Creativity v. Innovation

It is common for people to conflate Creativity with Innovation. Leaders who are unsure how to bring about Innovation ask for creative solutions to their complex problems. While on the surface these two may seem interchangeable, there are strong distinctions between Creativity and Innovation.

The simplest way to to think about their distinctions is that Creativity is a green field, and focuses on delivering novel ideas. Creativity can be a solo activity; it just take one person to come up with Creative ideas. These ideas may or may not be on point relative to the problem at hand, and some will be so far outside the box as be fantasy. Nevertheless they are all beautiful, clever, and inspiring. These ideas are fundamentally expressions of originality and vision. Meanwhile Innovation seeks transformative insights which like their Creative counterparts may be wholly original and inspiring but which are bounded by constraints.

Innovations start with a precondition, commonly that a given situation could be improved. Often these reformations could take the form of a product or service but could also be a financial model, a supply chain or distribution partnership or an organizational or process change. Innovations however require them to be executed, delivered, built for their value to be realized. So Innovation is always a team sport—its take the experience and expertise of a team to understand the problem and where it can and cannot be altered. Creative ideas’ value comes from having been articulated. Innovations’ value come from having been delivered.

While Creativity and Innovation are distinct, they often occur together. Expressed Creativity can lead to a discussion about how it would be realized as an Innovation. Or Innovations that become stuck, can often leverage Creativity to find inspiration in order to move forward. Often one person’s Creative idea will lead others to insights that in turn lead a team to evolve or reshape an unfulfilled situation into a positive outcome—and Innovation. It is clear the partnership between these two concepts can drive greater success. Some see the partnership as so intertwined that attempts to make a distinction between the two is splitting hairs and irrelevant.

I disagree. Here’s why:

Creative ideas are some of the most fragile things, delicate and ephemeral. They are easily lost, and once lost nearly impossible to recreate. A key part of being effective with Creativity is to ensure each idea is captured—which given Creative ideas are often unpredictable (i.e. in the shower or while on a walk), can be challenging. And ideas often come in swarms, each spawning two more to the volume of ideas can feel overwhelming. Creative ideas cannot—and should not be evaluated in that moment as either good or bad, viable or fiction.

Innovation by contrast requires a more decisive hand in the evaluation of ideas, and the purposeful combination and alteration of those ideas to ensure the innovation’s eventual feasibility. Keeping in mind Innovation is only successful once the idea has been transformed into a tangible solution that has been tested and validated through iterations, often requiring their alteration or combination to ensure viability and acceptance by stakeholders.

As always, please feel free to share your thoughts.

(please note, all posts are moderated for appropriate content)