The Global Economy in Turbulent Times

CHAPTER 108 Creativity: The Key to NEM’s Success¹

The New Economic Model (NEM) was unfolded in March 2010 and the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011–2015) in June. These aim to transform Malaysian life and fortunes. At its heart is innovation. The prime minister takes every opportunity to drive this home—indeed, to succeed innovation must be pushed harder and harder until it becomes an integral part of the nation’s culture. As a concept, innovation simply means the nurturing of talent for creativity. Here creativity can be likened to producing something original and useful. Viewed differently, to be creative means getting the classic creative challenge of divergent thinking (producing unique ideas) and convergent thinking (putting ideas together to improve life) to work in tandem. According to Professor E. Paul Torrance (who created the gold standard in creativity assessment), a creative person has an “unusual visual perspective,” matched with an “ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products.”² That’s what creative talent is all about—essentially getting the left and right brains to operate as one. A recent IBM chief executive officers’ poll identified creativity as the number-one “leadership competency” of the future.³ Unfortunately, we don’t have such a culture.

Creativity: A Culture Thing

In practice, despite former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s Look East policy, Malaysia has yet to succeed in emulating Japan’s innovation culture. Three main elements ...