Andrew Campbell, from the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre in London, asks an important question: Why is it, given that we've known for years that the key ingredients of innovation and creativity management are collaboration, encouraging diverse perspectives, nurturing ideas etc, that so few companies adopt these practices?
His answer: "What we don't understand is that innovation and creativity are value-destroying activities unless they are carefully contained. There are many more bad ideas than good ones and many more people who are passionate about ill-conceived business models than about those that will succeed. Give all that creativity a free hand, and you will get poorer--fast."
Agree? Does creativity typically destroy value and, if so, what is realistic expectation for creative processes to thrive in profit-driven corporations?
Source: The letters section of the March Harvard Business Review (subscription required)
Monday, March 16, 2009
Why are so few companies the hotbeds of innovation that everyone thinks they should be?
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1 comment:
As a former creative director with various ad agencies, I always believed this maxim: "You have to have hundreds of ideas to have one good one."
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The worst innovations start with ill-defined problems. Innovation should start with the consumer, yet many "innovators" try innovating first then trying to figure out why the consumer would want it.
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