An abbreviated version of a speech delivered by Sir Angus Tait at a conference in Christchurch.

Not succeeding at first implies failure but subsequently success. I experienced that sequence and can tell you about it.

It is not uncommon for failure, even multiple failures, to precede success.

First up, failure is a very basic human behavioural trait - a bit like breathing. We all fail in some way every day. Most failures are not very consequential, but when consequential, like health or personal circumstances, the social structure is very supportive from friends through to Nanny State.

How very different it is if you fail financially in business. No one wants to know you!

People around, instead of closing in supportively tend to be mysteriously repelled and move away. Maybe it's contagious?

In 1967, after 15 years of effort I went bust - or more exactly my company was placed in Receivership by the bank. They wanted the money back.

The world became a very bleak place. Within my small circle of friends no one rang or indicated concern and in subsequent social occasions the topic was never raised. A plague upon my house!

I had plenty of other things to worry me, so wasn't too concerned but have noted over the years the bad odour around failure in such circumstances. The malice of the rumour mill that feeds upon other peoples difficulties.

Why is this so? I suggest it is part of the so-called tall poppy thing. You have climbed above your station and now fallen down - Ha ha. It's a sign of our immaturity as a people.

I further suggest that this tall poppy thing is part of the baggage that our pioneers brought with them. They fled a rigid class system and determined that Jack was as good as his master. So don't step out of line.

We cling dearly to our flat egalitarian structure but at what cost? More of this later.

So the boom has been lowered. A stranger comes in, the banking man, and he politely sidelines you and prepares your life's work for the auction block. What to do? Options are limited. There is a strong urge to run away and hide. The reality is you have to eat. So you go with the flow and live with the sick gut feeling.

So what went wrong? Very simple in hindsight. I had believed fervently that the technology was King; get that right and all else would fall in place. The bank, unwisely, bought this line for some turbulent years but inevitably pulled the plug.

I worked for the Receiver for a year as he plucked the feathers one by one. I learned to like the guy and in that 12 months I got my head more or less straight. I got a polite memo from him one morning. He had got the bank's money back and gave me seven days notice. The final cut.

So what to do? It was no surprise and the next step was clear in my mind. I still had the technology, and twelve good men and true to help me push the boat out again. I had learned about money in the 12 months and so around my 50th birthday I put a second mortgage on my house. That gave us enough thrust to get under way again, together with a small overdraft. From the same banker!

So what had I learned? First: the money doesn't look after itself. Get a minder.

Second: listen to other opinions. Keep your cool. The Receiver became a good friend and a source of helpful advice.

So the boat was under way and we had some lucky breaks. An accountant was on board and we were generating cash for him to look after.

Life was not easy and there was the not small issue of unpaid creditors from the failed company; myself included. You need the good will of suppliers but if your last venture still owes them there's not much good will. Probably cash only.

Not least is the ethical dimension - you owe these guys. You have no legal obligation but it is not a good feeling.

My friendly ex-receiver pointed out a provision in the tax law for subvention payment of previous creditors from pre-tax profits. All were paid, and it was a most satisfying transaction.

So, we were securely under way. The innovative juices were flowing. The products were just what the market needed. We couldn't make enough. We were building a substantial business.

The difference this time? The recognition that a business is a fine melding of various skills. The technology is only the entry point and is not enough alone. One very simple lesson: if you only know, or want to know, one facet of the operation, employ someone who does know the rest.

So thirty-plus years down the track what have we got? Two answers, first in terms of my own business: a design, manufacturing and distribution company in the field of mobile communications that employs 850 people, exports 90% of product into well over 80 countries. We are struggling to break the $200m per annum sales barrier.

The second answer, the wider picture: a substantial electronics industry has grown up here in Christchurch over that period with many roots going back to the work of this twelve good men and true in 1969.

The total size of the industry has never been measured and is topic of current discussion - we need to know. Last year a survey was made of the six major firms and gave the following figures: over 2000 people employed and total sales around $450m.

Of parallel significance is the growth of the subcontracting/supply industry which services the core industry. It's very difficult to establish its size but the same survey states that three jobs are created in this infrastructure for every electronics job.

Porter would smile at this cluster but in reality it grew naturally not pre-ordained.

I've said very little about innovation - the very word around which we are gathered.

The short response is that what I-ve described in last 20 minutes is of course innovation at work.

The cry is we need more of it! But with so much written and spoken about it in last 12-18 months there seems little to add for we're surely in information overload on the subject.

Let me take you back to the earlier reference to this tall poppy thing.

In the avalanche of words on the subject, a cry that is heard frequently: we are an innovative people, so what's wrong?

We were born of very innovative stock. When the first settlers walked over the hill from Lyttelton they had not much more than they could carry. They had to innovate to survive and grow. We have their genes.

They laid the foundation for our egalitarian society - that secure structure that prefers the flat line of ordinariness and no jaggy peaks of achievement please.

New Zealand's urgent economic need is for lots of jagged peaks of achievement. It's a bit simplistic to suggest this incongruity is the nub of our problem - but it encloses more than a grain of truth. We have a cultural inhibition that we must somehow overcome if we are to achieve our full potential.

Cultural changes don't come fast or easily. You start with the kids at school but before that you have to persuade the educators. No small task, nor quick. That is only one piece of the jigsaw of our economy but it may well be the key piece.

All other pieces have been catalogued at great length over the last 18 months. No need to restate them now. Sufficient to say, if we don't get it right after all the effort over that period, then we never will.

In the warm glow of a 5pm gin I sometimes dwell on the high spots over the thirty-plus years. Muldoon's export incentives - very un-PC now - but we took them with both hands and founded our overseas networks.

A few years later a loan from the DFC, the lender of last resort, made possible a whole new catalogue of products. A few more years on and Exgo (State Insurance) agreed to honour our own invoices to put stock on the shelves of our first subsidiary company.

Then the turbulent years after '84, the walls came down, the world flowed in. We spent up large to meet International standards. Some nervous Auckland bankers paid us a visit.

After enduring 15 years of 'neither help nor hinder' governments, the current political environment is more supportive than it-s ever been in recent history.

So what have we learned in the 50 or so years of my working life? For my part I consider it my good fortune to have lived and worked through this period of our country's development.

Future historians may well look back and note that the first decade of the new millennium recorded a perceptible shift away from dependence on primary production into more widely diverse and sophisticated activity along with a measurable rise in our economic well being.