Dialogue: Key to excellence lies in our uniqueness as Kiwis

MICHAEL SMYTHE* says prosperity hinges on business having the confidence and daring to move beyond 'me too' to 'I am.'

Much of the discussion about what is wrong with New Zealand asks why we are not more like other countries. Many of the solutions involve attracting overseas investment and multinational companies to establish new, export-focused businesses, which is an improvement on taking over our existing businesses and exporting the profits.

This strategy provides an important layer of job creation and capacity building, but there must be more.

Ireland is making Intel chips and Viagra for the global market, but it is also selling Irish beer, Irish music and unmistakably Irish movies.

They are drinking our Steinlager over there - while being very confused about its origin. Meanwhile, our wines are building a high-value reputation because they are no longer trying to me-too the European product.

Is Heinz simply relying on our low dollar to be competitive from Hawkes Bay under a multinational brand or is it selling extra value with clean, green New Zealand produce?

There are benefits in being a production resource for television shows such as Hercules and Xena. It's even better to be initiating world-leading productions such as Lord of the Rings.

What would it take for uniquely New Zealand stories to wow the world? What extra layers of economic, social and cultural well-being would be generated by such success?

In last Friday's Business Herald, Sir Gil Simpson, the chairman of next month's e-commerce summit, says: "If we want to succeed in the knowledge economy, we're going to have to have a society that tolerates difference, encourages difference, embraces difference and actively looks for success through difference."

This echoes the mantras of management guru Tom Peters, who says businesses must be distinct or extinct, and marketing leader Jack Trout, who warns us to differentiate or die.

These slogans trip easily off the tongue. Translating them into authentic, ongoing, self-reinforcing action is harder, especially when we consider Sir Gil's reasons for (reluctantly) agreeing with the Economist that New Zealand is not an innovative country.

Sir Gil says we are improvisers rather than innovators and that non-innovators make many of the biggest buying decisions - so he finds more acceptance for his Kiwi-created leading-edge products in Britain and the United States than he does in New Zealand.

We need a quantum shift in corporate culture. But culture cannot be applied from the outside. It is a manifestation of who we are and how we feel about ourselves. The who that we are is New Zealanders, not far-flung functionaries of multinational corporations.

We are falling far short of our potential to "unleash the creativity of our scientists, researchers, designers and innovators in the search for new products that we can sell to the world for good prices," as Helen Clark said in her 1999 election campaign opening speech.

Paradoxically, our potential lies in those traits that we have used as excuses for non-competitiveness:

Our small size, which makes us cohesive, fast to adapt to new technology and capable of building effective multidisciplinary teams.

Our isolation, which allows us to observe trends and opportunities in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa from a detached viewpoint.

Our commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi, which requires us to recognise that New Zealand is home for two cultures, Maori and Pakeha, making it necessary to define our differences and distinguish ourselves even at home.

This enhances what each culture has to offer to overseas consumers and visitors.

Our lack of a unique Pakeha tradition, which gives us the freedom, and the responsibility, to create our contemporary culture on a comparatively empty canvas.

Missing in the business community are the confidence, courage and clarity to stand tall and express ourselves as New Zealanders.

Recent Government initiatives are setting us on the right track. Bringing the arts in from the margins to feed our souls and infuse our spirit is essential to growth. Ensuring that our most powerful mass medium, television, has the capacity, and accepts the responsibility, to tell us our own stories is fundamental to finding ourselves in our globalised living rooms.

Self-expression begins at home. It forms the base for developing distinctive products and services that are valued by a world that has no interest in coming to the ends of the Earth for more of the same.

Design - the process of devising products, services, environments and visual communications that do not yet exist - has a major role in developing, presenting and promoting unique experiences that the world will value.

The dominant market forces model is no longer adequate to the task. It is time for design-led growth to supersede market-led growth.

Market-led growth is based on asking the market what it wants. It can only tell you what it already knows, so you end up giving it more of the same.

Design-led growth involves understanding where the market has been, where it is now and where it could grow next. This requires empathy, awareness and an original, creative response.

The key word is "led." There is no leadership if nobody is following, so I am not talking about esoteric elitists indulging themselves and bemoaning the philistines who don't appreciate them.

If New Zealand design is to play its part in generating economic, cultural and social growth, it needs a position of strength from which to contribute. There is much we can learn from overseas, but the unique entity that we create to deliver design leadership should be the best in the world.

I envisage a design resource unit providing information, expertise and coaching to those working at the frontline. The unit may be housed at Industry New Zealand, but it should have strong connections to Creative New Zealand, Tech New Zealand, Trade New Zealand, Tourism New Zealand and the Ministry of Maori Development, as well as relevant industry organisations and tertiary educators.

But, like all good designers, I remain open-minded while options are explored. The means by which a design leadership organisation is conceived and developed should be a model of design leadership.

* Michael Smythe is a partner of design consultancy Creationz Consultants.