The relationship between productivity and social innovation means we can build a better future together, without the need to compromise the increase in living standards that comes from economic growth.

Productivity has long been viewed as the holy grail of economic growth. From the Industrial Revolution to the digital age, countries and companies have strived to produce more with fewer resources, boosting wealth and living standards in the process.

Yet, in recent years, a growing number of researchers, policymakers, and entrepreneurs have started to question the narrow focus and global obsession with economic growth.

There is a significant gain from increasing productivity – but the way we think about productivity is disconnected from the prevention of climate change and the improvement of living standards across the world.

So why not change the message and put the challenge of preventing global climate change and poverty at the forefront of the productivity challenge? A shared purpose and shared goal will help us pick up speed to win the race to zero carbon.

We work with innovative start-ups in the tech and AI sectors who often find it hard to create a company, product, and service narrative. Their inclination is to focus on what they see as the innovation – the technical detail - rather than what interests customers most.

You need to know your technology to instil confidence in the customer that your products work, and your service performance is great.

But creating a compelling narrative about your company, products and services is equally important when it comes to building relationships and winning business.

It's often the stories that people tell about what they do, and why, that matters most when it comes to customer, employee, and supplier engagement.

There is much misinformed hype about apocalyptic scenarios where Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more intelligent than humans. But rest assured, whilst we need to accept the fact that the development of new applications made possible by AI will be as disruptive as the industrial revolution, and may be exploited by bad actors, the models that underpin AI, including deep learning using neural networks, will never make machines more intelligent than humans.

It is simply not possible to take the step from what we know as AI today, to what we would describe as 'general artificial intelligence' - the human capacity for creativity, innovation and what is widely considered as just being "common sense".

Creating time to think is a key enabler of innovation. Organisations that create the time and environments for their people to think, and increase the quality of their collective team thinking, can foster a culture that increases innovation – as well as many other benefits.

We need to think differently about how we set businesses up to innovate. Our analysis of funding SME product development and research using the current traditional approach shows we need change - the return on investment is too small. But this can be addressed by investing in innovation enablers, which come at much lower cost.

These enablers focus on making innovation business-as-usual, creating a shared organisational purpose, collaborating to innovate, and creating market contagion - and can make the difference between success and failure.

Listen to our Railway Industry Association guests' thoughts on innovation, what it means, what the rail industry is telling them, and what they wished they knew about innovation 10 years ago.

The Railway Industry Association's Innovation Director, Milda Manomaityte, and Technical Director, David Clarke, joined us for a discussion on the topic of innovation in rail, along with the insights provided by Interimconsult's Making Innovation Happen framework and innovation consultancy experience.