The Ideas Man

Russell Howcroft has been fighting for ideas all of his adult life, and he’s got the scars to prove it. During the two decades in the advertising industry, ideas were his secret weapon in the battle for the hearts and minds of clients and consumers. And today, as executive general manager of Australia’s Network Ten television, Howcroft is entrenched in a TV ratings war that will be won or lost on the strength of ideas. So it is little surprise that, in his new book about ideas, Howcroft pulls no punches. “Don’t believe your own BS”, “Sell is not a four letter word” and “Your boss can often be a d***” are just a few tip contained within. The book, he says, was partly born out of exasperation.

“In the past ten years or so, as I got to the pointier end of business, [I felt] more and more frustration around how difficult it was to get people enthusiastic about ideas.

I think we use the word ‘no’ far too quickly, far too readily. The ‘no’ word is a really powerful word, because that just means stop. ‘No I’m not going to do that’ is the end of it.”

An economy of ideas

The danger for nations like Australia is that if ideas and innovation are stifled then productivity suffers too. Productivity measures efficiency in the use of resources – and efficiency is what drives economic growth. Reports from the Australian government’s Productivity Commission have shown a gradual decline in productivity over the past decade. And last year The Economist’s productivity growth ranking placed Australia second-to-last out of 51 countries, just ahead of Botswana.

Howcroft says Australia has a lot to learn from the US, the UK and New Zealand.

“If we go over to the US, they celebrate innovation and they celebrate ideas, and they are great at building businesses off the back of them. They commercialise ideas fantastically well.

“You go to Britain and they are equally brilliant at it. They just love talking about ideas as well. They love debating, they love conversation, and they love pushing and prodding and trying to find which idea on the table is the better idea.”

So what can Australian business and government do to emulate these other nations and foster a culture of innovation?

“I think leadership around this is important,” says Howcroft.

“We have a Minister for Innovation now [Christopher Pyne MP], I think that matters a lot. And giving people a sense of what the future might look like does encourage change.”

 

‘The ideas man’ Acuity (December 2015): 50. Print