry Ford. Only a human can see a piece of nothing and create a search engine that people can use to get knowledge on a click as the Google guys did.

The simple truth is that humans don’t need any culture to be innovative. They just need to be humans. Being humans has a lot to do with how they are treated. When it comes to humans, emotions are everything. The way people feel about themselves determines how they work and relate with others.

1. Emotions drive behaviour

2. Emotions create values

3. Emotions determine the language we use

4. Emotions produce our rituals

When people are treated as humans, not function or role, they act like humans: they innovate. The key here then is to create human culture. People should feel like humans.

1. When people feel cared for, they care for others

2. When people feel trusted, they become trustworthy

3. When people feel appreciated, what they do appreciates

Human behaviour and action reflect how we feel about ourselves. When building a culture, companies need to design with human emotions in mind. They need to factor in the right triggers for the emotions. When organizations use our Truly Human Culture Canvas to design their culture, they focus on inspiration, transformation and experience. When a company designs a culture that makes people feel good about themselves, innovation and collaboration will be the outcome.