Singapore has a long and fond association with Britain, from its birth under the eye of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 to its ill-fated wartime fight with the Japanese and beyond - but since gaining independence in 1965 the little city-state seemed to have left its colonial days far behind.

Wealthy, fastidiously clean, the pavements beneath its skyscrapers famously free of chewing gum, Singapore has become one of the world's great economic successes, one of the four Asian Tigers, in no need of any lessons or help from its former masters in London.

Yet Singapore is in the process of reinventing itself as an innovation hub, experimenting with some creative management thinking, and a Briton is leading the way.

Lynda Gratton is an academic who teaches at the London Business School (LBS). She is a successful businesswoman, public speaker and author, who this week publishes her first self-help book: Glow: How you can radiate energy, innovation and success.

The book is not as whimsical as it sounds; it is a spin-off from Professor Gratton's academic work on organisational innovation, which culminated in the book Hot Spots and an online community The Hot Spots Movement. “Glow is very, very solid and that's, in a sense, how I could justify writing something like this. It is solid scholarship, but I have tried to make it more accessible.”

People who glow with energy and innovation have mastered three things, according to Professor Gratton's latest book: they have built “deeply trusting and co-operative relationships with others”; they have extended their networks beyond the obvious; and “they are on an inner quest that ignites their own energy and that of others”.

The book suggests actions to achieve this, from learning the art of conversation to inspiring others, all of which come from the professor's research and experience.

“Glow is a natural progression from Hot Spots. This is quite an unusual crossover, really, for a business professor and when I started writing it I thought: ‘I've got to be a little careful because I'm not a personal development person I'm a business professor.'”

But her roles as a business professor and self-help writer are about to come together professionally because she has agreed to run a Glow programme for students at LBS.

Professor Gratton started to investigate innovation in the workplace ten years ago, when she was awarded a £1million government grant via the Advanced Institute for Management.

But in some ways that seems a long time ago: “All the work we are doing on hot spots right now is outside of the UK, it is really worrying. What is really frustrating for me is that the UK put £1million into my research but actually the people who are gaining most from it right now are the Singaporeans.

“The reason that Singapore picked this up is that for developed economies like ours you've got to learn how to do things differently. If all we do is the same thing over and over again, then someone in Kajikstan can do that, you don't need to be paid our salaries. In a global economy where things are connected, just doing longer hours isn't actually going to get you anywhere because there is always somebody who will spend even longer hours on it. What you have to do is to learn how to be innovative and creative and inspired and that takes a different mindset than simply putting your head down.”

She says that the Singaporean Government has realised that setting rules does not encourage innovation and so it is paying for trials of her techniques in 30 local organisations, from large multinational corporations to government departments, and is drawing up plans for an innovation city, including a Hot Spots institute.

“They are focusing on becoming the innovation hub of Asia. They ... believe that innovation has to be their next big source of competitive advantage - as it has to be in the UK.”

Britons are not as willing to pilot new management techniques, she says - our managers want proof that it works first. That proof might be about to come, with Professor Gratton planning to publish the results of trials of her techniques by 130 teams worldwide, including those in Singapore.

“We had a significant impact on the performance of those teams,” she says.

“I haven't made any money, I'm not a millionaire, in fact I've put quite a lot of my own money into it. Most of the stuff I do is free. I make my money from public speaking, not books or websites. We had some really interesting, innovative ideas about how management should take place, but there was no mechanism to fund that because management schools don't have venture capitalists. So I actually had to fund that myself.”

The time might be right for British workers to consider what Professor Gratton has to offer, even if their countries or companies are not involved in trials.

“I think people really want to move on now. I think they want to engage with work again ... job losses are definitely happening, but there is not much an individual can do about that. But there are things that you can do ... which will significantly make a difference to how you are at work both in terms of your happiness and indeed in terms of your productivity and particularly innovation.”

Equally compelling is the argument that if we don't take the time to work smarter and be more innovative then someone else in the global economy will - probably in Singapore.

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