Creativity, innovation, spirit of service: three keywords to get out of the crisis

Marco Lisi

A nation of creative people

‘Italy is a nation of creative people and thus, creativity is our best asset’: this is a most popular and never challenged assumption, which, in some ways, everyone likes to call upon in times of trouble.
There is no doubt that in an economy increasingly based on values like knowledge, creativity becomes a fundamental "asset", both on a level of individual companies and under a systemic national perspective.
During most of human history, wealth derived from the exploitation of resources from the place of residence, such as fertile land and raw materials (minerals, coal, oil).
Nowadays, the key economic resource i.e. human creativity, has turned into a highly mobile good. Consequently, the wealth of a region is less and less dependent on its geographical and natural characteristics but mostly relies on cultural and social landscapes, which are in turn characterized by rapidly evolving dynamics.
At this point it is surprising that according to a research carried out at the Carnegie Mellon University and extended to all countries of Europe and North America, Italy ranked almost last in the creativity race, ahead of only Portugal and Greece. Incidentally, the country leading in terms of creativity would be the chilly Sweden, with an index higher even than that of the United States.
It would look like the fall of a myth particularly dear to us, which has been invoked countless times to justify and explain the fate of our economy.
 

Creativity is not enough

In our difficult and sometimes troubled times, we need to strengthen our will to create something new and better for ourselves and for our community. If our economy is based on knowledge and on ideas, it is precisely starting from our most valuable resource, i.e., our creativity, that we have to proactively react with courage and determination.
Creativity, not only intended as the invention of new ideas, but also as the ability to get out of traditional patterns to devise new perspectives, new ways of thinking, therefore becomes an essential starting point.
But creativity is not enough: we need to convert our creative ideas into innovation through our entrepreneurship and business skills.
Creativity and innovation often chase each other, creating a virtuous circle.
In the wake of creativity and innovation, then, new ways of working, of designing the enterprise are developed.
Creativity is nowadays an individual as well as a collaborative experience.
Communication technologies can facilitate our exchange of ideas and our collaborative work, but mainly “ad hoc” conceived software tools and environments help us developing our creativity by making real ideas and technical solutions otherwise considered too difficult, if not impossible, to experiment.
This way, innovative tools generate new innovation.

 

Creativity and innovation as a style of life

Creativity and passion for innovation must become a new life style, a mental habit inspiring our daily professional life.
Dynamism, uncertainty and competition will unfortunately continue to shape the global economic scenario in the near future.
The answer to this permanent state of uncertainty and volatility cannot reside in a purely defensive approach.
A proactive and visionary approach to our present situation must be based on a radical change of mind, a paradigm shift in which creativity, innovation and their corollary, meritocracy, constitute an essential part.
As an historical and cultural reference, it might be useful to remind ourselves of that period, in many ways unique and unsurpassed in history, that was the Italian Renaissance.
In that chapter of our history, even in the midst of complex and often cruelly violent political events, we witnessed remarkable and harmonic growth of creativity, innovation and "beauty" in all areas of human life: economic, technical and artistic.
That the taste for "bello" and beauty was not only a cultural habit, but rather the logical consequence of a unified vision of knowledge (of a "systemic" vision, we would say today) was explained by Leon Battista Alberti, who was among the Renaissance most illustrious exponents: "We define beauty as the harmony between all the parts, of which the whole is made of, based upon a precise law, so that you cannot add or subtract or change anything except for the worse" ("De Re Aedificatoria").
Replace the word "system" to "beauty" in the sentence above and you will have one of the best possible definitions of the object of "systems engineering."

Spirit of service and professionalism

After creativity and innovation, a third word must become key in our life: service.
Rediscovering the value of the service, of the spirit of service, means not only to recognize an incontrovertible historical fact, namely, that the economy of the Western world is predominantly service-based; this meaning also and above all that the place of every individual human being and mankind in general stays at the center of all our attention, calling into question the quality and purpose of what we produce.
As well as creativity and innovation, the spirit of service challenges us to give a new meaning to our professionalism.
There can be no spirit of service without emotional intelligence (empathy), without consciousness of social responsibility, without attention to details, without an ethical vision of profession and life.
In addition, a true spirit of service leads to humility: listening attitude, respect for diversity, tolerance.
With spirit of service, creativity and innovation we can effectively add value to what we do for the betterment of our society.