The Opposite Sides of Innovation: 10 Tensions Innovative People Need to Navigate

What is creativity? Is it a trait? Is the creative process an exclusive privilege of people who possess this “trait”? Or, is creativity a combination of factors that make the creative process possible and thus allow innovation to emerge?

Research on exceptionally creative people who have changed the world has shown that their qualities and traits are so varied that it is impossible to find that one, shared "creativity trait". Rather, they exhibit a number of factors that help them be part of the creative process. The most paradoxical premise of these factors is that these creative characteristics, if you will, never come alone, but in pairs.

The reason why this is paradoxical is because people tend to think that creative people have “something” that makes them creative. And if it is not one thing, then it is at least a collection of “positive” traits that help them navigate through uncertainty and come up with the most innovative products that change the way things are.  What would you think if I told you that creative people need to navigate the opposing poles of suffering and resiliency in order to become creative?

This is explained very accurately in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Sir Robert Louis Stevenson:

“With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.”

However, the difference between the two opposing personalities living in the same person in Stevenson’s story (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and creative people is that the latter don’t have to pick one of those personalities and “kill” the other. Rather, creative people navigate the connection between seemingly opposing sides, or tensions, in order to have a higher impact in the quality of the innovations they create. That is precisely the main and most important difference between highly creative people and the rest of the population. They are able to navigate (not necessarily balance) those opposing traits, for they become important and essential at different stages of the creative process.

All of us live in a Ying and Yang world with competing values within ourselves. If there was one unique trait that is common to all creative people I would say is this capacity to live and use these competing personalities in order to enjoy their work, do it well, and make a difference. But, what are these tensions I am talking about?

The Tensions within Creative People

1. Creative people are risk takers, but also conservative

When I think about creative and innovative people, a synonym immediately comes to mind: risk-takers. While it is true that highly creative people are constantly challenging the status-quo in order to create more impact and make a difference, they are also somewhat conservative in their approach to innovation. Elon Musk is one of those risk takers. He is a very successful entrepreneur and innovator, and the few times that he has lost of touch with reality his creations have suffered the consequences. SpaceX, one of his companies, is creating a rocket with the capacity to be directed back to a platform after putting a shuttle out in space. It has never been done, but gravity is still there and he needs to take it into account in order to design his innovations. So, a combination of critical thinking to understand reality and make conscious decisions, and risk-taking to innovate, is an essential combination of creative people.

2. Creative people endure pain and also detach from their creation

Highly creative people are also highly passionate. They become one with their innovations, and therefore have an intrinsic motivation that keeps them going even in the most difficult circumstances. They have a high tolerance for “pain” which makes them endure in a way that allows them to achieve what is in their minds. However, blind love might not always be the best way to go when it comes to innovation. Having the capacity to emotionally detach from one’s work is critical to understand not only those ideas that won’t work, but the flaws, challenges and potential improvements that those ideas need. Highly creative people navigate the delicate thread that connects endurance and detachment. This is not meant to become a way to give up ideas with high potential, but rather to see from other people’s eyes and feedback the little things that will reinforce our endurance and “honest” love for our creations.

3. Creative people create, but also copy (and steal)

T.S. Eliot said that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” This was repeated by Steve Jobs in “The Lost Interview” as well. One of the most powerful characteristics of highly creative people is their capacity to connect ideas, experiences, thoughts and combine them into something better, or “something different”. Creative people are constantly navigating the tensions between being fully original and novel in their approach, and using preexisting ideas and working on them. Newton said that “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, which means that the father of calculus and mechanics acknowledged that his work needed was not completely novel, but rather it was built upon preexisting knowledge. Unfortunately, some people tend to think that creativity always means inventing something completely new, and therefore they miss the opportunity to observe the world as it, be curious, question ideas, assumptions and paradigms, and begin to create answer from there.

4. Creative people are resilient, but they also suffer

Yes, creative people cry! But after a while, they clean the tears, get up from the couch and keep going. We tend to think of creative people as highly resilient, and while it is true, they also navigate a range of emotions/feelings, including both resiliency and suffering. It is ok to suffer when something is not working well, but creative people quickly get back on their feet and work smarter on finding ways to make what they were doing in a way that works. This is closely connected with the tension of endurance and detachment. Resiliency needs to be fed by the capacity to endure pain and suffering. At the same time, suffering is a product of detachment from one’s idea in order to test its validity. Regardless of the results of navigating between these two extremes, you must cry when it is necessary, but you must also get back on your feet to keep working on your idea.

5. Creative people put their ideas out there to test them in small iterations, instead of looking for grandiose impact all at once

In a volatile, uncertain and fast-paced changing world it doesn’t seem right to seek grandiose impact. Instead, small iterations and feedback provide a faster and better approach to test creative ideas. Newton and Darwin, for instance, took around twenty years in formulating the theories of mechanics and evolution, respectively. Their world and their time were better suited for grandiose impact (although other scientists were not too far from the same conclusions than Newton, such as Leibniz, and from Darwin, such as Wallace). In our world and our time, when theories are dismantled on a daily basis, and new ideas arise, small iterations, feedback and improvement are a better way to test whether our innovations are on the right track or not.

6. Creative people tend to be very disciplined, and also down to earth

Creative people are sometimes seen as selfish and full of themselves. It is important not to confuse selfishness with discipline. Highly creative people are very focused on their creations and their energy is invested in making them come to fruition. However, they also need to be down to earth as their innovations will ultimately be used for people, and created for people. There is a fine line between being focused and concentrated on the task at hand and appearing as an egocentric individual. It is important to navigate these two poles.

7. Creative people create their ideas in their minds with visualization, but always with a foot in the real world

Most athletes who participate in highly competitive races have similar training. What makes the difference is their capacity to visualize a state of things that is not yet created, but that they can imagine as possible. Creative people visualize the impact that they want to achieve with their innovation and how they want to change the world with it. However, the other side of the spectrum means keeping a foot very well set in reality. By navigating these two opposed poles not only are they able to imagine the potentiality of their ideas, but their actuality. Disruptive innovators need to understand the reality of the field in which they want to make an impact, because nobody can create something new in a specific realm if he doesn’t know the rules of that realm. In other words, to break the rules, you need to know the rules first. To visualize what you can do and the power of your ideas, you need to understand and know what exists right now. In a business plan they call it “Market research”, but that fancy term is simply the navigation between what creative people imagine and what reality has in stock.

8. Creative people need solitude, but also external feedback

For innovators, the capacity to be alone helps them in the process of discovering and creating. When highly creative people are in creation mode two things are necessary: the capacity to silence the world in order to let the ideas flow, and the need to get external feedback on one’s ideas in order to keep going. These two opposed poles are critical elements in designing, developing and testing ideas and innovations. For instance, reading is one of the best ways for innovators to stay in touch with reality and the field in which they want to make an impact, but even Einstein said that "reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking". So, what is important is the capacity to understand and navigate these two extremes and decide to be alone when necessary, and then to get feedback when our ideas have matured.

9. Creative people need independence, but they are also interdependent

Closely related to the need for solitude and the need feedback, it is important to mention that highly creative people do not live in isolation, but in society. Innovations can be individual or collective enterprises, nevertheless they are all meant to be beneficial for a certain group of people. Therefore, highly creative people navigate their need to work by themselves, with the potential of expanding their network of support and increasing their interdependence on them.

10. Creative people are ambitious, but also humble

When we think about creative people, Steve Jobs is a mandatory reference. He always comes to mind because of his capacity to observe the world, ask tough questions and create something beautiful out of it. He was highly ambitious, which is great. Nevertheless, the dark side of the story is that he wasn’t regarded as a humble person, and that is another pole that highly creative people need to take into account. Ambition is not a bad thing, but it becomes wicked when there is a lack of humility. Humility in success and open-mindedness in failure could be another way to stretch/work/exploit this tension.

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 About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an HR Professional at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique researches and writes about leadership and HR and seeks to explore the overlaps of productivity and leadership in the business and non-profit world. Enrique is also a competitive ultrarunner.

Twitter: @erubio_p

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