In this column last week our appetite for nostalgia was discussed. Nostalgia has its place but it can be a source of stasis or inertia. This is not the time for either. Now is when we must be thinking like mavericks if we are to overcome the multitude of setbacks of the last two years.
Unfortunately, there is little evidence that we in TT, as citizens, have grasped the significance of what has happened and how the world has changed. I see a deep and discouraging desire for a fullscale return to old ways, which the discerning among us know to be past their sell by date. It is all around us - people trying to block others who they feel are stepping out of line by attempting to do things differently or are thinking in a challenging way about what is being done and why. We are surrounded by people who are so process driven that they lose sight of the objective. By process, I mean how it should be done because it has always been done in a particular way. They refute a result because someone moved a left foot instead of a right one first. They are oblivious to the fact that the same point was arrived at. They are ruled by rules which they glorify rather than see the reason for and follow because they are relevant to the circumstances.
It happens at all levels of authority. For example, the bored and autocratic customs officer at the airport who insists that, with no one ahead of you or behind you, you should still walk along an empty lane and up another empty one with your heavy suitcase when you could easily take a short cut. Or the man in the queue to renew drivers' permits who lambasted me for filling in the form while waiting in line, considering it correct to stand aside and then join the queue. You can scale that up a few notches to arrive at the levels of blockage that exist in business. Groupthink is dangerous and we must resist it because it steals our individual power and robs us of the ability to move ahead.
There is a lot of talk about innovation but few people understand that turning an idea into a reality is where innovation truly lies, not just in the idea itself. Most environments are not conducive to genuine innovation because they are driven by the status quo, and they do not actually welcome people who are innovative. I recently witnessed a case in which an employer preferred to rely upon the results of a psychometric test, which is only an indicator of potential, rather than upon the proven innovatory skills of an existing employee, when those precise skills were being sought for the advancement of the company.
Fortunately, some people really are engaged in innovation. Exciting developments are occurring in the cocoa industry, with private individuals taking calculated risks in adding value to our cocoa production by investing in chocolate making and chocolate products. A brand new chocolate cream liqueur, Tobago Gold, was recently launched here and is now on supermarket shelves, but it is also on the market in Mexico and South Africa and has several European dist
