Hesitation nation: We have it in us, so let’s unleash Australian innovation

Australia can’t fix productivity without confronting its innovation hesitation. As the nation launches another national conversation on productivity at Jim Chalmers’ roundtable this week, one can’t help but notice what’s missing. The usual policy levers – tax reform, regulation, infrastructure – are all there. But innovation, long the lifeblood of productivity, is treated as a hopeful byproduct of policy rather than a foundation that needs fostering.

This is evident in the Productivity Commission’s 21-page white paper, Growth Mindset: How to boost Australia’s productivity, which outlines the five proposed productivity inquiries. Terms such as innovation, innovator, innovative are mentioned just six times.

In the subsequent interim report on Creating a more dynamic and resilient economy, innovation is positioned as an obvious, almost expected, consequence of the structural reforms, without reference to the necessary educational and cultural reform needed to harness the confidence and mindset to innovate.

We can’t regulate our way to innovation. Policies enable it, but the Australian people will ultimately be the innovators. Until we prioritise how Australians think about and experience innovation in daily life, reforms will miss their full impact.

So why do we too often struggle to innovate? Having taught creativity and innovation for many years at the Stanford d.school and now at Harvard Innovation Labs, I have observed that stagnating individual and societal innovation is often the result of a set of myths and cognitive norms that perpetuate a cautious and risk-averse approach.

There are three primary forms of innovation hesitation. We’ve probably all experienced at least one of these, either at home or in our workplaces.

The first is “innovation mythology”. This is the myth that innovation is only for individual geniuses like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk in world-changing eureka moments. However, innovation is just as likely to come from minor, incremental improvements made by everyday people. There are, in fact, very few singular eureka moments in innovation, and it is often a much more collaborative endeavour than a solitary one.

Next is the creativity gap, a false belief that creativity is a rare gift for special people, and that not everyone can be creative. It often resembles impostor syndrome, where people hold themselves back from contributing valuable ideas or participating in initiatives.

The third is cognitive caution, our brain’s natural instinct to avoid risk, failure, uncertainty and embarrassment.

While I have seen this third form of innovation hesitation around the globe, it has become an especially normalised element of the Australian psyche, which is worth re-evaluating as we strive to innovate to improve our national productivity.

Amplifying this cognitive caution in the Australian context is a uniquely Australasian tendency to cut down those who think they can try to be creative or innovative, or who are being the “tall poppy”. This cultural tic creates an environment where striving too high or doing things differently invites criticism.

The result is that many Australians don’t like to talk about their ambitions and they develop a pervasive fear of success to match nicely with a pervasive fear of failure. That results in inaction and perpetuation of the status quo.

Together, these factors form a powerful national culture of innovation hesitation.

So, how do we unlock Australia’s innovation potential?

Confronting this hesitation is both imperative and possible. After all, we’ve done it before. Our nation boasts a track record of innovation and ingenuity – Wi-Fi technology, the black box flight recorder, ultrasound scanners, even the humble Hills Hoist clothesline.

Australian scientists and entrepreneurs around the world continue to excel and make meaningful contributions. Every year in San Francisco, the Australian American Chamber of Commerce holds an impressive dinner celebrating the innovation of Australians.

We have it in us. The challenge is to make this widespread and normal, rather than an exception to the rule.

Cognitive science and real-world evidence alike tell us that a person’s ability to innovate and be creative is not a fixed trait. It is a set of mental processes and practices accessible to every Australian. Anybody can engage in creative problem-solving.

To ignite the everyday innovation essential to our national progress, the Productivity Commission should consider championing cultural reform, education initiatives, awareness campaigns and celebrations of risk-taking.

It is my experience that, only through repeated exposure, seeing people like ourselves trying and succeeding, and self-exploration do people really start to believe that they are creative and can innovate. By overcoming innovation hesitation, Australia can turn cautious talent into incremental and groundbreaking innovations. If we are serious about productivity, this cultural and educational shift must sit alongside structural and economic reform.

Dr Tessa Forshaw is an Australian cognitive scientist and co-founder of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University.