Ree-inwenting the Turkish Vheel

I have been giving some thinking to the innovation culture in general and how it is positioned in the Turkish culture.

In a company, there are several reasons why innovation is needed in strategic management. To me personally however, the psychology behind the need of innovation has three aspects;

1- My admittedly obsessive and possibly troubled way of thinking - if the majority seems to agree on something, there has to be something very wrong about it.



2- A sense of aggressively radical resistance against the perceived suppression of fear. In other words, if I come to feel my being is seriously limited by a sense of fear, my immediate reaction is to act against the will of that fear - sometimes in a very radical way. Innovation generally comes together with a sense of risk and fear of unknown. So, in a situation when it comes to decide in favor of an innovative action that I believe in, I tend to become a radical.

3- The great sense of satisfaction that would come from creation of new things.

As mentioned in our company innovation plays a great role. I feel very fortunate that both of my business partners share the same kind of vision about the business where we place the innovation and differentiation strategies in a very central position when taking tactical decisions. I feel very fortunate because in Turkey to find two innovative professionals in your whole business network is difficult enough let alone to be so much aligned with them to set up a company together.

Unfortunately as it is, innovation as a concept is not very much valued in the traditional Turkish society. Even though things have been changing rapidly where an innovative culture seems to flourish at a great pace in new generations, even in my generation innovation can be seen almost as an act of naivety or stupidity, something definitely not needed, something hippie until of course you show people the money you make through it. As money is perceived to be the only universal sign for success.

There are lots of proverbs or sayings suggesting this sentiment. "Eski köye yeni adet getirmek" for example literally meaning "Bringing new traditions to old village" is a saying generally used ruthlessly to criticize progressive ideas. No wonder that the national program that targets fostering innovation culture is named "Bring new traditions to old village!"






"If you think I'm driving wrongly, just ring me and hang up. I'll be calling back."







Another sad example is the word "yaramaz". When a child is being naughty, we call them "yaramaz" literally meaning "useless". Can you imagine how suppressive can that be? The act of naughtiness is usually coupled with a sense of innovation mixed with some creativity and the culture stamps this act as "useless". Well, I know about this as I had to cope with this word all through my childhood. One who could see my parents' faces after parents days at schools could easily tell I was quite a pain in school administrations' asses. I still enjoy being naughty for very much the same three reasons I have listed above.


Come to think of it, one witnessing life in Turkey would very much surprised if someone told them that Turks are not in peace with innovation or creativity. Because one of the key aspects you would be able to observe in life in Turkey - and in Turks in general - is our fierce practicality and pragmatism.


We are practical animals. Function is important but not the way it is in the Scandinavian design for example - function is achieved somehow with the givens not through minimalist creation. Rather, aspects already there are brought together - possibly ignoring or breaking some rules - to achieve a function. Aesthetics, permanency, perfectionism (hell no!) is not important. This is why yu come acros tousands of typos in signs in Engilish wenin turkey.


To explain the philosophy better, another example would be to mention how the civil engineering
discipline is called in Turkey; "Insaat Mühendisligi" - "Engineering of Building". Civilization versus the building. This is what the classical Turkish thought is all about.

In Turkish society, artfulness in daily life is hailed and to be artful is accepted as the common norm to the degree that sometimes complying with rules is seen as stupidity.

The Turkish cunning behavior generally drives the humorous innovation in daily life and appears at the point where there is some saving in the amount of labor or more rarely in the total cost or the time to spend. An example would be the basket-grocery culture in cities. Especially if you live at one of those streets lined with apartment blocks on both side, it is the norm to call the grocery shop by shouting his name from your window, as soon as the grocery man appears in front his shop, tell him what you need and dangle a basket down to street level for him to put your groceries in and take the money from.

As said, emphasis is always on saving through cunning behavior. But this shouldn't make you think that we like to save as the Japanese people do for example. Hell no - we are big spenders. I think we have been carrying this sense of saving from deep problematic history where tomorrow was always a big unknown.

Today, this sense of saving is merely a competition object for people to play around where results of cunning behavior is compared with other results in a childish sense of competition. Men would compete on how smart they are showing how many rules they broke that day to save on a few meters of extra drive or a few extra Liras.

The classical Turkish innovation versus a product of the new Turkish design that is flourishing at great pace - a boat design which collected many of the major innovation design awards globally last year.

However when you talk about "real" innovation, we are not talking about daily shit anymore, we are talking about the betterment of the future at the cost of "blood and tears". Even if there is a saving in the end, to get there requires long, patient work in an ambiguous environment. We are talking about taking risks. In the case of Turkish society, we even are talking about risking your image in the society because of the fact that even if you messed up everything through traditional methods - they would call you unlucky, but if you would lose it all by trying new things, they would call you stupid.

The whole picture is simply difficult - if not impossible - to accept for us.


This brings us to the general problem of lack of anticipation in the Turks. This phenomenon is much easier to observe when it comes to (not) anticipating even probable catastrophes in near future. The great Istanbul earthquake waiting to happen in probably less than 10 years is a good showcase for example where very little is done in preparation. Or a family continuing to live in the same ruinous apartment despite the repeated warnings and when something bad happens crying loudly in protest of god is also a very Turkish behavior.

I guess this is related to the nomadic past somehow. You see - in the big picture, when you are permanent somewhere, the trouble comes to you. You are the victim who needs to take precautions - to be proactive. The nomad is the trouble itself. The decisions are reactive, immediate and temporary. For the nomad, two steps ahead isn't something to think about. So it is not easy for us to work for the not yet seen catastrophe and as most of the catastrophes arrive without prior set appointments, well...

But in the context of innovation, this lack of anticipation affects more in the gain area; we are very reluctant to work for probable gains which are not seen clearly yet as well.

As I'm writing these I come to realize a strange double facedness in things (but then again if the matter is Turkey and Turks, I would be deeply shocked if things would easily sit on a thought template) :

Turks are extremely good when dealing with ambiguity in their daily lives. But when it comes to the future - even tomorrow - their tactics shift from dealing with ambiguity with reason to a strange fatalism, to an emphasis of temporariness of everything. On the other hand, when it comes to risking, we take risks when dealing with daily problems but when it comes to invest for the future, we suddenly become extremely risk averse when deciding on critical actions.

What makes it even more bizarre is we are perfectly aware of our flaws and contradictions but we love them. We love to make fun of ourselves where we call the Turkish stereotype "yurdum insani" - "human of my country".

Probably thanks to these bizarre national characteristics, there is a very much developed humor culture which created some of the best selling humor magazines in the world. Movies that makes fun of this Turkish stereo type like "Recep Ivedik" gathers millions and millions of people to movie theaters to share one common sentiment. A sentiment which wouldn't be understandable for a foreigner at first sight.

She might not be very helpful when it comes to be innovative but I love this country. I love its strange people. I love the strange sense of humor exemplified by this man here carrying a placard saying "To do a protest, I'm looking for individuals to recruit".

I love this identity which is about the sense of independence, a fierce stubbornness, almost an anarchist rebelliousness.