In the words of George Eliot, "There is no creature whose inner being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside of it." The central premise of the essay's thesis is that individuals need to be at peace and in harmony with their environment, particularly the people around them. Proceeding along this line of thought, most people choose not to speak up and speak out because there is simply no environment encouraging such behavior. This is not just a matter of having a supportive system in place, but rather something that is fundamental not only to the individual's basic well-being, but also to, that which is more relevant to the topic, the way the individual responds to any given situation.
For this reason, the essay rejects the simple provision of incentives, but rather favors a complete upheaval in people's mentality. It recommends that people be shown and persuaded, through real-life examples, that speaking up can be beneficial to and desirable for everyone, regardless of the quality of what is said, and regardless of the time-frame. This way, people will change their mind-set and let go of their fear, which inhibits them from speaking up. Thence, once the root problem is tackled, innovative solutions will naturally be sparked off as well.
[...] What we want essentially is to move to a cooperative and collaborative mind-set Han, p St. Gallen Symposium Student Essay Competition: Cluster A - Putting incentives right Henry Ford said that a business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. His core message here was the importance of adding value for other people in what one does. Proceeding along this trajectory of thought, people must be made to understand that speaking up can benefit everyone, if the collective will wants it to. [...]
[...] Gallen Symposium Student Essay Competition: Cluster A - Putting incentives right Bibliography Co.Design. 3M Gave Everyone Days Off and Created an Innovation Dynamo.” http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663137/how-3m-gave-everyone-days-off-and-created-aninnovation-dynamo Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez, and Sumiko Tan. Lee Kuan Yew: The Man and His Ideas. Singapore: Times Edition, First edition, Straits Times Press Levy, Steven. In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. New York: First edition, Simon & Schuster Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Boston: Second edition, Ticknor and Fields Youtube. [...]
[...] Furthermore, the last three decades have seen a variety of key software innovations, like the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the Netscape web browser, and Google Search—yet none of these came about because of the patent incentive. This suggests that we might do better by looking elsewhere for answers. The question then remains in the air: what then must we do? I believe that what is needed is a new way of seeing things. The tale of the emperor's new clothes, fortunately, did not end with the father admonishing his child. The people around caught on, and saw things the way the child did. [...]
[...] Today, most of us are like the people in the story: we accept conformity over conspicuity, convention over innovation, mediocrity over excellence. What then must we do to change this? It is easy to say that we can increase the behaviour we want by rewarding it. However, I am sceptical of this method because I do not believe that the world is a bell jar where we can always yield a desired result directly based on a given input. Human behaviour is more complex than such a linear equation. [...]
[...] In fact, during a talk at Stanford University, Marissa Mayer said that “Fifty percent of what Google launched in the second half of 2005 actually got built out of 20 percent time.”5 But Google is not the first company to have instituted such a programme, and reaped its rewards. Hewlett-Packard Labs also had one; and thanks to its 15 percent time scheme, 3M, the original pioneer, saw the invention of what may today be considered its most recognised product—the Post-it note! [...]
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