Some people have spring fatigue, I have developed a spring system innovation interest. This happens for the third spring in a row now.
Past few days, I’ve been delving into System Innovation Initiative’s introductory materials and webinars. And I found a visual that I resonated with a lot.
It helped clarify my issue with the politics or public sector leadership.
A mass of broadcasted innovation is usually about prolonging the status quo and raising productivity — not new breakthroughs. Yet this won’t allow societies to create a new, better, different way of life.
System innovation requires radical leaps, not just small steps.
Now, we might ask what’s the reason we’re not taking more significant leaps. I believe it’s pretty simple.
Politicians aren’t incentivised to drive progress.
Politicians are greatly incentivised to do as little as possible if it doesn’t get them in trouble.
The consequence for action and failure is evident. You get attacked in political attack ads and probably by the media.
But we need politicians to realise that often, the consequences for trying and failing are minimal compared to the effects of not trying at all. We need brave leaders to question breakthrough barriers and drive progress even when there isn’t public pressure.
“Designing policy without an imaginative sense of where you are going means your best efforts will land you toward the front of the status quo, but not ahead of it. Imagination enlightens strategy, policy and programming and helps you break free of institutional thinking that leads you to piecemeal reform. The imaginative question isn’t ‘what needs to be changed about our existing social safety net,’ but ‘what kind of caring society do we want?’” — Al Etmanski, Canadian social entrepreneur