Thoughts
from under African skies
During my recent visit to Malawi I had
the pleasure of speaking at seminars and workshops to a large
number of charming and very interesting people. My aim was to
try and provide some of the latest thinking on
Creativity and Innovation in an
organisational context and to try and encourage the people I
met to use alternative modes of thinking.
Keen readers will remember the 'How do you get a
giraffe into a fridge' test that I used last year (click
on the giraffe to the right to revisit it). I used this on my
audiences and was pleasantly surprised to find that answers
were richer and more numerous than elsewhere. It is not right
to say that Managers get the answers wrong but their responses
are generally poorer than young children. My African friends
did very well indeed so I began to wonder why this was. Was it
a coincidence?
One of the central themes of Creativity is play, and
education systems are designed to help us pass exams and be
less creative. We then have to undergo a degree of
'unlearning' to be playful in the workplace. Keen followers of
TED (see
www.TED.com) may be familiar with the
thoughts of Sir Ken Robinson.
Click here to
view his moving and entertaining talk, but only if you have 20
minutes to spare!
In our so called developed countries
we have extensive educational systems, whilst in developing
countries the systems are often constrained to keeping
young people in school and teaching basic skills well. Yet
there has been an explosion in many developing nations within
Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. In Cuba,
trade embargoes have meant that motor engineers have created
substitute brake fluid from shampoo and sugar whilst I have
seen young boys in Africa change tractor tyres with only a few
levers, a hand pump and some soapy water (no mean feat).
This natural creativity is present in us all when we are
born but seems to remain only in countries where there are
'light touch' education systems. You may be thinking 'what
about the effect of culture?' This is where things get a
little complicated. In young people the two main drivers of
Creativity are:
- An education system that does not stifle or judge
- A culture that allows play and lets 'children be
children'
As we grow up, different factors come into play which are
mainly cultural. This often means that:
- In developed countries we are keen to be creative and
innovative but we have lost the tools to work this way - our
solution is to undertake even more training
- In developing countries, people have the natural tools
but social pressures sometimes inhibit the ability to be
critical or express radical thoughts openly - some people
are just too polite. The solution may just be to overcome
these personal barriers.
In my view, the developing countries could have the edge
but it will be a close run thing. The situation is obviously
more complicated but these points should give us all food for
thought. Any feedback is always
welcome!
May 2009 
