{"id":4081,"date":"2016-06-28T22:22:09","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T22:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/?p=4081"},"modified":"2022-03-22T16:59:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T16:59:05","slug":"creativity-final-competitive-advantage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2016\/06\/28\/creativity-final-competitive-advantage\/","title":{"rendered":"Creativity: The Final Competitive Advantage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"broke-people-are-genius-201__605\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Doug Stephens<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Right now your company is very likely sitting on a corporate asset of immeasurable value. It’s more precious than all the equipment, machinery and buildings you own. \u00a0 It\u2019s a tool so powerful it could reshape your company and perhaps even your entire industry. I would also wager that your organization has no idea where it\u2019s kept, how much of it you possess or how to deploy it to your advantage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m referring to human creativity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Almost every company I work with claims to prize innovation. They extol it as a corporate virtue\u00a0and core to their strategy.\u00a0\u00a0 Most see innovation as inextricably baked into their brand values. \u00a0And all seem to agree that the antidote to constant disruption is an equally constant level of innovation. In other words, innovation is the shit!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The problem is, I can easily\u00a0count on one hand the number of companies that actually invest in identifying, measuring, nurturing or rewarding the human organizational creativity that fuels such innovation. \u00a0This is particularly ironic because corporations are notorious for measuring even the most inconsequential and mind-numbing of things yet the vast value of creativity is most often overlooked or worse, it gets treated like black magic, something that simply\u00a0occurs as spontaneously as lightening strikes. \u00a0The upshot is that creativity is one of the least measured and most misunderstood assets a company possesses.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consequently, while almost all\u00a0companies aspire to be innovative, remarkably few ever actually are. \u00a0And\u00a0should we really be surprised? After all, how can you deploy the right people against innovation initiatives without understanding who your most creative employees are? How can you expect the organization to adopt innovation as a guiding mantra\u00a0without nurturing it. \u00a0How can you ask\u00a0people to make time to innovate without\u00a0rewarding the creativity that sparks it? \u00a0Clearly you can’t and this is a\u00a0problem, because there may not be any previous time in history when innovation has been more critical to business success.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So, if innovation and inventiveness are truly\u00a0a priority for your organization, here are a few first steps to consider along the way to becoming more innovative:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Avoid the leadership bias:<\/strong> Don\u2019t assume that your most experienced leaders are also your most creative forces. \u00a0Odds are they\u2019re not. In fact there has been significant research<\/a><\/strong> to suggest that the more suited an individual is to leadership, the less inherently creative they are likely to be. Sure, there are the Steve Jobs and Elon Musks of the world but let’s face it, most leaders don\u2019t work their way up the ladder by disrupting, challenging and pushing back against corporate norms. Yet this \u00a0need to challenge the status quo is precisely\u00a0what true creativity and innovation are all about. \u00a0So, while your leaders may\u00a0be super smart and great at what they do, this doesn’t make them creative. The tough part is\u00a0how to\u00a0break the news to them.<\/li>\n
  2. Test for creativity:<\/strong>\u00a0Equally problematic\u00a0can be operating on the premise that everyone is equally capable of coming up with innovative ideas – they’re not. That said, you can test to see who is more or less creative. Your company likely already tests for intelligence quotient and emotional quotient so why not test for individual creativity quotients \u2013 that is, a\u00a0person’s\u00a0innate ability to produce inventive yet useful ideas. Creativity is absolutely something that can be benchmarked through a variety of widely accepted tests<\/a>.<\/strong> By understanding in a systematic\u00a0manner who your most creative people are, you\u2019ll be better able to unleash the organization\u2019s creative capability by calling upon the most capable innovators.<\/li>\n
  3. Nurture Creativity:<\/strong> If you think creativity happens by sticking a group of people in a hotel conference room with a pot of coffee and a flip chart, you\u2019re going to be sadly disappointed. Google\u2019s Jonathan Rosenberg once said, \u201cCreativity can be allocated, it can be budgeted, it can be measured, it can be tracked and encouraged but it can’t be dictated.\u201d Creativity doesn\u2019t come from a tap that you turn on when you need it. It\u2019s an organic and fluid thing that can happen at any time. You can however, provide working conditions that are more conducive to fostering creative thinking. How and where people spend their working time can produce vast differences in
    \ntheir creative output.<\/li>\n
  4. Reward Creativity:<\/strong> Most companies reward success and that\u2019s a problem when it comes to innovation because many creative ideas are not successful in a convent\"\"<\/a>ional business sense. They may not produce immediate gains in sales, profit, customer satisfaction or market share. However, that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re
    \nnot valuable or don\u2019t help to evolve company strategy. Therefore, rewarding creativity means evaluating innovation on its own merits and celebrating the controlled but instructive failure that often accompanies it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    You can talk about innovation, you can wish for innovation but until you identify your most creative employees and give them the supportive culture and conditions\u00a0in which to innovate, you\u2019ll get nowhere. Only after you\u2019ve begun to identify, nurture and reward creativity will you begin to see its spoils. And, if you\u2019re like most organizations, chances are you\u2019re sitting on a goldmine.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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