Image by Hugh MacLeod
Hugh MacLeod recently published an interesting take on the difference between creativity and innovation:
One of the buzzwords you hear a lot in the business world these days, is “Innovation”. Yes, it’s a genuinely worthy thing to aspire to. Genuine innovation creates lots of genuine value, every young intern knows this. Which is why people like to throw it around like confetti. It’s one of those words that sound good in meetings, regardless of how serious one is about ACTUALLY innovating ANYTHING.
Here’s some friendly advice for all you Innovation-buzzword fanboys: You don’t get to be more innovative, until you make yourself more creative FIRST.
“Innovative” is an “external” word. It can be measured. It generally talks about things that have been tested properly and found to have worked in the real world.
“Creative”, however, is more of an “internal” word. It’s subjective, it’s murkier. It’s far harder to measure, it’s far harder to define. It’s an inward journey, not outward. Which is why a lot of people in business try to keep the word out of their official lexicon, preferring instead more neutral, more externally-focused language like “Value”, “Excellence”, “Quality” and yes, “Innovation”.
Creative Dreamers vs Productive Innovators?
Hugh’s put his finger on an important distinction that I haven’t seen articulated quite like this before. He’s put me in mind of Theodore Levitt’s classic definition of creativity and innovation:
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.
In other words, it’s no use sitting around dreaming up fantastic ideas unless you’re prepared to do the hard work of making things happen. Levitt expands on this theme in an entertaining tirade in the Harvard Business Review:
‘Creativity’ is not the miraculous road to business growth and affluence that is so abundantly claimed these days… Those who extol the liberating virtues of corporate creativity… tend to confuse the getting of ideas with their implementation – that is, confuse creativity in the abstract with practical innovation.
(Theodore Levitt, ‘Creativity Is Not Enough’ (1963))
Levitt doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to creative daydreamers:
Since business is a uniquely ‘get things done’ institution, creativity without action-oriented follow-through is a uniquely barren form of individual behaviour. Actually, in a sense, it is even irresponsible. This is because: (1) The creative man who tosses out ideas and does nothing to help them get implemented is shirking any responsibility for one of the prime requisites of the business, namely, action; and (2) by avoiding follow-through, he is behaving in an organizationally intolerable – or, at best, sloppy – fashion.
So for Levitt:
Creativity = Ideas
but
Innovation = Ideas + Action
Levitt highlights another important distinction between creativity and innovation:
the ideas are often judged more by their novelty than by their potential usefulness, either to consumers or to the company.
So:
Creativity = Novelty
but
Innovation = Novelty + Value
Levitt’s article was written over 40 years ago, but it’s still commonplace for writers to distinguish between creativity and innovation on grounds of ideas and action, novelty and value:
Often, in common parlance, the words creativity and innovation are used interchangeably. They shouldn’t be, because while creativity implies coming up with ideas, ‘it’s the bringing ideas to life’ . . . that makes innovation the distinct undertaking it is.
(Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein and Robert Shelton, Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It (2006))Creativity: the generation of new ideas by approaching problems or existing practices in innovative or imaginative ways… Creativity is linked to innovation, which is the process of taking a new idea and turning it into a market offering.
(Business: The Ultimate Resource, Bloomsbury, 2002)
The distinction is alive and well on the internet, in cut-and-dried definitions of creativity vs innovation and Innovation vs Creativity, and among bloggers keen to confront us with ‘the ugly truth’ that creativity is merely ‘a way of thinking’ and therefore ‘a subset of innovation’.
The message is clear: creativity is all very well for intellectuals and bohemians sitting around on bean bags, but it takes an innovator to get things done.
It’s hard to argue with the logic. No reasonable person would claim ideas are more valuable than action – but then creative people are notoriously unreasonable.
Or are they?
Creativity Strikes Back
Most of the examples I’ve quoted so far are from business authors. But if we look at the psychological literature on creativity and innovation, it’s like going through the looking glass. (I’ve added bold to the following quotations to highlight the key terms.)
Psychological definitions of creativity generally contain two separate components. In the first place, creativity requires that we make or think something new, or a new combination of existing elements. This is the element of novelty or innovation… However, mere novelty is not enough. To be creative, the idea must also be useful, or valuable.
(Chris Bilton, Management and Creativity (2006))
Bilton is not just talking about ideas – note that he refers to ‘making’ as well as ‘thinking’. So on this side of the looking glass, the terms of the equations are reversed:
Innovation = ‘mere novelty’
but
Creativity = Novelty + Value
and
Creativity = Ideas + Action
He’s not alone in this view of creativity:
Like most creativity researchers, we rely on a product definition: A product is viewed as creative to the extent that it is both a novel response and an appropriate, useful, correct, or valuable response to an open-ended task.7
A ‘product definition’ means that a mere idea is not enough to qualify as creativity – action is needed to transform the idea into a product.
Sound familiar? Here are a few more definitions of creativity:
the concept of creativity is value-laden. A creative idea must be useful, illuminating or challenging in some way.’
(Margaret Boden, The Creative Mind (1990))In business, originality isn’t enough. To be creative, an idea must also be appropriate – useful and actionable. It must somehow influence the way business gets done – by improving a product, for instance, or by opening up a new way to approach a process.
(Teresa Amabile, ‘How to Kill Creativity’ (1998))The study of creativity has generated a wide-ranging variety of definitions… However, most contemporary researchers and theorists have adopted a definition that focuses on the product or outcome of a product development process… in the current study we defined creative performance as products, ideas or procedures that satisfy two conditions: (1) they are novel or original and (2) they are potentially relevant for, or useful to, an organization.
(G. R. Oldham and A. Cummings, ‘Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work’ (1996))
I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get a sense of déjà vu.
Chris Bilton confronts the discrepancy between the two worlds head on:
In the management literature on innovation, some authors reverse my distinction between ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’, with creativity equating to ‘mere novelty’ and innovation encompassing the dualism of novelty and fitness for purpose
Semantic differences aside, it should be noted that the argument – that two elements (novelty and fitness) are necessary to qualify as innovation / creativity is fundamentally the same.
(Management and Creativity)
So when you look carefully at the definitions, there is in fact no essential difference between creativity and innovation. Not for anyone who takes either of them seriously. Everyone basically agrees on the importance of ideas + action and novelty + value. From this angle, arguments about the superiority of innovation to creativity start to look like macho one-upmanship.
And this is why I like Hugh’s post so much – logically, the two concepts may be the same, but emotionally they have very different connotations:
‘Innovation’ has the feel of an external process, which corporate types are comfortable measuring and tabulating. But Hugh reminds us that you can’t have any of this without a creative fire in your belly.
Which means not being afraid to go to that messy, subjective, risky place where the difference between success and failure, praise and ridicule is balanced on a razor’s edge.
What’s the Difference between Creativity and Innovation?
What do the words ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ mean to you?
Do you think they are basically the same or are there important differences?
Are you more comfortable describing yourself as ‘creative’ or ‘innovative’?
About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a poet and creative coach.
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« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next »Creativity means getting novel ideas .
Invention : By spending time/money you get something new
Innovation : quantifiable gain from your idea/
Tesla spent money to create his inventions but was unable to monetize them. Innovators produce, market and profit from their innovations. Inventors may or may not profit from their work.
the movie The Ugly Truth is an interesting movie and i really love Katherine Heigl _
actually, i watched this movie twice because i sort of laughed a lot on the ugly truth movie "'-
A little long winded and I hope food for thought.
Another thought(s) perhaps? We all have our own definitions according to our particular prejudice (prejudice not to be confused with simply negativity, but to mean a 'particular feeling about something').
Creativity and Innovation to me have many meanings! In my reality, most of it is in not 'reinventing the wheel', but in giving the old wheel a new function and perhaps the resulting outcome will be Innovation.
I may have a 'creative' thought that I can put into form as:
1) a media applied to a medium (such as oils to a canvas or word to a written document), painting, literature, poetry, entertainment, etc.
or
2) an innovative idea about how to utilize an existing 'product' that is not what it was originally intended for, such as taking a product at the end of it's marketing life and giving it new life through function OR perceived image. (A bit self-serving perhaps), but years ago (1968/9?) I sat in a client strategy session between a major advertising agency (as an employee of the agency) and a major manufacturer of a consumer laundry detergent. This was during/after the American Recession of the 70's brought about by an 'oil crisis'. The product was Cheer. The question/problem was a 'new' more appropriate slogan for a product at the end of its' marketing maturity or into the decline cycle. I listened to dozens of 'ideas' being bantered about while studying the package. On the package was a slogan - All Temperature Cheer. Finally, after hours of creative ideas were passed and rejected and thousands of billable dollars were spent, I stepped out of my defined functional boundary, and suggested "All-Tempa-Cheer". As far as I know, it is still the current slogan. Creativity or Innovation?
3) Another personal business circumstance in the 1980's ended up being the birth of the concept of "sales force automation" - an 'accidental' utilization of new technology that was engineered/introduced for another function. What resulted in (#4 Below) to me is a clear example of creativity leading to innovation.
As a consultant, I was helping a client automate their sales and order process. In this period of 'ancient' history, when a Sales Representative would make a sale, they would fill in an Order Book (carbon paper - not NCR), mail the order back to the main office and then the order would be fulfilled. This sometimes could take weeks. The company wanted to speed this process up, if possible. New technology had been introduced that allowed 'data' to be transmitted via the acoustic coupler (not a consumer product), which used a telephone handset and transmitted at a speed of up to 300 baud. To transmit information the acoustic coupler converted data into sound signals, sent those signals over phone lines, and then the receiving acoustic coupler interpreted those signals. A typical 1-page order form could take as long as 5 minutes to transmit, but that was certainly more efficient than sending the form via US Postal Service. Faxing (fascimile) was not reasonable during this time period as a fax machine sold for as little as $4,500 and as much as $20,000 in l982.
According IBM Corporation, I am the 'father' of what is known widely today as Sales Force Automation - though I did not do anything more than take existing technology and merge it together to solve a problem other that what the technology was originally designed for.
This was accomplished by porting their Order Entry sofware to a laptop/portable computer (also a new technology for the time) that would output a plain text (ASCII) document. It worked and the client shortened the Order Fulfillment process by weeks! Again, Creativity or Innovation?
4) The first test sales representative was driving a 1982 Ford Econoline Van. His laptop was 'stored' on the passenger seat. He was forced to slam on his brakes on a freeway and the laptop went airborne and crashed into the dash board, which at that point in history was not a cushioned part of the vehicle. It fell about two and a half feet to the floor of the van and broke into pieces. When he brought it into the corporate office, the question asked me was "what do we do now"?
Having just been to the dentist the thought came to mind that perhaps the solution was some kind of 'table' or 'desk' that would mount to a vehicle floor to hold the laptop more securely. Within 9 months I had designed and Patented (a vast waste of money) a platform/device, with assistance of a mechanical engineer friend and introduced the first "The Mobile Desk". A device that mounts in a vehicle to hold an electronic device(s). Again, Creativity or Innovation?
5) Lack of Business Creativity or Innovation? I took this finished product concept to independent investors and financial institutions seeking investors and/or SBA money. The results were a resounding "no" or "your are nuts - this product will never take off". Above I mentioned that to me "No is not an option". I had seen it work and I knew or projected that it would be a viable product, so I slowly, because of limited resources, moved forward on my own.
While I was not the market leader of this product when I 'retired' in September 2010, I had sold over 500,000 of the product in a variety of versions. The last industry numbers I saw were that over 5,000,000 of this concept, in various forms, had been marketed. Once again, Creativity or Innovation?
5) The introduction of the last named product "Epitome®" entailed further innovation of what a mobile desk could contain and in fact did provide 12V DC, 110V AC, USB, IEEE Firewire and Bluetooth technology to the product - all power provided from a single 12V source.
The biggest outgrowth result of the introduction of this product concept was the spawning of a retail industry that caters to the mobile office. At one point my company had over 40,000 SKU's. I had many competitors that parroted my ideas. I was never concerned as competition spawns creativity and creative growth. Again, Creativity or Innovation?
Sadly, now that I have 'retired' I find that I do not really want to be 'retired' but lack the creativity or innovation to take my knowledge to developing Third World Countries to try to teach what little I know - but I am working on it and have relocated to Honduras to see if I can do so in a country that has grown to expect 'entitlement' much as the US has!
Thanks for the thoughtful post!
I'll start by saying your conclusion of innovation essentially being equal to creativity doesn't really follow from the arguments you give. My reasoning is this: ideas + action is not the same as novelty + value. From what I can see, no one seems to be arguing that creativity involves physical action, but innovation does not. Similarly, no one seems to be arguing that innovation by definition involves only valuable ideas, while creativity is indifferent. Thus it seems to me that a point can be made for their distinction. The real question, then, is whether it is more important to have valuable ideas, or whether it is more important to act on them.
I think that valuable ideas and their implementation, both are important in their own way.
Good ideas will be put into action sooner or later. But till such time, that they are implemented their value is notional. Real value comes out of implementing good ideas. Similarly, if you have a lot of good ideas but don't have the resources to implement them, you cannot derive value out of these ideas.
Valuable ideas and their implementation both are important and complementary to each other. Value can be achieved only be using both as complements to each other. We really cannot say that one is more important than the other.
I have just found this out and presumably I took time to appreciate the discussion on "creative", "creativity" and "innovation". My questions are; can one be innovative when he/she is not creative? then, what makes people more creative (and some times more innovative) than others? I need your opinions on their antecedents.
Hi Ernesto,
I'll reply to your question with Mark's permission. Hi Mark, great post by the way. For me, Hugh and Levitts beautifully summed it up.
For the past 10 years I have been flirting with creativity (and innovation) whether in the artistic, scientific and legal field. I have been a scientific inventor and an innovator in the legal and artistic field. Now I also teach what I have learnt (as a creativity coach) and I also write about it.
I personally cannot come up with an innovation without first thinking creatively. I need to enter my creative state of mind and search for creative sparks, hints, analogies or metaphors. Very often most of the ideas are not worth pursuing. Sometimes some ideas might seem interesting at first sight, but are hard to apply or far from being appropriate or useful. Then, there are those ideas that seem to fit perfectly with what you are looking. You still have to work on them a bit to match perfectly what you are looking for. Now, if my idea is a completely new product, you'll call it invention. If the idea improves on an existing idea or process, you'll call it innovation.
Whether it's an invention or an innovation, everything starts from my creative state of mind.
Don't get caught up with definitions if you really want to create and innovate, you'll end up spending all your time defending positions and feeling happy that you know the meaning, at least on paper.
We are all different and not all techniques apply to everybody. Techniques that work for me might not work for you. The only way to know is to put them into practice and see for yourself. Creating should be a fun process, though I don't disagree it can be painful when you become too strict with yourself. But it's great fun.
Haven't answered your question as it would be as long as the whole chapter in my book - Discover Law Through Art : Combining Art, Science and Law to stimulate Creativity.
Just came across this article recently. Great topic and interesting discussion! Regarding the conclusion at the end of the article:
"So when you look carefully at the definitions, there is in fact no essential difference between creativity and innovation. Not for anyone who takes either of them seriously. Everyone basically agrees on the importance of ideas + action and novelty + value. From this angle, arguments about the superiority of innovation to creativity start to look like macho one-upmanship"
As far as superiority goes, I agree that there is no NEED to define the difference between creativity and innovation. But what if we view the issue from a different angle? What if we temporarily forget about the words “innovative” and “creative”, and focus instead on...
ideas?
action?
novelty?
value?
Is there a NEED to define the cognition/synthesis of an idea separate from the cognition/synthesis + action? Similarly, is there a need to define ideas that are novel versus ideas that are both novel and have value?
What if a member of our creative team produces content that has 3 of those 4 points? Do we tell them, “you’re creative/innovative minus that value bit at the end?” Do we use the words creative or innovative to describe this situation at all? Are there words other than creative or innovative that we can use to more accurately describe the situation?
For me, there IS a need to define the two things separately… because, well… I like use a single word to describe the situation… it saves me a lot of time :)
Now the question becomes, which words do we use? Unless there is an official “word definition committee” that we can submit a review request to… I don’t think it matters as the two are already being used interchangeably. I think the trick is to know what you NEED it to mean... make sure this definition is in alignment with your team... then use it accordingly.
For myself… I lean a bit more toward the definition provided at the beginning. Why? Well, it just seems to be how the majority of people are using it, and I spend less time having to align my definition with theirs.
I have rarely heard a painting described as innovative, but I have heard it described as creative. And I have more frequently heard that new all-in-one “blender/pancake-flipper/baby-diaper-changer” product defined as innovative.
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All in all,innovation has something tom do with creativity.Innovation is a process towards implementing creative ideas while on the other hand creativity is simply ideas whether outwardly expressed or inwardly expressed.