In August 2005, Business week printed an article that called out an important 21st century paradigm shift occurring in business today. They labeled it the “Creativity economy.” They asserted that just as Frederick Taylor’s scientific management concept revolutionized the 20th century, creativity and innovation will be the impetus to success in the 21st century! A 2010 survey conducted by the Bloomberg/Business Week/Boston Consulting Group (BCG) confirmed Business Week’s contention. They found that 72% of today’s corporate leaders place innovation as a “top three” strategic priority.
So, what is creativity and how is it different from innovation? Creativity is simply the ability to generate something new. Innovation, on the other hand, is the ability to create something new that fits the strategic initiative of an organization. Innovation applies creativity to a real business/customer desire and produces positive ROI.
We believe there are two core types of innovation. The first type is evolutionary. Many of the leaders in Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” described innovation in this way. As organizations incrementally leverage one small idea upon another, breakthrough mushrooms forth. Evolutionary innovation is often nearly transparent to the internal company; ideas are consistently implemented until a tipping point occurs which sparks recognition of the breakthrough. The second type of innovation is revolutionary. It is best described by Frans Johansson in the “Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures.” Medici is the last name of the family largely responsible for birthing the Renaissance in fifteenth century Italy by assembled talented people across many disciples and cultures together in one location. This cross-pollination unearthed novel and unique breakthrough concepts. Johansson argues that work environments that provoke collaboration across career vocations, departmental functions and diverse cultures are poised to unleash similar breakthrough innovation. While the second type of innovation can be more dramatic than the first, both are necessary and lead to successful and important innovative outcomes.
In order to compete in the 21st century, we believe leaders must encourage, inspire, and champion both types of innovation. This will be a challenge as many organizations are still immersed in cost cutting efforts, which produce lean staffs with too much to do. Nonetheless, resourceful and creative organizations will overcome these limitations. 21st century organization MUST cultivate and inspire new ideas, processes and products/services in order to survive and thrive. Those that fail to do so will end up smothered and choked out by those that do. Too much is happening too quickly to allow your organization to stagnate in the ruins of economic constriction. As is true in all victories, winners find ways to step up and break-through in the midst of challenge. We want to encourage, inspire and provoke you to that end!
Author: Diane Brown at TJ Associates LLC (Talent Journey). Copyright protected, all rights reserved worldwide.
