Creativity and Innovation: Different qualities, different conditions
Creativity and innovation are both vital to organisational effectiveness in highly demanding and competitive environments. But a recent article by Michael West of Aston Business School flags up that these are quite different qualities, requiring different conditions. Creativity requires individuals who feel free from threat and pressure and who work in a supportive environment. In the wrong environment, high levels of stress lead to greater reliance on habitual solutions and psychological threats and time pressures can cause more rigid thinking.
Conversely, innovation usually occurs when people or groups are facing high levels of demand or even threat - the external stimulus is necessary to prompt the extra effort required to innovate. Much research shows that work demands provide such a stimulus; we innovate more when we are under pressure. Implementing change is hard work and there must be a strong spur for action. For example, manufacturing organisations with low market share for their main product are more likely to develop new products.
Innovation is also more likely to be seen where there is commitment to and support for it. Allowing time and a budget with which to do so, encourages innovation; employees frequently have ideas for improving their workplaces, processes, products or services. At 3M, staff are encouraged to spend 15% of their time 'bootlegging'; working on pet ideas that could become new products. Furthermore, a link has been shown between innovation and expenditure on research and development. However, although many organisations include a commitment to innovation in their philosophies, the realisation of their commitment is poor.
Team innovation occurs when a diverse group has both high external demands and when members work together effectively. In a recent study in the NHS, teams made up of a greater number of professional groups had higher levels of innovation, independent of the size of the team.
Evidence suggests that learning and innovation will only take place where group members trust one anothers' intentions and where there is 'team safety'. For example, learning-oriented NHS teams acknowledge errors and devise innovations to prevent them in the future. Innovation is also vital to people's satisfaction at work. In a recent study, managers who moved into jobs which, compared to their previous jobs, offered them fewer opportunities to be innovative in their work, showed a bigger decline in mental health than those who became unemployed.
So, the challenge for organisations is to create the conditions for intelligent creativity and innovation. A supportive and safe environment that is free from pressure is required for people to come up with ideas, and a commitment to innovation that allows people to act upon an external threat is needed for implementation of the ideas.