Asparagus, Tradition and Innovation

Spring is the asparagus season and I remember my grandfather in law bring them on the table directly from the countryside. So, over the weekend I was stopping in a couple of places of my grandfather in law’s small village asking who could sell me such a delicious vegetable. Every time I got the same answer “my father used to cultivate asparagus but since he died, I am not doing it anymore”. Wow!

I was start thinking about the recurrent answer I got.

My mind went back to a meeting I had with Chef Massimo Spigaroli, one Michelin star, in his restaurant Antica Corte Pallavicina. While speaking after the lunch he was firmly throwing on the table the concept that “there is no innovation without tradition”.

I was thinking about asparagus, tradition and innovation making a couple of steps back and trying to give a framework to help us facing the?Innovation?challenge.

Tradition, in a more ancestral dimension, certify the effort of the humanity to go beyond the status quo in order to look for improvements of the living condition. The “obsession for the horizon” was the driving force to move the prehistoric population to the use of the fire to keep their cave warm and to cook the food, to move from warriors to farmers, more recently to invest time and effort to develop new drugs and, moving closer to our time, to help people staying connected one with another even at thousands of miles of distance.

For me Tradition is all about human DNA to invest energy and brain ultimately to improve people living condition, both in small things (i.e., a washing machine, alternative proteins, etc.) as well as in big things (i.e., precision drug cancer therapy, space exploration, etc.). We, humans, are a machine programmed for improving what we have around us. With that, I think that?Innovation?is a capability which endemically resides inside our DNA. It is the critical thinking which is at the base of the human evolution. Understand the needs and translate them in a compelling solution is what was driving our ancestors to use the fire to warm their caves. So, tradition and innovation are the sides of the same coin.

But if such capability is inside our DNA why innovate is so difficult? We come back to our asparagus.

We have lost the willingness to nurture our innovation capabilities, which resides in our DNA, and with that we are slowly losing our competencies.

Why that?

First of all, we are living in a society which is making of the present time, “here and now”, the golden egg of the living time. “Here and now” is a form of egoism where the society is looking to the best of each member with an emphasis to a hyper short-term view. If we have a skewed hyper short-term view, how can we nurture our innate DNA capabilities to look for improving our lives? With a “here and now” view, every day is an entire life and every second day is another life.?

Second, we lost the curiosity. We live in difficult times where wars, natural disasters and speculative governments are shaping our lives and our society is developing more and more a passive behavior.

Innovation?agents?are the ones which are capable to move the organization into the space of curiosity and the willingness to do something for a better future value of the company, the employees, the society and the environment.?

Ultimately the?essence of Innovation?is targeting all?company’s shareholders?which is the concept at the base of our Tradition.