Quotes and studies abound supporting the notion that creativity is an important component in a business context. Take this one from Business News Daily….

A study by Adobe and Forrester Consulting found that 82 percent of companies believe there is a strong connection between creativity and business results. In fact, companies that actively foster creative thinking outperform their rivals in revenue growth, market share and competitive leadership, according to the report.

There’s also an IBM study from 2010 ( I know, light years ago, right?) that leads with…

Global CEO Study: Creativity Selected as Most Crucial Factor for Future Success

The list is endless, and I’m not questioning the research or critiquing the papers I’ve quoted above.

I’m just not convinced that I’ve met more than a handful of companies (outside of obvious creative companies) who authentically encourage the creative development of human beings within their organisation. They do pay lip service to the idea, and they may even, from time to time, invite creative humans in from the outside, but as for practically demonstrating that increasing creativity is valuable pursuit, not so much.

I’ve seen the inside of quite a number of companies, and I’ve spoken to my fair share of people working inside of those companies. I’ve attended their conferences, sat in on their training, and I’ve listened to their leaders speak about the things that are important. What I don’t see or hear much of is creativity. What I mostly see or hear are things like ‘back to basics’, and ‘the three things’ and ‘discipline’ and the ‘[company name] Way’. These all strongly point to getting into line, and doing things the one way we’re pretty sure it will work. However, these things also speak to ‘don’t think’, ‘don’t imagine’, ‘don’t try anything that’s not within the narrow boundaries we’ve set for you to work within’.

The Poster Child

Of course the poster child at the moment for my view is Vodacom. That they still haven’t found a settlement with Please Call Me inventor, Nkosana Makate, speaks straight into the ‘creativity in our people isn’t valued’ paradigm. You can imagine the message they’re sending to their current employees. How many Vodacom employees do you imagine are rushing to tell their boss about the incredible idea they came up with today, knowing that they’ll be fairly rewarded for their effort? (but all that for another post)

10 Quick Yes/No Questions on Creativity

If you’ve got 2 minutes, I’d love to know how you feel / what you think about creativity within your world and you organisation? I don’t need to know who you are, or what company you work in. Below are 10 simple and mostly yes/no questions to answer. It’d be great if you’d answer them. Results will be posted back on this blog in a few weeks time.

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You may have picked up a touch of cynicism in my title? Not because I think the concept of Grit deserves it, only because I often smile when the people performance consulting world finds a new current next big thing. We’ve had excellence, diversity, innovation, talent, etc, etc. Grit, I’m sure, falls into the granular breakdown of talent.

What this all means is that everyone (huge exaggeration) is currently talking about, reading about, studying about and furiously identifying grit, because it’s today’s current new next big thing.

Grit achieved it’s current notoriety through the research of Angela Lee Duckworth, a former teacher who found it odd that the expected models of success in the classroom didn’t behave the way she expected. The kids with the high IQ’s sometimes didn’t excel academically and the kids with lower IQ’s sometimes did. She left teaching to study psychology, and her research centered around trying to understand why accepted wisdom wasn’t working like it should?

If you’ve missed the Grit bus do not fear. you’ve not been left behind. I’ve done a little listening and reading, and here are some ways to articulate the concept:

Grit is passion and perseverance for very long term goals. It’s stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in and day out. Not for a day, not for a month, but for years. Working really hard to make that future a reality.

Grit isn’t social skill, or talent, or luck, or physical health, or intelligence.

Grit is living life like it’s a marathon and not a sprint

If you’ve got a few minutes here’s Angela Lee Duckworth speaking at TED about Grit. It is worth your time

• If you’re interested in the Grit assessment she speaks of, you can find it here
• And the book Mindsets can be found here

Before you go…. there are a few things you should be aware of, and spend some time looking into, especially if you’re interested in the concept of Grit. There are some critiques of Grit that I think are worthy of consideration in your research…..

• The Limits of ‘Grit’ – The New Yorker
• Is Grit Overrated? – The Atlantic
• Don’t Believe the Hype About Grit, Pleads the Scientist Behind the Concept – Science of Us

Personally I think the hype gets in the way of some useful thoughts about focus, commitment and determination (Grit). However, my prediction is that the hype will win over common sense and once again, somewhere down the road, when Grit has influenced ‘accepted wisdom’ someone will discover that it doesn’t behave as it should, and we’ll be off on another trail chasing after today’s current new next big thing in people performance.

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How do you foster innovation across a continent of 54 countries, where more than 2,000 languages are spoken by a billion people?

Great question. And yes, how do you indeed, I thought to myself? The answer to a question like that is worth zillions in any currency of your choice. It’s a similar question to one that’s lived with me for the longest time.

I’ve watched companies I’ve worked with, read about companies I haven’t, and I’ve had hours long conversations about companies who spend much resource, time, energy and currency ensuring they design and execute the best innovation processes possible. There’s much pride to be had in announcing to the world, that you’ve got the ultimate innovation process on the planet.

Garbage In Garbage Out

However, building the galaxy’s ultimate innovation process is only one part of the solution. There’s a true-ism in the world of technology, often represented by an acronym…. GIGO. It stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out. Google defines it like so…

used to express the idea that in computing and other fields, incorrect or poor-quality input will produce faulty output

It isn’t difficult to understand. If you don’t have great quality creativity and thinking going into your innovation process, then you can’t expect to get great quality innovation, thoughts and ideas coming out of the other side. It puzzles me that the majority of innovation initiatives I’ve seen and read about, never speak of, nor do they pay attention to increasing the quality of the input. It’s almost as if they’ve been convinced by whomever is selling the innovation process (there’s definitely a consultant involved) that the process will magically produce the goods they’re hoping for.

I suppose that may be true for the first round. There’s a chance that there are some good ideas floating around that are looking for someone to grab hold of and execute. But what happens when you repeat the process in year two? Where is the next crop of great innovation coming from? You’ve used up whatever good quality thinking might have been inside your organisation during the first execution?

Building Your Creative Muscle

You improve the input of any innovation process by improving the creative quality of your people. I’m not suggesting that everyone needs to become an artist or a painter or a dancer. Improving creativity doesn’t require everyone to become a creative. Back to Google for a definition of ‘creativity’:

the use of imagination or original ideas to create something

Creativity is a muscle. It’s something you can develop when you practice using it. And to practice using it requires you to engage your imagination more often. This of course is the challenge business has. Business doesn’t like imagination much. Business likes cold hard facts and figures. They like things you can measure, things you can manage, things you can tweak and make more efficient. Imagination doesn’t deliver on those requirements very easily.

How Measurement Gets In The Way

I remember once having an opportunity to sell a process, to improve general creativity, to a large Insurance Company. I even brought props along for the panel to test out and try. I admit, I was a little naive in my expectation that they’d obviously ‘get it’ if they could experience what I was talking about. I knew I was not going to be successful when they began to ask about measurement and outcomes. How does one accurately measure the improved use of imagination? Very simply, one does not.

This is why companies spend money building innovation processes that have a start, an end and a bunch of points in between…. because they can measure them, and write reports and when people ask what they spent the money on, they have numbers to justify the expense. Jobs are safe, even though innovation is a little disappointing, but there’s always next year.

Improving the quality of someone’s creativity and imagination doesn’t offer those same benefits of measure. It’s less about measurement and more about trusting that when people engage their imagination the only possible outcome is improved creativity. What else can it be?

Business has a way to go in the area of improved creativity within their organisations. Mindsets will need to shift. What is measured and why, must be re-worked. Better quality input must be seen as more important than a well structured process.

By the way, the answer to the question at the beginning of this post, the question posed by the article I said I’d read?

How do you foster innovation across a continent of 54 countries, where more than 2,000 languages are spoken by a billion people?

Apparently it’s as easy as,

Well, you put together a partnership between a leading business school and an unusual telecommunications company. Then run a competition for the best new business idea using digital technology, and bring the finalists together at a reclaimed industrial site in a township outside Cape Town.

Who knew innovation across a continent was that easy? Like I said, business has a long way to go.

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