Creativity is First

Creativity is first.

If you are pressed for time, just remember this first sentence.? At all levels of the organization, creativity is first.? The most valuable asset. In a technician, in a manager, in a CEO, in the owner.?

I can tell that you do not believe me.? You are sitting in your wood paneled office, with several well-thumbed business books on the built-ins behind you.? Titles on execution, entrepreneurship, sales.? On “Being Great”.? No titles on creativity.? Creativity, you note, is not one of the seven habits of highly successful people.? Creativity is fine for the artsy types, but not for business.? Not realistic for a team of nine-to-fivers in an office park.

You are wrong.? Let me tell you a story.

In 1997 a computer program called Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in chess and the entire chess world exploded.? Suddenly you didn’t have to be great to be great at chess, you just had to be able to remember increasingly complex series of moves.? Positional analytics could calculate the win probability for any configuration of pieces.? Spectacularly creative chess geniuses were flummoxed and suffocated by analytical wizards wielding reams of data.? Chess became less like art and more like memorization.? The great Bobby Fischer announced that computers had ruined chess.

One way to think of the change was that execution had finally trumped creativity.

Of course everybody still played it anyway.? The best chess players just started wearing pocket protectors non-ironically.?

In the early two thousands, the brave new world of chess execution was dominated by a steely eyed automaton named Viswanathan Anand.? I am sure that outside of chess Vishy is a super nice guy, but across a chess board - look out.??

Vishy was the five time world chess champion. His team consisted of the best computer system in the world backed by a team of chess savants.? Vishy broke down the position of each opponent with the relentless precision of a five year old picking the legs off a grasshopper.?

In 2013 Vishy played a young go-getter, Magnus Carlsen, in the world chess championship. In preparation for the game, Vishy fired up his team of chess whizzes, cranked up the computer and simulated thousands of games based on moves Magnus was most likely going to play.? Six months of single-minded preparation.? All lines memorized.

Magnus played ping pong and worked on his soccer shot.? His coach tried to get him to squeeze some chess in on the side.? When asked, Magnus said his main goal was to take Vishy “out of his preparation.”? Give Vishy something over the chess board that he hadn't seen before.

Which was an odd main goal.? Lots of people would have said their main goal was to “win the chess match.”?One way to think of Magnus’ plan was to prioritize creativity instead of rote execution.??

Magnus blew Vishy out of the water.? Didn’t lose a game.

The real story though, is how he won.? He won by playing weird moves.? Not bad moves that lost him pieces - but odd moves that didn’t make sense to the computers.? Nonsensical, whimsical, out-of-order moves.? The kind of moves that caused chess professionals to tuck in their chins and cluck softly.? Creative moves that Vishy never saw coming.? And once Vishy took a few moves outside of a memorized series he had to play chess alone.? None of his relentless preparation could help him.

And Magnus Carlsen was much better at playing chess than Vishy Anand.

Now focus on what I am saying.? Magnus still had to win the game, still had to be a fundamentally bulletproof player.? He still had to execute.? But creativity came first.? Magnus came up with crackling humdinger moves and smashed through the shell of Vishy’s impenetrable preparation.? Then he pressed his advantage.??Cracked ol’ Vishy open like a hydraulic jack wedged into the shell of a snapping turtle.? Vishy never had a chance.

In life it is the same.? Creativity is always first, then execution.