Comments

what ?? did you really not belive that "when china awakes, the world will shake " ?? --circa 1800!!

Posted by /pd at February 15, 2005 8:02 PM

Innovation and China are not usually in the same sentance except as a negative. The issue here is that the system (yes, all of it) is structured against new things unless it is explicitly stated by the government (trying to force innovation simply doesn't work!), let alone "New New" things...yes yes, there's the biotech and so on, and zillions of engineer grads for you R&D...nonetheless, in my experience (I work in China helping org's develop more effective management practices) I have met a small handful of org's that operate in a way that encourages innovative thinking and the ones that try find it pretty tough going.

A lack of innovative thought is in fact, one of China's biggest problems, and the government have made great leaps to develop reform the education system as it is designed to stop innovative thinking at an early age( http://radio.weblogs.com/0144104/categories/socialChange/ ). The development of a more liberal system of education has been undertaken because the only way to sustainable economic growth is through knowledge creation.

Not only that but the system in place to support company growth makes it difficult for businesses to learn from thier mistakes as any halfwit with a sloppy idea can get free money from the government to refinance their business screw ups.

Fear of being different is embedded deep in the culture and is not about to dissappear anytime soon - believe me, I get paid to do it!

That said, nobody should underestimate the vigor of the Chinese when it comes to money making - they have been able to ride the coattails of having a large, cheap workforce in manufacturing and so on are getting beaten to a pulp in local markets for consumer electronics / white goods etc. Why? Because the Chinese of all people do NOT want to buy Chinese products; they are poor copies of superior non-local products (If anyone can show me this is not the case, I would be a very very happy chap).

They will catch on to this fast as it presents a huge opportunity. Watch the medium sized businesses; the large ones are increasingly "dark" in nature and toss around the innovation word simply because it sounds important and is popular with government officals - the mere mention of the word "innovation" is likely to get you funding on the spot.

Posted by James Nash at February 16, 2005 12:32 AM

Tom, this is an awesome reference. Thank you. The psychologist that still dwells within me is most interested in the statement that managers in Asia "need a clean-sheet" mentality in order to be competitive with top companies. Once again we see the urgency of changing our own minds. To win requires opening our minds to see problems differently in order to forge creative and competitive solutions. It requires trashing old ideas and outdated ways of doing and seeing things in order to start with clean sheets. That's what stellar competitors in sports do. Those that don't, like the No Hockey League, can lose seasons and can even risk losing entire leagues.

Posted by Pam Brill at February 16, 2005 6:01 AM