Two Questions to get the Creative Juices Flowing By Roy Osing
There are significant challenges
facing innovation in any organization.
People are taught to be cautious
and to make “informed” decisions based on thorough and rigorous analysis. As a
result the process tends to be long and arduous and faces numerous levels of
scrutiny before a decision is finally reached. Paralysis by analysis often sets
in and current business momentum is maintained. Nothing changes.
People are taught to avoid making
mistakes. They witness how punishment is handed out to their colleagues and
decide that risky actions have too much personal downside; they prefer the
status quo. Nothing changes.
These powerful forces act against
creativity in most organizations; here is my “formula” for letting the
innovative juices flow:
1. Creativity = “How do we
get there?”
If you know how to get from “A” to
“B” the Creative Incentive Quotient – CIQ – is zero. On the other hand, if you
have absolutely no idea how to reach your destination the CIQ is high.
Creativity is not spawned by
applying analytical tools that draw upon historic performance to predict future
results. Trend line thinking stultifies breakthrough action as it merely
extends past performance with the expectation that the future will somehow
mirror it.
Creativity is driven by declaring a
goal without knowing exactly how it will be achieved and doing the hard
entrepreneurial work to figure it out. It’s about having the intestinal
fortitude to enter uncharted waters, pointing your ship in the general
direction you want to go, and navigating – creating – as you go.
Creativity is killed by not wanting
to go forward without knowing how the end goal will be achieved. I see people
shut down when confronted with the objective of doubling revenue in 24 months
because they don’t know how to do it. They stop, say the objective is
“unrealistic” and adopt an uninspiring target that they think they can achieve.
CIQ = 0. Creative juices don’t flow.
Creative juices flow more when the
way to achieve the goal is unclear when you begin.
2. Creativity = “What do we
have to do differently?”
Listen to the conversation that
pervades most organizations today: “What is best in class doing?” is the driver
of most activity. Benchmarking the leader of the pack and copying them absorbs
everyone’s time and energy; yet even if you are successful you remain in the
pack like everyone else.
Benchmarking
is the tool of sameness. It does not get the creative juices flowing, and
you won’t separate yourself from the pack. CIQ = low (some juice might flow as
improvements are made based on others’ experience)
And if you don’t stand-out from the
pack, what does your long term future look like? It goes like this: sameness =
mediocrity = invisibility = irrelevance = dying = dead (sooner or later).
To be successful in the long run,
CIQ MUST be high; creativity must force you out of the pack and make you
relevant and unique.
Creativity is launched by asking
these questions: “How can we BE DiFFERENT?”, “How can we BE CoNTRARIAN?”, “How
can we go in the OpPOSITE direction to the leader of the pack?”.
The unknown and uniqueness are the
drivers of creativity; what’s your CIQ?
"Roy Osing (@royosing) is a
former President and CMO with over 33 years of leadership experience covering
all the major business functions including business strategy, marketing, sales,
customer service and people development. He is a blogger, content marketer,
educator, coach, adviser and the author of the book series Be
Different or Be Dead. "
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