Innovation Blog

Religion, Meaning and Innovation: The God Factor

By Shlomo Maital

   “Make meaning, not money,” says Guy Kawasaki, former Apple and garage.com guru and an entrepreneurial educator.  What he means is this:  Find people with unmet needs, find an innovative way to satisfy those needs, create meaning for your life and your work – and chances are, you will make money.  If you focus solely on making money, without making meaning – chances are, says Kawasaki, you will fail.  Ever heard of Lehman Brothers?

    Now comes interesting evidence that religion can play a role in innovation.  A cover article in APA Monitor by Beth Azar * reviews evidence that believing in God can strongly contribute to ‘making meaning’, by making us more caring toward others.  She cites a study from Science (vol. 327, March), by Joseph Henrich, who found that across 15 diverse societies, people who participated in a world religion were more fair toward strangers (when playing economic games) than those who were not religious. 

   In other words, belief in God, whether or not in the framework of an organized religion, can help us focus on helping others, which in turn is crucial to successful innovation.  Contrary to the often-quoted passage from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (about how selfishness drives behavior),  it is this quality of empathy, sensitivity to others, that drives innovation and entrepreneurial success. 

   This principle is not always true. There are world religions that foster hatred to those who are not co-religionists.   Check it out – those religions that build on hate have zero entrepreneurship or innovative activity. 

    Azar cites studies showing that one key purpose of religion is to allow people to live in large cooperative societies – in other words, to get along well with others.  “Religion is one of the big ways that human societies have hit on as a solution to induce unrelated individuals to be nice to one other,” notes researcher Ara Norenzayan.  And a great way to be nice to others is to find innovative ways to meet their often-unspoken needs.   As our planet becomes increasingly crowded, and as we compete with increasing ferocity for scarce resources (fossil fuels, water), this aspect of religion will become increasingly important.

   It is often assumed that great innovations come from science and engineering, and that scientists and engineers tend to be agnostics or non-believers, since rational science contradicts the tenets of faith.  I think this is simply not true.  Many great scientists are deeply religious.  And even those innovators who eschew organized religion are in my view religious, because in battling stiff odds with heroic persistence to develop new ideas, they seek to help others in meaningful ways – in other words, to chance the world for the better, which is the ultimate goal of those who believe in a Divine Presence. 

  • Beth Azar, “A Reason to Believe”, APA Monitor, December 2010.