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Achieving the innovator’s advantage

“Creativity is thinking new things. Innovation is doing new things.” (Theodore Levitt)

“You can innovate by not doing anything, if it’s a conscious decision.” (Herb Kelleher)

Leadership is about getting the best from people, yet only recently has the creative talent of people at work been seen as a major asset that needs to be unlocked. This realization has highlighted two aspects of creativity and innovation.

First, everyone has the capacity for creativity. As well as being demonstrated in practice, this has been validated by psychological research. It is worth remembering that outside work individuals can be hugely creative – why not harness those skills at work? Indeed, to be fully motivated and achieve success, people often need to realize their creative potential.

The second aspect is that organizations increasingly require creativity and innovation for success: not simply to keep up with the rapid pace of change, competition and new opportunities, but also to solve problems and to make the best decisions.

This toolkit explains about creativity and innovation, outlining techniques for leaders to use to unlock their team’s creative potential.

Length: 13 pages

Contents:
The Benefits

Action Checklist: Mastering Creativity and Innovation
• Understand that good ideas can come from anywhere
• Focus on what is required for the task, the team and the individual
• Ensure that innovations are realistic
• Plan the implementation of new ideas
• Plan profitable product development
• Consider the potential for customization and customer-intelligent products
• Apply the principles of profit-driven innovation

Avoiding Problems – this includes avoiding potential pitfalls such as: lack of confidence; perfectionism and self-criticism; organizational cultures; resistance to the change that creativity implies, and lack of courage, conviction or decisiveness.

Dos and Don’ts

Key Questions

Deep Dive Prototyping – this is a focused, team approach to developing solutions to specific problems or challenges. It harnesses the ideas of everyone in a team in a creative, stimulating, focused, energetic, fun and useful way.

Things You Can Do
• Find and generate new ideas and insights
• Use vertical and lateral thinking
• Adopt a questioning approach
• Successfully challenge assumptions
• Use mind mapping and brainstorming techniques
• Remove constraints and continue driving innovation
• Identify and overcome barriers to innovation

Further Action

Further Information