The clock is ticking - Perpetuation or Innovation?
Now that Merdeka celebrations are over and done with, there is a bit of a festive lull - at least until the upcoming Hari Raya.
During these periods of national revelry, the mood is often nostalgic as looking to the past is a common human preoccupation.
While nostalgia certainly has its place, the past is said and done. We can learn lessons from it, but we cannot impact it.
What we can impact is the future. The present is happening so fast that in order to keep up, we need to be leaps ahead in our planning.
For the longest time, we have focused our efforts Vision 2020 - a target that when it was first articulated in 1991 quickly caught the public’s imagination and gave everyone something to work toward.
But now, 11 years on and soon to be 9 years from the target, I know I am not alone in having serious doubts about whether we are on track to achieve that lofty goal of being a fully-developed nation in the spirit of that vision.
The world has changed, expectations have changed.
The game and the goalposts have changed.
Yet, the collective mindset has not changed.
As a culture - we still expect to be told what to do - instead of doing what needs to be done.
As a culture - we still retain the top-down mentality. Instructions have to come from the top before even small changes can be effected.
As a culture - we adopt buzzwords like innovation quickly - but fail to adopt it individually in all that we do.
We are good at sprints, but when it comes to marathons we lose steam quickly and give up too easily.
Yet, we are now possibly in the most critical marathon of our nation—to realize Vision 2020 and make the words a reality.
The Prime Minister - to his credit - is working hard to put in place the changes that must take place, especially within the public sector - which has no time to lose in becoming the model of innovation.
Next month, he will unveil the 2011 Budget, which he has said will set the pace to transform Malaysia into a developed and high-income economy by 2020.
The PM is doing all that he can to encourage, nurture and implement policies that will help us achieve that target. We have the National Transformation Agenda, we have the National Key Results Areas, KPIs, Innovation Units etc to move us along.
But he cannot be the lone voice of change, no matter how loud he shouts.
He cannot push a mountain of deadwood who refuse to budge - all by himself.
He cannot change the cultural inertia that permeates many aspects of socio-economic life - all by himself.
He cannot empower people to use common sense to distinguish between too many rules, and too much chaos - all by himself.
The public and private must listen to one another and find ways to solve new issues and problems that are not in the administrative rule books.
Progressive governments are moving away from purely administrative to stewardship roles; from ownership to partnership and from hierarchy to collaboration.
Given the scale and significance of the public sector in every aspect of our lives, loosening rigidity and encouraging innovation even by 10% for now would have amazing results.
In a discontinuous world, we need to turn down the dial a bit on perpetuation and turn up the dial on innovation.
We need everyone on board to work with the PM - and not distort what he means.
Protecting the status quo, after all, is a sure way to be left behind & be rendered irrelevant.
We need the best talent
The rise of innovation to the top of the agenda of many countries today has resulted in a profound shift in the nature of global competition.
Economic advantage no longer depends on natural resources, raw materials, trade of goods and services, giant factories, or even growing consumer markets.
The next 9 years will be very difficult, made more challenging by the global economic slowdown, terrorism concerns, and an increasingly competitive marketplace in which our Asian neighbours - like Japan, South Korea, India and China - will dominate.
With their huge populations, a well-trained and skilled workforce, they are on the cusp of a socio-economic boon already being felt around the world.
Where do we want to stand in this scenario?
We have had endless debates about education while 3 generations have grown up with an outmoded industrial age education system that most agree, have failed to nurture thinking minds.
In these sobering times, there is no ignoring that we are lagging where others are excelling.
We are losing the best brains and the best talent to countries that have more innovative environments.
For the best who now live and work overseas, we need to give them really good reasons to want to come back.
Reasons that go beyond great weather and good food.
For the best who are in local universities and graduating soon, we need to give them really good reasons not to leave for greener pastures.
Reasons that go beyond national loyalty and obligations.
For the young who are still in school, we need to give them really good reasons to want to excel creatively and innovatively.
Reasons that make it clear that excellence will be rewarded generously.
My wish is this - that we make excellence our overarching national agenda.
There is no failing if we commit to this. We will attract and keep the best.
The best will create the innovations.
The best will set the pace of change.
The best will make the outcomes happen.
Nine years is a blink in the time of life. We need to get going.
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