Why Denmark – And Other Countries – Will Lose Their Innovation Capabilities
I recently got reasons to take my innovation perspective to a national rather than a corporate level. The questions that went through my mind were like this.
What if the behaviours of the citizens in a country determine the corporate ability to innovate? What if such behaviours directly hurt the corporate ability to innovate? A capability that is so important for the future of companies as well as countries. Or what if the behaviours hinder the chances of taking innovation to the next level?
The country I have in mind is my own, Denmark. I have long argued that Denmark does very well on innovation. Danes believe in flat hierarchies and that authorities and common beliefs should be challenged.
This is a good outset for innovation and we have always been pretty good at taking existing technologies or ideas, give them a little twist and then come up with new ways of using this.
This has worked very well for many years, but things are changing so fast and innovation is becoming an open and global process. Being open to new input and being tolerant towards other cultures and perspectives are keys to future success.
Personally, I travel a lot and I try hard to stay open to other cultures and perspectives. However, I might not be as open-minded as I think I am and perhaps it is even worse with many of my countrymen. I was told this by a German friend who has lived in Denmark for many years. Danes are not open and tolerant. On the contrary, Danes are viewed as being quite self-sufficient.
My German friend made me think and I now begin to see some answers to questions that have puzzled me for a while. Why are Danish companies not on the forefront of open innovation? Why do Danish media not cover open innovation better than what they do?
I have always believed that Denmark has all what it takes to benefit from the shift towards open and global innovation. Could I really be so wrong? I am sad to say, but I think this is the case.
Nevertheless, I want to thank my German friend for opening my eyes and getting a new perspective on open innovation. This also raises other important questions. Which other countries stand to lose just as Denmark might do? Which countries stand to win on this?
I view countries such as France, Italy and Japan to be quite inward-focused. Will they lose out on innovation? If my perspective on this holds true, the U.S. definitely will be a winner. China? Not sure. They have a little of everything in them, but I believe they will come out as a winner as well.
Enough for now. Your thoughts?
thanks for the insights stephan. i think richard florida’s work on creative class and creative cities is good on this. the levels of tolerance and diversity within a city create its ability to develop new income streams from innovation. and adds another dimension to michael porter’s (?) the competitive advantage of nations.
in sydney we are less creative than melbourne for example but we are working on it with a range of strategies at the city level. However overall we are very tolerant (and could also be a great deal more tolerant).
As a whole australia is lagging in innovation because we have not spent enough money on research and development and engineering, science and art education over the last ten or more years. We also get lazy because we have so many mineral resources (becoming the big whole in the ground instead of the big brain in the sky)
cheers
janine
twit j9j
Hi Janine,
Thanks for your comments!
Good idea to point to Florida's work. I have enjoyed several of his books. His website is: http://www.creativeclass.com/richard_florida/
I got a good laugh on your last sentence – big hole thing, thanks
Stefan
Hi Janine,
In Israel we do not have the big whle in the grounds. In fact, The first natural gas spot has been located a year ago ((:
So, we have to be innovative. Unfortunately a lot of innovation is directed to the defense industries (which is the largest area of export) as we desperately need to protect the country.
But still a lot of creativity is directed to Bio industries and I hope this trend is will keep growing.
I know that the immigration to Israel is a major catalizator for the innovation. I hope we will continue to think out of the box.
Galia
Hi Stefan!
Thanks for the chance of rethinking Portugal and other countries!
My own country, Portugal, has a big sand and sun instead a big whole (janine
).
Whe have an "Technological Plan-Innovating Portugal" and a lot of needs and preocupations.
I become worried when I think that, yere, we don`t talk about Innovation ( neither we think innovatively) as we talk about beach .
That plan we have does not promote an Innovation Culture as Cristiano Ronaldo does with "Football Culture":).
What I see are some conferences and news about "News opportunities"
and the master plan of qualifications. To me, qualifications are not necessarily competencies.
Conferences are very useful but we need to dissiminate all the results and repports. That way, may be, we can create motivation to change.
Portugal has no flat hierarchies, but I think Portuguese people has an open mind.
I believe in Open Innovation as well I believe that each European country has is own "Eulogy of the difference".
Interesting posting. I experience that it becomes more and more difficult to say that one country is like this, another like that etc. Taking Switzerland as an example, consider the very large diversity in the population. More than 20% of the population come from other countries: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/theme…. Another important thing to keep in mind, I think, is that many people increasingly communicate with people across national borders using not least Web 2.0 / collaborative technologies / social media. Reflect, for example, on the growth of Twitter and Facebook.
I’d think it would make more sense to work on understanding the personalities of the individual persons we work with. As an example, we could work on finding out to what degree we as individuals are open / curious / prefer variety and doing what is new. In this regard, have a look at this very interesting interview with William Maddux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKcu_ztYCtk
Hep hey;-)
Beeing danish – but having lived abroad for a lot of years, I agree that danes can be regarded as a bit narrow minded – however this only goes for the old bunch – we see the youngsters on the rise and their openness knows no boundaries! They are brought up on facebook, tweets, blogs ect. – tools that you cant go about without having a minimum degree of openness…..However I dont see how you can measure tolerance or intolerance – and how either are valued – in the process of innovation…?…sometimes intolerance can be advantageous dealing with certain steps of innovation! Though you should not be as intolerant as B&O´s R&D when launching their newest revolutionary flatscreen tv; (drumroll!) tada!….B&O – now you can mount it on the wall!!….somebody big evil multinational corp out there; please buy B&O, and start innovating them into the 21st century before its too late!
This a recommended article on this topic: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/ghost.aspx?ID=/…
It describes 3 levels of innovation and the fact that breakthrough ideas in the lab is only a very small part of innovation. To really commericalize on the innovation is the key and that requires the whole social system that has infrastructure, social stabilty, education etc, to foster that national innovation advantage. This framework explains the status of innovation in different countries and why US is not behind because of a balance of all 3 levels of innovation.
At least since the Millennium, the UK has been working hard to introduce design thinking to business.
The 2005 Cox Review of Creativity in Business,
can be found at the following address: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:…