“That’s not how we do it.”

On the other hand, we mix apples and oranges because that’s how we do it.

And that is easy to explain given our instincts: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism that we rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

In other words, there is a reason why poverty is our be-all and end-all. What are we missing? “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

Recall the blog discussed the parallels between Christianity and democracy and free enterprise. Indeed, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But we are mixing apples and oranges when we can’t distinguish cause and effect, i.e., poverty in the Philippines is the effect of underdevelopment. And we prefer to minimize our mismanagement of the country and highlight the shortcomings of capitalism.

Do we want to pass the buck? Consider: Communist China embraced capitalism, while the Soviet empire, once socialism’s model, went kaput.

Let’s establish the predicate. Indeed, we mismanaged this country, i.e., we are the regional laggard, left behind even by once impoverished Vietnam.

If we can internalize what democracy is, it demands self-government and personal responsibility to pursue the common good. And that is where human development comes in. We have to move up beyond the dualistic level – as our neighbors have done. [Better yet, as Christ demonstrated to the scribes and Pharisees.]

“Beg for Western money and technology,” advised Lee and Mahathir to Deng.

And where are we today compared to our neighbors? They have put poverty behind them, including Vietnam.

Consider these articles: (a) World Bank approves a $600-million loan for PHL 4Ps program, and (b) World Bank Approves US$500 Million to Help Mitigate Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Do we have any chance to undo our instincts?

Consider the private sector view: “The habits of Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and other innovative CEOs reveal much about the underpinnings of their creative thinking. Research shows that five discovery skills distinguish the most innovative entrepreneurs from other executives.” [The Innovator’s DNA by Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business Review, December 2009]

Why is innovation not our cup of tea? If we can’t undo our instincts, we have zero chance.

So, let’s continue with “The Innovator’s DNA. We studied 25 innovative entrepreneurs’ habits and surveyed more than 3,000 executives and 500 individuals who had started innovative companies or invented new products.

“We were intrigued to learn that at most companies, top executives do not feel personally responsible for coming up with strategic innovations. Instead, they feel responsible for facilitating the innovation process.

“In stark contrast, senior executives of the most innovative companies—a mere 15% in our study—don’t delegate creative work. They do it themselves.

“But how do they do it? Our research led us to identify five ‘discovery skills’ that distinguish the most creative executives: (1) Associating, (2) Questioning, (3) Observing, (4) Experimenting, and (5) Networking.

“We found that innovative entrepreneurs (who are also CEOs) spend 50% more time on these discovery activities than do CEOs with no track record for innovation. Together, these skills make up what we call the innovator’s DNA. And the good news is, if you’re not born with it, you can cultivate it.”

[Isn’t that similar to what Bill Gates said about the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset? We can be innovators too. We don’t have to run away every time the blog references innovation.]

“In thinking about how these skills work together, we’ve found it useful to apply the metaphor of DNA. Associating is like the backbone structure of DNA’s double helix; four patterns of action (Questioning, Observing, Experimenting, and Networking) wind around this backbone, cultivating new insights. And just as each person’s physical DNA is unique, each individual we studied had a ‘unique’ innovator’s DNA for generating breakthrough business ideas.

“Imagine that you have an identical twin, endowed with the same brains and natural talents that you have. You’re both given one week to come up with a creative new business-venture idea. During that week, you come up with ‘ideas’ alone in your room.

“In contrast, your twin (1) talks with ten people—including an engineer, a musician, a stay-at-home dad, and a designer—about the venture, (2) visits three innovative start-ups to observe what they do, (3) samples five ‘new to the market’ products, (4) he shows a prototype he’d built to five people, and (5) asks the questions ‘What if I tried this?’ and ‘Why do you do that?’ at least ten times each day during this Networking, Observing and Experimenting activities.

“Studies of identical twins separated at birth indicate that our ability to think creatively comes one-third from genetics. Two-thirds of the innovation skillset comes through learning—first understanding a given skill, then practicing it, experimenting, and ultimately gaining confidence in one’s capacity to create.

“Associating. The ability to successfully connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas from different fields, are central to the innovator's DNA.

[Recall the postings on the photosynthesis phenomenon; it is how the writer introduced his Eastern European friends to the imperative of creating an “ecosystem” as the platform for their business model to succeed against Western giants in the industry. And from several postings, recall how the writer relates the universe’s dynamism to the story of creation. Compare that to the Philippine reliance on the OFW phenomenon and BPO industry while bragging about our fast-growing economy. It explains why we can’t wrap our heads around the reality that we have a structural problem that won’t go away until we commit to traverse poverty to prosperity.]

“Entrepreneur Frans Johansson described this phenomenon as the ‘Medici effect,’ referring to the creative explosion in Florence when the Medici family brought together people from a wide range of disciplines—sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, painters, and architects.

[But that era is too ancient to be relevant to Juan de la Cruz. Recall the postings on the Pearl River Delta Economic Development Zone. It must be the benchmark. The DA and BCDA are creating an agro-industrial development zone in Clark. That is a step in the right direction, yet it still falls short benchmark-wise. Our goal is to move up to an industrialized economy. Beyond these two agencies, we need the DTI and the PEZA to be in the forward-thinking exercise. The Pearl River Delta is now on its 2.0 generation or iteration. In other words, our idea for Clark is already obsolete even before we start.]

“As these individuals connected, new ideas blossomed at the intersections of their respective fields, thereby spawning the Renaissance, one of the most inventive eras in history.

“Questioning. More than 50 years ago, Peter Drucker described the power of provocative questions. ‘The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers; it is to find the right question,’ he wrote.

“Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge common wisdom or, as Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata puts it, ‘question the unquestionable.’ Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, has worked directly with several innovative entrepreneurs beyond eBay’s founder, including PayPal and Skype.

‘They get a kick out of screwing up the status quo,’ she told us. ‘They can’t bear it. So, they spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about how to change the world. And as they brainstorm, they like to ask: ‘If we did this, what would happen?’

“Observing. Discovery-driven executives produce uncommon business ideas by scrutinizing common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers. In observing others, they act like anthropologists and social scientists.

“Innovators carefully, intentionally, and consistently look out for small behavioral details—in the activities of customers, suppliers, and other companies—to gain insights about new ways of doing things.

“Experimenting. When we think of experiments, we think of scientists in white coats or great inventors like Thomas Edison. Like scientists, innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots. (As Edison said, ‘I haven’t failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that do not work.’)

“The world is their laboratory. Unlike observers, who intensely watch the world, experimenters construct interactive experiences and provoke unorthodox responses to see what insights emerge.

[Recall the posting that the writer supervised the pharma unit of his MNC-company. At the time, the three major players in a particular product category were racing to develop the next generation product offering. The more prominent consumer technology center, which had a thousand scientists, was not the one that came out with the discovery. But a small private R&D lab ran by two Ivy professor-scientists and was part of the pharma unit’s network. It’s akin to Pfizer coming out first with the vaccine for Covid-19 in partnership with two scientists. When the pharma unit’s CEO relayed it to the writer, the words that came out of his lips were, “What are we waiting for?”]

“The electronic reader – Kindle – is an experiment that is now transforming Amazon from an online retailer to an innovative electronics manufacturer. Bezos sees experimentation as so critical to innovation that he has institutionalized it at Amazon. ‘I encourage our employees to go down blind alleys and experiment,’ Bezos says. ‘If we can get processes decentralized so that we can do many experiments without it being very costly, we’ll get a lot more innovation.’

“One of the most potent experiments innovators can engage in is living and working overseas. Our research revealed that the more countries a person has lived in, the more likely they are to leverage that experience to deliver innovative products, processes, or businesses.

“Networking. Devoting time and energy to finding and testing ideas through a network of diverse individuals gives innovators a radically different perspective. Unlike most executives—who network to access resources, sell themselves or their companies, or boost their careers—innovative entrepreneurs go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives to extend their knowledge domains.

“To this end, they make a conscious effort to visit other countries and meet people from different walks of life.

“Put a Ding in the Universe. Why do innovators question, observe, experiment, and network more than typical executives? As we examined what motivates them, we discovered two common themes: (1) They actively desire to change the status quo, and (2) they regularly take risks to make that change happen.

“Throughout our research, we were struck by the consistency of language that innovators use to describe their motives. For example, Jeff Bezos wants to ‘make history,’ Steve Jobs to ‘put a ding in the universe,’ Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström to ‘be disruptive, but in the cause of making the world a better place.’

“These innovators steer entirely clear of a common cognitive bias called the status quo bias—the tendency to prefer an existing state of affairs to alternative ones.

“Embracing a mission for change makes it much easier to take risks and make mistakes. Most of the innovative entrepreneurs we studied, mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of; they are a cost of doing business.

‘If the people running Amazon.com don’t make some significant mistakes,’ explained Bezos, ‘then we won’t be doing a good job for our shareholders because we won’t be swinging for the fences.’ In short, innovators rely on their ‘courage to innovate’—an active bias against the status quo and an unflinching willingness to take risks—to transform ideas into powerful impact.

“Practice, Practice, Practice. As innovators actively engage in the discovery skills, they become defined by them. They grow increasingly confident of their creative abilities.

“Though ‘innovative thinking’ may be innate to some, it can also be developed and strengthened through practice. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of rehearsing over and over the behaviors described above, to the point that they become automatic. That requires putting aside time for you and your team to cultivate more creative ideas actively.

“The most important skill to practice is questioning. Asking ‘Why’ and ‘Why not’ can help turbocharge the other discovery skills.

“Ask questions that both impose and eliminate constraints; this will help you see a problem or opportunity from a different angle. Try spending 15 to 30 minutes each day writing down ten new questions that challenge your company or industry’s status quo.

“To sharpen your observational skills, watch how certain customers experience a product or service in their natural environment. Spend an entire day carefully observing the ‘jobs’ that customers are trying to get done.

“Try not to make judgments about what you see: Pretend you’re a fly on the wall and observe as neutrally as possible. ‘What’s different than you expected?’

“To strengthen experimentation, at both the individual and organizational levels, consciously approach work and life with a hypothesis-testing mindset.

“Attend seminars or executive education courses on topics outside your area of expertise; take apart a product or process that interests you; read books that purport to identify emerging trends. When you travel, don’t squander the opportunity to learn about different lifestyles and local behavior.

“Develop new hypotheses from the knowledge you’ve acquired and test them in the search for new products or processes. Find ways to institutionalize frequent, small experiments at all levels of the organization. Openly acknowledging that learning through failure is valuable goes a long way toward building an innovative culture.

“Try spending 15 to 30 minutes each day writing down questions that challenge the status quo in your company.

“To improve your networking skills, contact the five most creative people you know and ask them to share what they do to stimulate creative thinking. You might also ask if they’d be willing to act as your creative mentors. We suggest holding regular idea lunches at which you meet a few new people from diverse functions, companies, industries, or countries. Get them to tell you about their innovative ideas and ask for feedback on yours.

“Innovative entrepreneurship is not a genetic predisposition; it is an active endeavor. Apple’s slogan, ‘Think Different,’ is inspiring but incomplete. We found that innovators must consistently act differently to think differently. By understanding, reinforcing, and modeling the innovator’s DNA, companies can find ways to develop the creative spark in everyone more successfully.”

Let’s recap. Many times, the writer would stress that he is a practitioner, not an academic. And when he guided a Ph.D. candidate in developing her dissertation, it was conditioned on her promise to utilize the output for some real-world initiative. And her response: I will employ it to enhance my career. I am managing a global brand in a tiny country. I want to do this in a more significant setting, the region, and then the world. And she does not disappoint.

Practice makes perfect. 

That also explains why he expounded principles, not hard-and-fast rules, since he met his Eastern European friends.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

But in the Philippines, we are the elite class. We don’t practice; we preach.

Because we are parochial and insular, we value hierarchy and paternalism that we rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.

Gising bayan!

[Today is Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. And Christmas comes in a few. They share something in common, that of renewal — and hope. And in the case of American politics, renewal comes at just the right time. 

In the Philippines, we have been self-critical of our culture of impunity. Albeit we can do more. Yet, Trump and his cabal relished in undermining the rule of law. Lock them up! 

Despite Trump’s concrete base, the good news is that, thankfully, the minority, honest-to-goodness conservatives are bailing out on him. It means the majority will keep America on an even keel. For example, science is about discovery, not perfection. It took the world a hundred years to demonstrate Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Those of us Pinoys that believe China will become the next hegemon should recognize what Rizal said. Those who submit to tyranny loves it. It appears Duterte is waking up to the reality of which side of the bread has butter.

The writer is a citizen of the world and has no respect for American politics because of its tribalism. That is why the blog never tires of referencing human development. We Filipinos want to learn it sooner than later. That is what Christmas brings to our consciousness.

Christ is dynamic, not static. Not tribal. He was born a Jew but a citizen of the world. That is why Christianity is universal. And that’s what Western democracy must seek if it is to be the world’s ideal. It may take another hundred years to demonstrate.

The family joins the writer in wishing one and all a Blessed Christmas and a Kinder New Year!]