Come December, most people go through the ritual of self-reflection and ask where the year has gone. Then, they rationalise. I am not referring to looking at achievements (or a lack of them) from a point of reason or logic but rather, feeding oneself a ration of lies. Jim Rohn, the elderly American motivation guru, swears this is what the word “rationalise” really means — feeding oneself a ration of lies.

His words rang in my mind when I read a statement recently that an aptitude test showed that the thinking skills of Year Six students were better than their problem-solving or decision-making skills. Are we supposed to feel good that our young students can think but cannot put the thinking to any good use? Not only industry, but even the public sector needs problem solvers and decision-makers. There is little room in an innovation-led economy for those who think but cannot do.

Be that as it may, 2009 was a mixed bag from an innovation point of view. We had some stunning successes on the one hand and a few disappointing letdowns on the other. From a country perspective, it was very heartening to see the prime minister take the lead and declare innovation as a national agenda.

The drafting of a New Economic Model, anchored on innovation and creativity, is already underway. The Budget 2010 speech alluded to the fact that the goal of heading towards a high-income economy can only be achieved by injecting and embedding innovation into industry, government and education. At the highest level, things are looking much better than they were before as the leadership is convinced of the role of innovation in nation-building. Closer to ground however, the picture is not quite the same.

If we look at patents, a key measure of innovation in a country, the numbers do not look healthy. Only about 15% of the patents filed in Malaysia are of Malaysian origin — the rest are foreign patents seeking registration in our country. Of the 15% Malaysian-origin patent applications, less than 9% are actually granted. The failure rate of Malaysian-origin patents is 91%. This means that of all the patents that are approved and granted, only 0.6% are Malaysian. Not a good indication, by any yardstick.

A government agency recently announced that the rate of commercialisation from public universities stands at 3.4%. I was quite surprised to see this figure because in my opinion, this is rather high for a country that lacks a critical mass of teaching universities. I delved deeper into the issue and using official statistics for the last two years, a different picture emerged. The best performing university was one that achieved only 0.01% of commercialisation success. You really don’t want to know about the rest. We can of course rationalise this number and put forward all kinds of reasons and explanations, but just keep Rohn’s definition of “rationalise” in mind.

What beats me is that while most of us acknowledge that we have some systemic and fundamental problems that have led us to the state of affairs we are in, we are not willing to stare at ourselves in the mirror and admit the strategic mistakes we have made. Until and unless we acknowledge where we have gone wrong, how can we correct the situation? Have we as a nation become so fearful of our own shadows that we dare not call a spade a spade? Have we become experts at rationalising instead? I choose to adopt the approach of self-criticism as I believe it is the best weapon to combat threats to our survival — Andrew Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive should be essential reading for Malaysians who fear self-criticism.

The year 2010 has been declared the year of innovation and creativity. A mere declaration does not change people or their mindsets, persistent hard work does. What is Malaysia going to do to make its citizens innovative and creative? Sporadic acts of intervention and activities will just make a mockery of the declaration — we need a systematic and methodical process that will ignite innovation and creativity in the public, while a structured plan of injecting and embedding innovation is implemented in the industry, government and education sectors. Do we have such a plan? If we do, then it is surely a well-kept secret.

I sincerely hope we do not repeat our mistakes of the past — asking people to do something without empowering them or without giving them the tools required to do the job. You just cannot become innovative unless you learn how to innovate. This is an overused and abused cliché but it is still true in today’s age of rapid technological advancement and globalisation — if you fail to plan, you most certainly plan to fail. We don’t need rocket science, we just need to get back to basics.

We are constantly reminded how the South Koreans or Taiwanese have overtaken us over the last two decades, let alone the Singaporeans. How did they achieve this in a relatively short time span? You can rest assured that they applied a very liberal dose of common sense, attacked their weaknesses head-on and promptly returned to the basics. This is what Thailand and Vietnam have been doing over the last several years too, making FDIs stand up and take notice of them.

While the prime minister is taking the leadership role of doing the right things, the masses have to do things right. One cannot function effectively without the other — both have to be in sync with each other. Otherwise, Malaysia will become a dysfunctional nation, at odds with itself and isolated by the world. We cannot take baby steps as far as innovation is concerned — the time for small actions is over. Our survival depends on bold steps, executed swiftly with precision. As the Kiwis put it diplomatically — let’s stop mucking around, stop the charade and get the shears out. Enough is enough.

In all honesty, I think 2010 can be a good year. The economy is likely to show signs of bouncing back and I hope sanity will return to our embattled political parties, leaving us more time to focus on building Malaysia Version 2.0. We have to focus on three things in 2010 — implementation, execution and delivery. We have to stop talking and start doing. We know that this is our weakness, so let’s address this weakness and take decisive steps to overcome the problem.

Bring in foreign help if we have to, but understand that what has worked for them may not necessarily work for us. Learn and adapt methodologies and processes until they fit our own unique ecosystem. Self-criticise until we get it right. Stop being defensive and above all, don’t rationalise.

Datuk Dr Kamal Jit Singh is CEO of Global Innovation Research Centre which helps industry, government and academia face the hard truths about their innovation game plan. He is also a board member of the Multimedia Development Corp.

This article appeared in netv@lue2.0, the technology section of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 787 Dec 28 - Jan 10 2010