Redesigning the Malaysian Mind

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By Lim Kok Wing

I believe, and always will, that creative people are the most important people in the world.

All over the world, it is creative people who create new business, new enterprise, new markets, new brands, new life styles and new trends. It is creative people who build successful companies and drive successful economies around the world. It is creative people who discovered, who connected, who invented, who innovated, who communicated. Creativity is without doubt the world’s most important single resource.

A creative country will be a successful country. An innovative economy will be a successful economy. That is the reality. We know the world’s richest and most advanced nations are also the world’s most creative, most innovative. These are countries with well-developed creative industries which provide effective on-going research and development support to their industries.

All, with no exception, consider creativity and innovation a strategic propeller of their national competitiveness. These are countries whose governments have built economic and social infrastructures that encourage creativity and innovation. Their people are highly educated, highly skilled, and highly motivated. They are trained and encouraged to be innovative in whatever they do or produce - be it the music they compose, the shoes they design, the computers they make, even the fast food they sell. These countries generate immense wealth from the products and services they have created, and the brands they have promoted right around the world. These countries produce goods that are perceived to be the best in the world, everywhere in the world.

As a result, these countries themselves have become synonymous with quality, and enjoy the most positive image in the minds of millions right around the world. And this, in turn, reinforces the perception that whatever they produce must be the best in the world; so whatever they produce simply command premium positioning and pricing everywhere in the world.

When you think of the United States, you think of cutting-edge information technology. Germany exemplifies precision engineering. Italy stands for fancy cars and lifestyles. France the world’s most expensive perfumes and Switzerland the world’s most expensive watches. In Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong stand out as the most successful in the competition for a share of the global market. It is no surprise that all five are ranked among the most innovative and richest economies in the world. Size of population does not matter at all in a country’s capacity for innovation and wealth creation.

In Malaysia, we debate that one reason our country lags behind in innovation is because we are a small country with a small domestic market. However, countries like Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Holland all have populations that are much smaller than Malaysia’s. Yet, they are miles ahead in their capacity to create and innovate.

Sure enough, they also have many times more wealth. Here is where size does not matter at all. This is where performance matters the most.

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