Can We Innovate Ourselves Out This Recession - Really?

We have plenty problems to solve. There is no debate about that. Lots of opportunities to innovate and cause breakthroughs.

Whether the problems are personal ones like finding or keeping a job, paying bills and staying sane as the economy goes south; or organizational ones like doing more with less just to stay competitive or even survive; or national ones like how do we maintain jobs and create new ones and turn the economy around - we have no shortage of problems to solve.

What we do have is a shortage of robust ways to stimulate, unleash, and harness the creativity and innovative thinking that is part of every human beings nature.

Creativity that leads to innovative solutions that are breakthroughs should not be a once in a while, accidental phenomenon, or an activity reserves for special people or special occasions. It needs to be a day-in-day-out discipline like flossing and brushing our teeth.

What we have also learned in the last few years that "leaders", "experts" and "policy-makers" are not as smart as we have implicitly given them credit for. All their forecasting and predicting what is going to happen, if it is about growth and development, has not worked out as they so confidently said it would. The economy is in recession and major financial institutions are loosing money at a rate that is beyond comprehension.

When we shift gears from reacting to circumstances, to working for a commitment we are passionate about, we are brilliant, we are turned on, we are innovative in a way that surprises us, and we do produce desired results. For all their failures in running their businesses, some leaders have made huge fortunes for themselves - maybe that was their only real commitment in the first place. In that they have been innovative and hugely successful.

So we need to put a stake in the ground for our own commitments and say, "this is the problem I am going to solve, and this is the when it will be solved". It sounds counter-intuitive when the circumstances look so bleak and morale and resources are scare.

Counter-intuitive or not, that's the place to start!