I was working in Porto and was surprised that the participants in my Innovation Masterclass, all Portuguese, were so convinced that they and their compatriots were not really innovative. I reminded them of the proud Portuguese history of discovery, but they were not convinced.
Perhaps they had not read the short story by their own novelist, José Saramago, “The Story of the Unknown Island”. It opens: "A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat..."
Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
The story is in the form of a fable and covers so many of the critical issues in creativity and innovation in a hierarchical society – powerful bosses, having clarity of vision or destination, managing doubts, the value of persistence, and courage, paying attention to one’s dreams, breaking away from current wisdom, finding partners with complementary attitudes and skills, realising that we already have the answer within. And much else besides.
I picked it up at the suggestion of my friend, the composer and trombone-maestro, Simon Wills.
Do read it! And let me know what it says to you.
http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Island-Jose-Saramago/dp/0151005958
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