“PLATFORM”;  is a bi-yearly empowerment program powered by Covenant Christian Church, Pastored by Pastor Poju Oyemade. As I listened to the CDs of the the last edition (PLATFORM 10.0) titled “CULTURAL INNOVATION” I noticed powerful LEVERAGE LESSONS that can be learnt from  the stories and teachings of all the speakers . So I decided to draw out those lessons using the PRINCIPLES OF LEVERAGE. So I will analyze the speeches one after the other in my next few posts and show you LEVERAGE LESSON you can learn and creatively adapt to your situation.  Remember; LEVERAGE (http://simeonspivot.com/blog/?p=1)  is about magnifying your limited effort so that you can achieve more than you can logically achieve or breaking the limitations around you with the knowledge of the Principles of Leverage)

Let me start with the teaching of the Convener, Pastor Poju.

The first LEVERAGE LESSON to be learnt from his teaching is taken from his definition of INNOVATION. He explained that to Innovate is to discover a successful model that is already working in other places and to simply make it fit into your environment and he specifically said many people don’t understand this.

In my words; the truth is you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, there are countless landmark, tested, trusted and proven inventions all over the world that will be of immense benefit here and bring about good business but they have not been imported into Nigeria; all you need to do is to import one.

A perfect example is INTERSWITCH, they simply copied the idea of using card to carry money around and the process of paying on-line, made it fit into our system and today we all enjoy the conveniences from this COPY-MIX-PASTE strategy, while they run a very successful company. This is simply INNOVATING through the Principle of Leverage, MAGNIFYING your LIMITED Effort by PIVOTING it on a ready-made FULCRUM which is the Tested and Proven Idea you are importing and then you will begin to achieve successes that you would never have been able to achieve logically or that would have taken you another decade to achieve. Nigeria needs more INNOVATION such as this. Irrespective of your industry you can follow this path and INNOVATE. Whether Agriculture, Engineering, Consulting, Banking, Catering, Plumbing, Mining, even Strategies.  If you say this is easy, the question then is how come  we travel so much, see numerous wonderful ideas that can change our country for the better and we cannot replicate it here, from infrastructure to technology to administration to politics……it’s obviously not a simple thing to do though a wise thing to do.

Click here to Read Part 2. Here I talk about the secret of some of the world’s most successful companies.