Regardless of your innovation tools –– you still need creativity to use them effectively
By Ed Bernacki
Twenty years ago I wrote this article on the value of creativity. Since then, our innovation toolkit evolved. We talk more about design, user experience, service design, lean, and more in our attempts at innovation.?Yet, I also talked about these 20 years ago. What has not changed is the need for creativity to create the new, original, or unique insights and ideas we need. Creativity is the fuel that drives the effective use of our models. Yet, it takes more than the occasional brainstorming to make your company creative.?
It's getting hard to find a business magazine or a consultant which does not mention design, innovation, lean, service design, and so on. They all require creativity to be used effectively. Some believe creativity is something you apply when needed, like a bandage for a cut. I once read that Apple “decided to go for broke and apply creativity to computers” to create the iMac. This is the wrong understanding of what Apple did. It greatly undervalues the concepts of design, but more on this later.
Creativity is not a bandage. It is more like fitness – you choose to be fit or you choose not to be fit. Going out for an occasional jog does not make you fit any more than the occasional design or brainstorming session makes you creative. If you choose to be fit, you can train, join a gym, work with instructors, change your eating habits, and see the results. You may not win a gold medal but you can maximize your potential.
The same applies to creativity. Creativity in business involves processes to find or create new, original, or unique ideas. It does not involve copying them; copying is not wrong but it’s not creative. The innovation processes extend efforts to find viable ideas. Someone said creativity was about finding ideas and innovation was about making money from them. This is useful. The toolkits and methodologies we use can change but the reason we use them does not.
There is a significant industry of creativity and innovation specialists, mostly based in the US and UK, but a growing number in Canada. Their expertise lies in understanding the processes for finding ideas that solve problems and create opportunities, and the underlying issues necessary for this to happen.
Finding original ideas is not hard once you learn how. The problem is that we’re not taught how to do so. If you think brainstorming is kicking around some ideas then think again. DDB Needham founder Bill Bernbach is often quoted for his common-sense insights into creativity. He asked:
“Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It’s the most practical thing a businessman can employ.
“Merely to let your imagination run riot, to dream unrelated dreams, to indulge in graphic acrobatics and verbal gymnastics is not being creative. The creative person has harnessed his imagination.”
Harnessing the imagination, that is, putting structure into brainstorming, creates the stage for original ideas to be created. These ideas can shape new strategies, processes, or products.
Breaking the rules
The philosophy behind innovation boils down to “breaking the rules”. Doing the things your customers want (even if they don’t know it yet) which the industry has missed. Every industry has its rules. Sooner or later, someone breaks them. The benefit of doing so was best said by Rosebeth Moss Kanter, the past editor of the Harvard Business Review.
“Here’s the point,” she said about innovation. “It gives you a temporary monopoly. That means you can charge more for it.”
Innovation is about creating temporary monopolies by out-thinking competitors. Your competitors can catch up but you’re one step ahead.
But not all ideas are the same. The ability to judge ideas, enhance weak ones, or know when an idea is finished is a powerful business tool. Suzanne Merrit is pioneering work to help people manage the difference between mediocre ideas and great ones based on her study of aesthetics. Some of the factors of “great ideas” she has conceived include:
When I lived in New Zealand, I discovered Hubbard's breakfast cereal It broke the rules.?I talked to Dick Hubbard, a very passionate CEO, who started the company to reinvent breakfast cereal. His comments included.
Here’s the point. At the start, Hubbard never advertised. He did not have marketing. Intuition and insight drove product development. His concepts were strong. His leadership is inspiring. Media flocked to report on the company. He broke the rules. He set new standards. People loved his products. They talked about them. He built a national brand in NZ. Customers passed along his newsletter to their friends, the original version of social media.
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Is Creativity a choice?
In workshops, I challenge people to consider the need for creative thinking. Often executives say that it is a luxury or only useful for some projects. This reflects an interesting paradox.
If creativity is a choice, what are you choosing when you are not being creative? If you are not being creative, what are you being? The answer can’t be ‘non-creative’. ?(Link to my article on Risk and Status Quo ).
It reflects the climate of the organization and the personal philosophy that you bring to the job every day. Answering these questions in workshops often kicks up emotive issues for people.
I saw a billboard that defined the opposite of creativity for me. It read,
“We have a pigheaded resistance to mediocrity”.
This captures my underlying belief. If I’m not being creative in the way I write, develop concepts, and service clients, then I’m choosing to be mediocre.
Back to iMac. To say that Apple went for broke to apply creativity to come up with a nifty coloured computer misses the point. Jonathan Ive, designer of the iMac says,
“The design challenge represented an interesting paradox for us: how to create something for tomorrow that people are comfortable with today?”
When you see the detailed design thinking that went into the iMac, you know that its design team was driven by a deep sense of pride and purpose. They will use the tools of creativity but there are a lot of other factors involved.
Considering that testosterone size and grunt drive the IT industry, the iMac clearly humanizes computers. Even its packaging has a human touch.
Ive continues, “The idea is that the first piece of packing foam you pull out becomes a little table for the manual, the keyboard, and the accessories. After you remove that piece of foam, you see the handle, you know what to do next. That’s the great thing about handles. You know what to do next.
?“It sounds simple and obvious. But often, getting to that level of simplicity required enormous iteration in design. You have to spend considerable energy understanding the problems that exist and the issues people have – even when they find it difficult to articulate those issues and problems themselves.”
iMac was a huge winner, selling two million units in its first year. In creating it, Apple created a temporary monopoly. Other computer companies can add colour to catch up but will they inspire people like the iMac? Apple went on to create many other innovations for 25 years.
Becoming a skilled creative thinker takes training, insight, experience, and the conviction to act on the ideas that you create. If you can achieve this, you help to create “temporary monopolies” for the challenges you tackle.
Everyone needs to solve problems every day. Those who find inspiring solutions will prosper. The potential to improve your personal bottom line is a good reason to add “skilled creative thinker” to your CV.
PS - This article was actually written in 2001 for Professional Marketing Magazine in Australia. I made a few edits. It is remarkable how so many of the same issues apply 20 years later.
Founder and Consultant
1 年Well noted.