What is Creativity? (And why is it a crucial factor for business success?
Defining Creativity and Innovation
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterised by the
ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between
seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking,
then producing.
If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our ‘inner’ pool of resources – knowledge,
insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds – that we’ve accumulated
over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in
extraordinary new ways.” — Maria Popova, Brainpickings
“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and
commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The
experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” – Rollo May, The Courage to Create
Is this possible in business? I believe so, but you have to be willing to take risks and progress through
discomfort to get to the finish line.
“A product is creative when it is (a) novel and (b) appropriate. A novel product is original not
predictable. The bigger the concept, and the more the product stimulates further work and ideas, the
more the product is creative.”
—Sternberg & Lubart, Defying the Crowd
What is Innovation?
Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product, service or process that
creates value for business, government or society.
Some people say creativity has nothing to do with innovation— that innovation is a discipline, implying
that creativity is not. Well, I disagree. Creativity is also a discipline and a crucial part of the innovation
equation. There is no innovation without creativity. The key metric in both creativity and innovation is
value creation.
Creativity and Economic Development:
We are living in the age of creativity. Daniel Pink in his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers
Will Rule the Future (2006) defines Economic Development as:
1. Agriculture Age (farmers)
2. Industrial Age (factory workers)
3. Information Age (knowledge workers)
4. Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)
Pink argues that left-brain linear, analytical computer-like thinking is being replaced by right-brain
empathy, inventiveness, and understanding as skills most needed by business. In other words, creativity
gives you a competitive advantage by adding value to your service or product and differentiating your
business from the competition.
As Sam Palmisano said when he was CEO of IBM (2004), “Either you innovate or you’re in commodity
hell. If you do what everybody else does, you have a low-margin business. That’s not where we want to
be.” (1)
In 2012 IBM started reinventing itself to become a design company, investing $100 million USD to hire
designers, and educate 100,000 employees to become design thinkers. (2) IBM helped expand design
thinking at the organization over three years to penetrate one quarter of the entire portfolio, enabling
$18.6M in increased profits.(3)
Creativity is the Most Crucial Factor for Future Success
IBM’s 2010 Global CEO Study (4)stated:
The effects of rising complexity calls for CEOs and their teams to lead with bold creativity, connect with
customers in imaginative ways and design their operations for speed and flexibility to position their
organizations for twenty-first century success.
The Creativity Gap
A 2012 Adobe study on creativity shows 8 in 10 people feel that unlocking creativity is critical to
economic growth and nearly two-thirds of respondents feel creativity is valuable to society, yet a striking
minority – only 1 in 4 people – believe they are living up to their own creative potential.
Can creativity be learned?
The short answer is yes. A study by George Land reveals that we are naturally creative and as we grow
up we learn to be uncreative. Creativity is a skill that can be developed and a process that can be
managed.
Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering a way of thinking.
You can learn to be creative by experimenting, exploring, questioning assumptions, using imagination
and synthesing information. Learning to be creative is akin to learning a sport. It requires practice to
develop the right muscles and a supportive environment in which to flourish.
Studies by Clayton M. Christensen and his researchers uncovered The Innovators DNA: Your ability to
generate innovative ideas is not merely a function of the mind, but also a function of five key behaviours
that optimize your brain for discovery:
Associating: drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated fields
Questioning: posing queries that challenge common wisdom
Observing: scrutinizing the behavior of customers, suppliers, and competitors to identify new ways of
doing things
Networking: meeting people with different ideas and perspectives
Experimenting: constructing interactive experiences and provoking unorthodox responses to see what
insights emerge
Sir Richard Branson has a mantra that runs through the DNA of Virgin companies. The mantra is A-B-C-D.
(Always Be Connecting the Dots). Creativity is a practice, and if you practice using these five discovery
skills every day, you will develop your skills in creativity and innovation.
“Creativeness is the ability to see relationships where none exist.”
— Thomas Disch, author, 334, (1974)
For example you can make comparisons between your company and others outside of your industry.
Questions I ask my clients’ teams in advance of our creativity and innovation ideation sessions are:What
companies do you most admire and why? What are they doing that you could adopt or adapt to your
own company?
Additional creativity resources:
Creativity and Innovation workshops
A curated list of creativity tools and techniques
Generative Research on Creativity
Generative research shows that everyone has creative abilities. The more training you have and the
more diverse the training, the greater the potential for creative output. Research has shown that in
creativity quantity equals quality. The longer the list of ideas, the higher the quality of the final solution.
Quite often, the highest quality ideas appear at the end of the list.
Behavior is generative; like the surface of a fast flowing river, it is inherently and continuously novel…
behavior flows and it never stops changing. Novel behavior is generated continuously, but it is labeled
creative only when it has some special value to the community… Generativity is the basic process that
drives all the behavior we come to label creative.” – Robert Epstein PhD, Psychology Today July/Aug
1996
Overcoming myths about creativity
Beliefs that only special, talented people are creative (and you have to be born that way) diminish our
confidence in our creative abilities. The notion that geniuses such as Shakespeare, Picasso, and Mozart
were `gifted’ is a myth, according to a study at Exeter University. Researchers examined outstanding
performances in the arts, mathematics, and sports, to find out if “the widespread belief that to reach
high levels of ability a person must possess an innate potential called talent.”
The study concludes that excellence is determined by:
opportunities
encouragement
training
motivation, and
most of all, practice.
“Few showed early signs of promise prior to parental encouragement.” No one reached high levels of
achievement in their field without devoting thousands of hours of serious training. Mozart trained for 16
years before he produced an acknowledged masterwork. Moreover many high performers achieve
levels of excellence today that match the capabilities of a Mozart, or a Gold Medallist from the turn of
the century.” (The Vancouver Sun, Sept.12/98)
Fostering Creativity at Work: Rules of the Garage
Follow these simple rules and you will foster a culture of creativity and innovation: These were defined
by HP, which in fact started in a garage.
Believe you can change the world.
Work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever.
Know when to work alone and when to work together.
Share – tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.
No politics. No bureaucracy. (These are ridiculous in a garage.)
The customer defines a job well done.
Radical ideas are not bad ideas.
Invent different ways of working.
Make a contribution every day. If it doesn’t contribute, it doesn’t leave the garage.
Believe that together we can do anything.
Invent.
-1999 HP Annual Report
See also:
Seven Habits of Highly Creative People
Reflections on Working with Centers of Excellence
Can Creativity be Taught?
ROI on Creativity Training
How to Educate More Creative Problem Solvers
References
(1) S. Lohr, “Big Blue’s Big Bet: Less Tech, More Touch”, NYT, Jan. 25, 2004.
(2) Elizabeth Stinson, Wired (2016): IBM’s Got A Plan To Bring Design Thinking To Big Business
https://www.wired.com/2016/01/ibms-got-a-plan-to-bring-design-thinking-to-big-business/
(3) Forrester Study (2018) “The Total Economic Impact™ Of IBM’s Design Thinking Practice: How IBM
Drives Client Value And Measurable Outcomes With Its Design Thinking Framework”
https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/static/media/Enterprise-Design-Thinking-Report.8ab1e9e1.pdf
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About the Author: Linda Naiman
As founder of Creativity Work, I help executives and their teams develop creativity, innovation, and
leadership skills via arts-based learning and design thinking.(As an Amazon Associate I earn from
qualifying purchases on blog posts)
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