Governor Ambode challenges civil servants to embrace innovation 

The Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, yesterday challenged the Lagos State Public Service to embrace innovation as a potential solution to solving all problems in the system. Ambode spoke at a two-day training for civil servants on ‘Leading and managing through strategic planning and innovation,’ held in Ikeja.

The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke, stated that as governments strive to balance priorities, including the effective allocation of resources and meeting public expectations, it was becoming increasingly clear that new approaches were needed, such as innovative ways to make difficult things easy in the areas of service delivery, process improvement, regulation and policy implementation.

“The first strategy that the Lagos State Public Service may adopt for stimulating and sustaining innovativeness is the ‘Inside-out idea flows’ strategy. Outside-in idea flows have been well popularized and have become a common approach to access crowd-sourced or citizen-sourced ideas from outside the four walls of the organization.

“The less well-known counterpart to this is the notion of inside-out idea flows whereby unused or underutilized ideas are shared externally for others to explore and gain from. This is one area I believe has tremendous potential for government departments and agencies of the state,” Ambode explained.