Book review ‘Het Innovatieplatform’ – Frans Nauta

The book has only been released in Dutch, but there is not much imagination needed to understand that the title of it means ‘The Innovation Platform’.
This Innovation Platform (IP) is an actual platform consisting of businessmen, politicians and board members from higher education institutions, under the chairmanship of the then current Prime Minister Balkenende and writer of the book, Frans Nauta, as secretary. This platform still exists (see http://www.innovatieplatform.nl/), however Frans Nauta has quit his secretary function and unravelled the successes and failures of the IP in this book.

Setup of the book
The basis for the book has been Nauta’s personal dairy, which a friend / mentor of him told him to do since the day he was asked for this honourable job. As a result, the book is very personal and detailed into specific conversations the author has had.
The book gives an insight into the political gameplays and the bureaucracy where (most) governments are known for. Moreover, the book gives a quite humoristic (but realistic) picture about it and emphasises that the Dutch government wants (or does not want) to put on innovation.
After all of the 24 chapters Nauta gives some lessons, bonus tips and survival tips which can be taken into account in generally all business environments.

Story in short
In August 2003, via a telephone call from Prime Minister Balkenende, Nauta becomes secretary of the Innovation Platform, a very honourable function for him, since he has been striving for The Netherlands to focus on innovation of the knowledge economy with his own institution ‘Nederland Kennisland’ (since 1999). Nauta regards Finland as a school model example of what to establish with the IP.
As from his own research, Finland’s success as innovative country is no co-incidence. In 1985 the Science and Technology Policy Council was established to deal with the problem of huge resignations due to automation and the moving of work to cheap-labour countries. At that time it was already clear that current jobs could be preserved, but only for a short due. The Finnish sought after an offensive strategy: Finland as a country with ideal circumstances for start-ups of knowledge based industries. The government started to invest in more high employed people, more researchers in technical educations, a more international oriented culture and a population that speaks English well. Furthermore they saw how Stanford University (in the U.S.) was cooperating with businesses and copied this model to establish ‘research parks’ close to universities. Furthermore Finland was educated by bankers from Stanford what ‘venture capital’ was and the Finnish applied this. All this became the corner stone of the success of Finland’s current strong economy.
Nauta knew that this result could be copied to The Netherlands, but only by a consistent strategy (which took Finland nearly 25 years).
At 22 August 2003 the IP was presented to the public, consisting of 18 members of which businessmen, people from higher education institutions and politicians. However, in this large group it was hard to decide what the shared goal was, even more so because there was a political game going on to use the IP for allocating the EUR 140 million for innovative projects.
This struggle became even more a clash of interests when higher education institutions also battled for the government money, and there were a few of the board members of those institutions in the IP. Also from the media there was much negative news on the IP, which was now forced to start producing something. A list with practical annoyances that needed to be resolved was there quickly, however, also this attempt was held back by bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, the outside world got tips that the IP had to spend up to EUR 800 million on innovation, which was not true. The IP only was there to make plans for the cabinet, and could not give fiats to certain projects. Nevertheless they were threatened as if they had.

After several attempts (for instance: working on key markets to invest in) the IP agreed to see ‘relationships’ as the key: relationships with businesses and higher education. Having them literally close together (via the Silicon Valley model) would have a synergetic effect and attract even more venture capital. It would also encourage entrepreneurship of students at higher educations. The main indicators to deal with as IP were;
- Quality of education
- Education rate of the population
- Quality of research in The Netherlands
- Investments of companies in R&D
- Foreign students and knowledge workers
- Start-ups coming from higher education students
- Market share of Dutch companies in growing markets
- Return-on-investment of companies from new products and services
Finally in 2006 (after Nauta already left the IP) this so-called Knowledge Investment Agenda (‘Kennisinvesteringsagenda’) was signed by 21 parties, which was basically a money claim for the new cabinet.
Nauta reflects on his secretary function (August 2003 till December 2004) as no fun, but docile. Let’s say a ‘failed practice’ in stead of a ‘best practice’. After this he was a regular member of the IP for one more year, but the illusion that he would change The Netherlands and its economic power with this did not come to life. However this is not specifically a problem of the government: whether it be The Hague or a large company: change perish in the centre of the power. Sometimes it works, but more often it will not, because it is so busy in this centre. The IP could not be successful then, but at the same time minister Hoogervorst got an important change of the Dutch care system through the cabinet (for the first time in 20 years). Needed is a sense of urgency (to speak with Kotter), plus a bit of luck. For real change you seldom need to be in the centre of the power.

The lessons and tips
Hereunder is a selection of he lessons and tips that Nauta gives in relation to the content of the book. I made a selection of what I find useful (for instance in situations in my application company):

Lessons
1. Do it or don’t do it at all: both the employer and employee need to be dedicated.
2. Listen! By making and feeling yourself responsible for everything, life becomes lonely. ‘The power to say no’ is a popular form of power in The Hague; you can only practise this if you listen.
3. Intuition does not lie & ego is a bad adviser.
4. Set the mood at the beginning, otherwise others will do that for you (and put emphasis on their own priorities).
5. They are just people. CEO’s and prime ministers behave like people: so also the good and bad human aspects.
6. Negotiate at the gate. If you are too much impressed at the start, you may be not assertive enough, however this is a crucial moment.
7. Inspire and motivate your people: give them responsibilities and inspiring projects.
8. Taking a decision is not the same as executing. Involve an executer in the decision-making process; this will make things go faster.
9. If there are no key players in your project, it will fail.
10. Find your true ally and your real blockade.
11. Without a shared vision, people will put their own priorities and statements first.
12. Tell them! Important business people and politicians are flooded by information. They will not read your reports (etc.), so tell them what they need to know in a short presentation.
13. Confront the brutal facts. If someone has the courage to name hard facts, support him/her.

Bonus tips
1. Do not plan your jobs strategically; do a start-up of what you are passionate to do and the work will find you.
2. Play a lot of table tennis: informal contacts are the best ways to get to know the atmosphere best.
3. Honestly relaxed? The best way to find out if it is fake of true friendliness is to check whether you are relaxed yourself. Is you breathing deep and calm?

Survival tips
1. The rule of speed: in essence if there are two parties if you are in a hurry and the other is not, he will make you struggle and negotiate hard. Speed is only effective if the other party is also in a hurry: doing business together is running smooth.
2. Arrange a working space close to your client: business is done in between two meetings.
3. Be politely brutal: on a way which could be between the rules of the company / law / etc.
4. Do not be a shepherd of cats: whatever you do it is not possible to arrange them in a herd.
5. Get a mentor or someone who helps you reflect on yourself. Especially on important moments: a talk of two minutes is enough.
6. Limit your accessibility: read your e-mail twice a day, answer your phone two hours a day. It will make you more productive.
7. Bring painful news on a Friday afternoon before the holidays: just a few people will notice it.
8. Keep a dairy!

About the author
Since 2007 Frans Nauta has a professorship (lectoraat) in ‘Innovation in the Public Sector’ at the HAN University. This particular sector has been on the background in research to innovation; this professorship aims to put ‘best practices’ covered. More information: http://www.han.nl/start/graduate-school/onderzoek/lectoraten-kenniskringen/innovatie/ and http://www.lectoraatinnovatie.nl/

Connection to my Application Company / Imagineering
However the book is just an actual reading book and no economic textbook with models and new ideas, it offers quite some information and tips on the topic of change management and leadership. All this in a quickly readable form and with the knowledge that all content has happened in ‘the real world’. Several rules of ‘Leading Change’ by Kotter (1995) and ‘Speed’ by Meyer (2009) get woven into the text (without literally referring to these authors).
To me ‘imagineering’ is about transforming (whether it be people, company structures or value systems) and a lot of this comes back in the lessons and tips in this book, like: having a shared vision, knowing when to take the lead, etcetera.
The author is connected to my application company (HAN University) and a highly respected professor. His interests for the public good and national politics are easy to catch and it is a boost for my research which partly deals with his matter of expertise: innovation in the public domain.

Details
Frans Nauta, 2008, Het Innovatieplatform, 204 p., ISBN 9879052616957, Sdu Uitgevers BV, Den Haag, Creative Commons licentie.

I hope some of the lessons and tips that I conducted from the book are useful to you.

Best regards,
Bram van Boekholt