once said something along the lines of
progress and change are rarely seen as
gifts coming to us from above but they
primarily seen as struggles which
originate from below and our previous
speaker talked about the soil and he
talked about innovation and when we look
at soil when we look at innovation there
are a few places on this earth where as
far as I’m concerned you can find a
better analogy for innovation change and
progress than the deserts of this world
now I’ve had the fortunate experience of
spending nine years living in Namibia so
I know a little bit about deserts and as
a corporate trainer and as somebody who
continually works with innovation teams
it’s a struggle to find people who
really embrace innovation right from the
word go people want to innovate they
want to change they attracted by this
beautiful thought of change and this
wonderful vision of the future head of
us but the reality is that people are
often very scared to change and it’s a
struggle that you see not only within
people but it’s a struggle that you can
actually see very clearly in the desert
as well and I’d like to take you with
and take you quickly this evening to the
Namib Desert and if you look at the sign
or the the picture in front of you you
see very clearly the Namib Desert from
the air it’s one of the oldest deserts
in the world is one of the driest
deserts and it’s a beautiful desert when
we’re talking about innovation because
you have on the one side coming up from
the south these massive great big
powerful towering dunes that are pushing
forward driven by the trade winds coming
up of the Antarctic and slowly they’re
making their way across to the north so
it’s a little bit like the analogy of
business and change and the facts that
the industries that
in are continually changing and moving
forward and progressing but all of a
sudden in this picture you see a line
and that’s the river in this case the
Coosa River and to the north of that
River you see barren desert a desert of
rock void of sand and that’s a little
bit like the struggle and the process
regarding innovation on the one hand our
organizations our industries are driven
and being pushed along by innovation and
the need to change and on the other hand
there’s this dividing line that we find
where some companies make their jump
some products make their jump and others
don’t and I don’t need to tell you
because every time that you hear about
innovation you hear about companies that
just did not make the cut
so what we’re gonna do today is look at
one of the things that I think is
fundamental when you are looking at
innovating and innovation ladies and
gentlemen is not the goal on its own our
first speaker mention that innovation
should never be the goal there should be
a higher calling if I can call it that
there should be a reason behind that
innovation and if we’re looking at the
desert in this case that reason should
be to find a way to bridge the gap to
cross that river to get to that
wilderness on the other side and you
have the problem you have this
insurmountable problem that lies in
front of you and in this case it’s a
riverbed there’s some sort of disruption
in your industry some sort of need
that’s not being met and that River
there’s one thing that you do know about
it it’s not coming down and flood right
now but in a couple of years time it
will come down and things that change
the world around you
rains falling hundreds of kilometres
away in the commerce ha Clarke mountain
will fuel this river and send it running
miles out into the desert until it wipes
away all the sand let’s come across and
the beautiful thing about this picture
is when
in the desert and you’re standing the
other base you can actually stand and
hear the waterfalls of sand slowly
cascading down and it’s like the
inevitable progress that we have in our
industries there’s movement there even
when we cannot see it even when we think
that we cannot influence it industry is
changing our organisations are changing
our society is changing so the struggle
becomes how do you as that grain of sand
make sure that you cross that River
before that deluge arrives and changes
your industry forever now we have all
these fancy schmancy words for that and
we call it disruptive innovation and we
call it lean change and everything else
and there are so many words and they
good words but they take us away from
the essence of what is really at stake
and what is really at stake is the fact
that if we do not change ourselves we
will be pushed over into the abyss and
as much as we’d like to we can hold on
to the past but we’ve got a jump across
that riverbed now there’s a story about
a ship that was traveling across the
Atlantic Ocean from swakopmund and
Namibia down to Cape Town and it was a
well-built ship it was German built but
ladies and gentlemen you know German
built usually means it’s pretty good
right okay we have standards this was a
German built ship it was called the
Edward Boland and in 1909 at set sail
from swakopmund down to Cape Town which
is a journey by sea of approximately
1400 kilometers
it had the coast a very treacherous
coast to coast called the skeleton coast
and it had it because there was a lot of
mist and there was no clarity where they
should go and it’s a lot like
organizations today we know that we’ve
got an end destination but sometime
there’s a lot of fog and things
happening in the industry which are
clouding our vision so the Edward Boland
went along the coast and a couple of
kilometers down south of Walvis Bay at a
place called Conception Bay it ran
aground now that’s not really such an
interesting story because plenty of
ships are on or underground and
particularly on the Skeleton Coast in
Namibia which is absolutely strewn with
graveyards of ships but the interesting
thing about the edward berlin is that
it’s still there to this day
it’s actually also not very interesting
but what is interesting about the edward
Boland is when you look at it now it’s
no longer next to the beach in fact it
lies about 800 meters inland away from
the Atlantic Ocean and no guys there
were no shipwreck survivors who sort of
drug that thing into the desert on its
own but the desert encroached it
surrounded it and pushed forward and
that’s a beautiful analogy for change
within industry because if we allow our
companies if we allow our progress to be
halted and we don’t do something about
it we are going to find that the desert
will encroach and will overrule us
entirely so that’s something to think
about first of all why are we want to
change
second of all change so that you can
jump over that riverbed and head into
the unmarked territories Beyond and
third of all if something happens then
move on you see there’s no clear
defining line between the present and
the future the shores are being changed
and shifted continually so what we need
to do is make sure that when we have
plants in place as businesses when we
have plans in place for technology
that we act fast because even the rain
in the desert when it does come when
those opportunities arise and they will
arise sometimes ladies and gentlemen if
you don’t grab in very very quickly
you’re gonna see your dreams crack up
dry out and disappear so you need to
become quick you need to become edge or
you need to become lean because
otherwise the bleached bones of your
product your business your idea will lie
on the shores for everyone to see and
serve either as a warning all for
overeager business graduates to analyze
progress isn’t difficult progress is
simple just got to keep on going but
it’s not easy
ladies and gentlemen so what we need to
do is we need to have a specific thought
about where we want to be we need to see
the beauty in those challenges that we
have in front of us and we need to start
working on a way to move through the
desert and to make it clear now I can’t
tell you I can’t share with you all the
ways that we can be innovative and they
are beautiful classes and courses and
people that train you how to be
innovative and to develop lean thinking
and how to be a technology and
technologically savvy but what you do
need to do is realize opportunity when
it arrives an opportunity itself can be
very very fickle
in fact opportunity is a little bit like
the mist that rolls in across the desert
every morning and the Namib Desert is no
exception
every morning the most rows end of the
sea for a few minutes and if we fast
enough if we are join us and if we
clever enough we can find ways to
harness
even the
the midst of this barren wilderness the
opportunities that arise so like this
beautiful beetle the TOC dokey beetle as
we call it we can position ourselves at
the right time but you’ve got to
understand that that positioning at the
right time is absolutely crucial you
need to be at the right place facing the
right way at the right time
so like our earlier speaker said that
sometimes means that you have to go out
iterate try develop a minimally Viable
Product try again sometimes you’ll come
out and you will not have rain but other
days you’ll manage to soak up those
opportunities that arrive now some do it
in that way other animals do it slightly
differently this cute fellow over here
has actually learned how to lick the
moisture of his eyes okay gentlemen
please don’t try this with your lady
friends okay so take it as a lesson not
as an advice that I’m giving to you but
you’ve got to find and develop your own
way your own unique way of grabbing on
to opportunities and innovation and in
doing so we not only learn from each
other but we can learn from the desert
as well and one of the most beautiful
examples I find and in learning from the
desert is this little fella over here
it’s the golden wheel spider and the
golden wheel spider lives on scorching
hot sands that can run up to 70 degrees
centigrade in the middle of the day so
what he does is he digs a little of
trepan underneath the sand digs himself
in and goes and sits there comfortably
but he’s got an enemy just like most of
us in our businesses have an enemy and
that enemy is an opportunistic carnival
it’s a black wasp and that wasp lacks
nothing else than killing the spider so
the spider has developed a way to be
totally different than all the other
spiders
because what do you do with 8 legs you
run right oh not the golden wheel spider
he does cartwheels across the sand and
the reason that this is essential is
because those cartwheels are a manner of
thinking out-of-the-box of taking your
appendages of taking what you have and
adjusting it and doing something that’s
totally contrary to the popular belief
in fact that little spider when he’s
running along can move it about a meter
a second when he’s caught wheeling he
can go up to 10 meters per second okay
so you can imagine what sort of
advantages this gives him so in your
thinking don’t just think along the way
everybody else would think but think
innovatively think in a different way
think how can I do this how can I make
this threat that’s in my environment
work for me and we need to do that
quickly we need to think it through and
if at all possible don’t be scared to go
routes that no other people have taken
before don’t look for the well trodden
trails that everybody else has followed
but innovate try experiment and when you
have a bright idea and you mention that
to a group of friends and 80% picks up
laughing you’ve got a brilliant idea and
you stick to that idea and you work it
out and you try and you go for it and
you develop it because the reality is
not everybody will support your ideas
not everybody will support your
innovation but you’ve gotta try it
because those that stick to
tried-and-true
things like building a nice German house
in the middle of the desert will
inevitably find that as time progresses
this is all that’s left so look at your
environments look at the opportunities
around you develop your strategies don’t
be scared to try something innovative
and totally out of the box develop test
develop test keep working and above all
know that there’s one true thing about
the desert that counts for innovation as
well the desert may be a horribly scary
dry lonesome dreary looking place on the
surface just like innovation can be but
when you look closely the desert is
filled with life teeming with sound and
above all incredibly incredibly
beautiful dream big look up at the stars and go for it