Innovation and creativity: Doing both whilst doing neither.
Innovation and creativity are everywhere in our world today. The words that is. Almost every company’s website mentions these two words somewhere as part of their corporate philosophy or strategic vision (strategic is another of the overused words, but that is a story for later). Innovation and creativity go hand in hand and are deemed to be the keys to successful organisations. Firms tend to overuse these terms while being neither innovative nor creative. Then there are firms that also encourage ‘creative innovation’ which is completely unexplainable.
It is very difficult to know what innovation or creativity is. In academic research, there are reams of literature available with several likely definitions but no agreement on either of these terms. If we don’t know what innovation is, how do we know whether we are performing it? I have no problem in saying that whilst I contributed to innovation theory in my PhD studies, I have trouble defining it. The same, I suspect, may be true of creativity.
I recommend improvisation instead of innovation and curiosity instead of creativity. Simply because that is actually what most of us do as human beings and by extension, what we do in firms. If the philosophy of a firm is to stay curious and then to improvise, it may yet end up where it wants to be.
Lesson: Don’t innovate, improvise. Don’t be creative, be curious.
Originally published on linkedin: Innovation and creativity