Innovation, origination to shape future
One can make a long list of attributes that made, and make, America great. Based on my 50 year experience in the education and business sectors, one of the key attributes is America’s “Capacity to Innovate.’”
Computers, the internet, Google, and Netflix have become an integral part of our daily lives at home and work.
How did these innovations come about?
These and innumerable other innovations built upon the foundation of basic research done years, even decades earlier. Today’s computers for example, would not exist without research in pure mathematics conducted over a century ago.
The technology that runs flat screen TVS was innovated by scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-champaign. Modern lithium-ion batteries were developed by scientists at MIT. Google was an innovation born out of the research done at Stanford by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while working on their PH.D.
A majority of medicines available today have been developed using foundational basic research done at universities.
Basic research and innovation require three components:
1. Curious minds — people. 2. Infrastructure — often provided by institutions.
3. Resources — funding for and access to materials.
Some 75% of all basic research has been done at universities, our institutions of higher education. America’s universities attract the best and brightest minds from around the world. And 35% of American Nobel Prize winners have been immigrants.
The nation is facing big challenges today, an urgent need for well-paying jobs, dealing with climate change, healthcare, infrastructure, and most importantly preparing the nation and our people for the future. These are complex and multivariable issues requiring creative and innovative thinking.
Critical role of leaders in preparing businesses, nation for the future
Technological advancements and global competition are not going to slow down. The very first thing we always discuss in my executive MBA leadership class at the University of Memphis, is for a business to grow in this fast-changing environment, the internal rate of change must exceed the external rate of change. The role of a leader is to understand the big picture and take action to prepare the entity—organization or a nation—they are leading.
Citizens are busy working, paying bills, raising families, and meeting other day-to-day obligations in their lives. They do not have the propensity or the luxury to think about the big picture and upcoming disruptions. Application of technology, automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence will have a big impact sooner than we expect.
Well-paying jobs in all sectors of the economy will require education and training beyond high school, vocational/ trade or even college. Leaders must inform their people about this new world of work, provide the right resources, and inspire them to acquire the training and education necessary to evolve. It’s human nature to long for old and comfortable ways as change is innately uncomfortable, but there is no going back.
Basic research generates new knowledge, which may not always be immediately utilized, but nonetheless forms the basis of future progress.
Short election cycles create shortterm thinking, making it expedient to ignore the need for comprehending and sharing the big picture and making the long-term investments we critically need just because they may not produce immediate results.
Innovation is a team sport and a people process
We tend to associate most innovations with a single individual, for example, the iphone is commonly attributed to Steve Jobs. This is far from reality. Innovation requires generation, development, and implementation of creative ideas in an iterative process that involves lots of people.
I was fortunate to join Fedex in the company’s early days and be part of its global growth journey.
Yes, Fred Smith had the innovative idea of starting an airline dedicated to express delivery of critical products.
Yet, Fred will be the first person to tell you that it is the “discretionary effort”— creativity and commitment—of employees that has been the key to successfully developing and implementing his original idea.
A culture of ongoing innovation has allowed Fedex to grow and provide wellpaying jobs to over 400,000 people around the world.
In today’s knowledge driven economy, if we are to address all the big challenges facing us as a nation, we need to expand, not shrink our capacity to innovate.
Madan Birla is author of “Fedex Delivers” and “Unleashing Creativity and Innovation.” Both have been translated into nine international languages. Birla lives in Memphis.