I’ve noticed that nowadays, there are not many companies (maybe these companies actually don’t exist?) which promote creativity among the employees especially in this South East Asia region. Most companies will just ask the employees to hit the ground running and throw them into projects. Once completed, or when there’s no project, they will throw them to work on internal project or just let them idle. Reason? So that when a new project comes in, they can start immediately. And why they don’t allow employees to try and be creative? Because that’s not considered to be productive.
I think this is a very bad idea. Without creativity and innovation, how can a company progress? Just crunching the numbers and sales figure, or get more sales team out to win more projects? Maybe it CAN indeed work, but is it for short term or long term?
In my opinion, bosses or supervisors should start promoting innovation and creativity among the employees. Invent more innovative and creative products. Produce efficient solutions. Who knows, maybe they can come out with something really useful which can benefit their customers greatly, rather than just giving the same solution over and over again (for different customers). After all, the most successful and popular products are results of creativity and innovation.
But well, that’s just my opinion anyway. Deep inside my heart, I really hope that more companies will behave like Apple and Google – to promote creativity and innovation. And hopefully, there will be more cool, creative and useful products for people to use (and buy).
As for our beloved country Malaysia, I think we will need to wait for few more years (10? 20? or maybe 30 years) before the companies here can change their mindset and start promoting creativity and innovation.
Tagged: Business, creativity, Employee, leadership, management
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I agree with you. In our “catching up” mentality in the corporate world, most companies do not see the value of innovation and doing things differently. Maybe they do, but they do not spend the effort to grow it. At the end of the day, it’s only about profits and not how “Wow” you are. We have a long way to go!
Tipsies last blog post..Malaysia’s 1st Search Marketing Conference happening next month
Most Asian companies are heirarchical and are run like armies. Meaning when we give you orders to shoot, you shoot and don’t argue with the boss. Respect for tradition, compliance and loyalty above all. It reverberates well with Asians because its how we run our societies and families.
Creativity is the opposite. Its about breaking the rules, being different, taking risks. We Asians don’t like that. I believe even Toyota builds their leading-edge R&D centers outside Japan. How do you break the rules when you’re conditioned to preserve tradition at all costs.
Of course for enough money, we’ll do anything but with the amt of money a programmer earns, you’ll understand why they don’t bother. To me many factors contribute to the problem you describe. At the heart of it is culture – the culture of innovation – and the things that condition culture. You definitely need more than a corporate mission statement and annual dinner plaques to turn it on.
This is a topic I may blog about.
@ Tipsie
That’s why most of our companies never end up to be successful in the international arena. The local companies are actually struggling in the local or regional scope due to lack of creativity and innovation. They are just “another” company to the clients.
@ Damien
I think it has to do with the culture – the education we’ve received from our family and from school. I don’t think there are many asians out there who dare to tell their parents they are going to stop studying in Harvard. And when the kids said they wanted to start their own business or be something creative, their parents will just tell them to give up and go earn some decent living, and stop dreaming.
My parents aren’t like that, but I know there are a lot of such people out there. That’s why we’re not as creative as we need to be.
In Japan, they are creative, perhaps due to their culture. At least, they invent more stuff, come out with more high-tech gadgets, or artistic stuff. Better than Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and maybe even China – and maybe better than the combined efforts of all those countries.