The relationship between creativity and innovation

Hey everyone,

 This blog entry aims to explore whether or not there is a link between creativity and innovation; do organisations that encourage creativity therefore experience greater innovative changes than those organisations that do not encourage creativity?

 First off it makes sense to explore what a “creative” organisation is and what it consists of. If we look at the three domains of creative action as mentioned in Gundry et al (1994):

A creative organisation is one that consists of a combination of education, environment and application. Through education, staff members will, in theory, come up with new creative ways of solving problems, and environment which supports this will lead to the application of these creative ideas, leading to more innovative processes and ideas. The key issue here is that for this model to work, it requires all three key sectors to be implemented within an organisation. Due to the recent economic climate, it would not be unjust to assume that companies are much less willing to risk financial gains for risk taking in the form of creative ideas. The company may comprise of well educated workers who are trained in creative thinking, but if the work environment does not for them to apply their ideas then innovation will never occur.

 However, in reality how realistic is this link between creativity and innovation? And also, just how does it impact on the company’s success? The most obvious example to look at here would be internet search-engine giant “Google”. “At Google, innovation and creativity keeps our projects changing and improving. Our consistency comes from our Googlers – smart, amazing people who foster an environment of collaboration and fun” Googlejobs[online] (accessed 2/1/12). From this it is clear that Google is the epitome of what Gundry et al describes as being a ‘creative organisation’; it combines the three key areas of education, environment and application.

 Looking more in depth at Gundry’s model and applying it to Google, there is an argument in which we can say that it is simply not enough to smart and be in an environment which encourages creativity and the application of that. Motivation and experience also  play a part in this, as Amabelies model (1997) suggests:

Both Gundy and Amabelie agree that creativity and innovation have a positive relationship, however Amabelie argues that education can be broken down into a combination of the employees/teams motivation, expertise and creativity skills and in fact it is a collaboration between three components of the work environment and three components of a team/individual which in turn leads to innovation; all of which are interdependent upon each other.

Uncreative organisations

The fact that is was nearly impossible to find articles on any business that is perceived as being uncreative suggests in itself that without creativity and innovation a company will not survive, especially in today’s tough economic climate. However; I have found one article that pretty much slates “Britain’s uncreative approach to design”, in which the author suggests that, with the exception of a few companies such as Rolls Royce, Britain is lacking in creativity when it comes to designing new products and this is why our biggest export is financial services, we could not be able to survive on the income generated through new products produced within Britain. The read the article click HERE, it only takes a few minutes.

So is there a link between creativity and innovation? Theorists all seem to believe conclusively that there is a positive link between creativity and innovation and personally due to the success witnessed by pretty much every company that encourages a creative and innovative environment I would agree so too. If a company does not succeed within the market, you can just as easily argue that their failure could be down to two issues: not being creative and innovative enough, or, being too creative and innovative. Consumers do not respond well to dramatic changes, products such as Amstrads personal organisers in the 1990s are proof that being creative doesn't always pay off, if you are too creative you will end up with a product or method that people do not respond positively too.

REFERENCES

Amabile, T (1997) Vol. 40, No. 1. By permission of The Regents

Googleblog [online], found at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/index.html accessed 2/1/12

Gundry, Lisa K.;Kickul, Jill R.;Prather, Charles W.  (1994) Building the Creative Organisation, published by: Apa Psych

Spiked [online], found at: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10899/, accessed 2/1/12