Crises are free passes to learn, rethink and rebuild

By WALE AKINYEMI

The greatest challenge to innovators during uncertain times is brain freeze. Because times are so uncertain they become conservative in their thinking. However, uncertain times present a golden opportunity to change the game because people who have resisted certain ideas before, become more open during tough and uncertain times.

Squid Game is today the number one Netflix production and it is the most-watched series to date, surpassing 2020’s Bridgerton. It was scripted way back in 2009 but had been rejected by multiple production houses. However, uncertain times produced a certain opportunity.

There is a big deception that occurs at the beginning of every year. The deception comes in the form of three words — Happy New Year. People are grateful that they made it through the challenges and the ups and downs of the previous year. The big question, however, is this: Even though you made it and crossed over into a new year, what are you going to make out of it?

Every New Year, every new month, every new week and indeed every new day presents us with building material. They represent the refresh buttons of the universe and present us with golden opportunities to say goodbye to the old and to welcome the new. However what makes the year, month, week or day new is not the numbers. It is not the calendar. What makes it new is you. Even though you made it, did your mind make it?

A person’s true age is not measured by the calendar but by the processing power of their mind. We must always ensure that we are living in the new and not just a continuum of a boring old existence. We need to continually create new memories because we can only survive so far on the memories of the old.

Innovation triggers

To ensure that every day we live turns out to be a truly new day in our lives and not just a change in the calendar or a recycling of the old, we must increase the dimensions of our thinking. How far are you thinking? How wide are you thinking and how deep are you thinking?

Every New Year, month, week or day provides us with a unique opportunity to renew and increase the dimensions of our thinking. Only when this happens do we enter into the realm of recreation — into the zone of innovation.

Innovation, however, is a blanket term used for thinking up and coming up with new things.

In the book Start-Up Nation, Dan Senor and Saul Singer observed that Israel did not become a successful country in spite of the hostilities around it but in fact because of the hostilities around it. The hostility drove them to innovate.

Lee Kuan Yew said the same of Singapore. Crisis gives innovation its colour. Crisis brings new opportunities and as such we need to think of what to rebuild during this period.

While at home during the pandemic, my son and his wife started a YouTube channel to highlight their Nigerian Indian marriage and their wedding video has 2.8 million views.

They realised that their very relationship was a burning bush. It was spectacular and they built a product around it.

Crisis is never final and it is never going to stop. The world revolves around crisis cycles just like waves. The fact that you ride one wave successfully does not mean you will ride the next one. There is a mindset for successfully riding wave after wave and that is the mindset that produces the champions of innovation.

Product innovation opens you up to options.

However, there are other dimensions of innovation and next week we shall discuss process Innovation.

Wale Akinyemi is convenor of the Street University (www.thestreetuniversity.com) and chief transformation officer, PowerTalks; [email protected]