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THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION
I spend more than sixty days a year chatting with business leaders and managers about the single greatest challenge they face in the new, fastmoving economy: Winning the innovation game.
After most of my presentations and workshops, I am frequently asked about the difference between creativity and innovation. My answer is always the same: There is no innovation without creativity. People sometimes get confused between creativity and innovation so let’s begin with some fundamentals and very simple definitions, which can help us easily differentiate between the two.
Creativity is the ability to think of something new, whereas innovation means executing creative ideas or implementing something new.
Bearing in mind this basic difference, we can further differentiate the two using an example: Suppose you are working on a project and you come up with a fresh new idea to execute the project. That is creativity (your mind’s ability to think and create some new ideas), but it is not an innovation until the idea is implemented.
Furthermore, creativity is the act of generating unique ideas, whereas innovation could be introducing something better into the market. There is no risk in creativity because it is a virtual (or thought?) process, however there is always risk in innovation because it is reality. For many leaders, this is uncomfortable territory because, by definition, innovation means trying something new and accepting the risk that it may not work out.
There is no doubt that innovation is inherently risky, and getting the most from a portfolio of innovation initiatives is more about managing risk than eliminating it. Since no one knows exactly where valuable innovations will emerge, and searching everywhere is impractical, do not push yourself too hard—the best ideas show up when you are relaxed and aiming for excellence. That is it!
CREATIVITY IS NOT INNOVATION
I read the Harvard Business Review quite often to keep myself up to date with what’s going on in the business world and to look for time-honed best practices that stand out from the pack. This time, I found something that totally justifies and shines a light on my above-mentioned belief: “Creativity is not innovation.”
In August 2010, Harvard surveyed thousands of executives in Fortune 500 companies to rate their companies’ innovation skills on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 being poor and 10 being world class. The survey participants overwhelmingly believed that their companies were better at generating ideas (average score of 6) than at commercializing them (average score of 1). So, which is more effective: Improving your (already good) creativity score from 6 to 8 or increasing your (very poor) execution score from 1 to 3?
It is no contest. Companies tend to focus far more on improving the front end of the innovation process—creativity—but the real leverage is in the back end.
Ideas will only get you so far. Consider companies that struggled even after a competitor entered the market and made their great idea transparent to all. Did Xerox stumble because nobody noticed that Canon had introduced personal copiers? Did Kodak fall behind because they were blind to the rise of digital photography? Did Sears suffer a decline because they had no awareness of Wal-Mart’s new everyday low-price discount retail format? In every case, the ideas were there. It was the follow-through that was lacking. In fact, Harvard’s research found that innovation initiatives face their stiffest resistance after they show hints of success, begin to consume significant resources, and clash with the existing organization at multiple levels—that is, long after the idea generation stage.
CREATIVITY FUELS INNOVATION
Thomas Edison, the greatest innovator of all time, put it well: “Innovation is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Reflect on how much time your organization spends on inspiration versus perspiration. What are the barriers to execution? How are you attempting to overcome them?
BARRIERS TO INNOVATION
The following quote from Thomas J. Watson Jr., the Former IBM chairman and CEO, gives me encouragement: Watson was asked in an interview, “How long does it take to achieve excellence?” Watson snapped back, “A minute! You achieve excellence by promising yourself right now that you will never again knowingly do anything that is not excellent—regardless of any pressure to do otherwise by any boss or situation.”
In November 2006, IBM Global Business Services published a report that mentioned five barriers to innovation: inadequate funding, risk avoidance, siloing, time commitments, and incorrect measures.
While each of these barriers can be formidable, they don’t need to stop your innovation. Successful innovators use a number of techniques to work their ways around these barriers or break right through them. Let’s have a closer look.
Barrier #1: Inadequate funding. Getting the start-up funds for an innovation project often means taking money away from an established program. Getting the money at just the right time is also problematic since organizations often work on annual funding cycles that don’t match up well with real-world opportunities. And, often, excellent innovation needs more than seed money to survive and before it is starved out of existence. But broader thinking on needs and resources can help innovators move their ideas along.
Barrier #2: Risk avoidance. Most of us won’t run toward risks. We want to maintain our health, wealth, and peace of mind. But no progress is made without calculated risk taking. Since people know that innovation is risky, many people run away from it. In fact, some organizations habitually play the game of finding things that could go wrong. Many of the classic responses, “We’ve never done this before” or “This failed when we tried it before” come up almost as a reflex. Once risks are identified, innovation is often stopped. But a clear-eyed view of risks balanced against benefits can create an environment where innovation is nurtured rather than killed.
Barrier #3: Siloing. Organizations seek to protect their creative identities, get proper credit, sustain themselves, and protect themselves. That’s why they create boundaries, assign responsibilities, and put rules in place. No matter how artificial the divisions and processes are, they are usually defended, even when ignoring them is to everyone’s advantage.
By nature, innovations tend to cross boundaries and create new categories. It’s not unusual to see competing claims of ownership and disputes about authority. Deals break down over who wi