Business Creativity

Innovation

It used to be thought that creativity was the preserve of certain "artistic" professions - for example, the "creatives" of adland and the media. Today it is increasingly recognised that creativity and innovation can give any business a competitive advantage. Law of Requisite Variety suggests why creative flexibility could be crucial in today's fast-changing business environment.

The Creative Company

Whether or not an organisation can be said to be creative is a matter of philosophy and definition. However it is certainly possible to enhance and encourage the creativity of the individuals in a company. Unfortunately many workplaces seem designed to have the opposite effect and to stifle innovation. There is a conflict between the freedom to be creative and the understandable desire to minimise risk.

It is often said that business creativity rest on "three pillars": creative thinking skills, expertise and motivation. Those are all necessary and can be fostered relatively easily through training courses, buying software packages, etc. However they will be of little use unless the ethos of the company is one that values creativity and the risks associated with it.

Encourage Difference

Rules and guidelines are needed in any organisation, but if those rules are too rigid - or too heavily enforced - then they can stifle creativity. Very often innovators are the sort of people who routinely bend if not break the rules.

Peer pressure and early exposure can also be detrimental to innovation. Creativity means doing something different. It's hard to be different without privacy. In a world of open-plan offices and employee tracking, privacy is increasingly precious. Those who value it should not be treated with suspicion.

Embrace Failure

"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate."
- Thomas J. Watson, IBM Founder

What's the use of having skilled, motivated employees brainstorming excellent ideas if the company is too scared to take the risks of following through? Or if the people themselves are worried about being blamed should their idea fail?

Creativity is about producing good ideas - which means producing many ideas. It is inevitable that most of those ideas will not be successful. It's difficult to get used to but the reality is that the only way an individual - or company - can have lots of good ideas is by also having lots of bad ideas.

Of course, this needs to be managed. The risks involved in implementing an idea need to be assessed and weighed against the benefits. A desire for excessive certainty and minimal risk leads to suppression of innovation. In a truly creative company the question is not "How do we avoid risk?" but "Which risks shall we take?".

You also need to remember that success takes time. Very few ideas are an instant success, usually the flash of inspiration needs the determined slog of perspiration to make it work. Don't expect immediate results.

Encouraging creativity in an organisation means supporting a culture that is not scared to take (calculated) risks. A culture that embraces those risks and the inevitable failures that will occur as a result. This is something that must be seen as the responsibility of everyone from senior management downwards. All the training courses in the world will be of little use in an organisation where office politics and company culture mean people are scared to put their ideas into action. Good ideas need to implemented before they become profitable ideas.

If the word "failure" still scares you (or your positive thinking life coach!) then remember the words of Thomas Edison on his protracted search for a working light bulb:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work."

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