More Than Ideas: How to Turn Creativity into Organizational Innovation

A few weeks ago, in a company-wide presentation, the CEO talked about the value of creativity. Using examples from this year’s projects, he laid out how creativity had been essential to making a difference in our work. Beyond how inspiring the message was, my own thoughts kept circling around the challenge of turning that “creativity” into real, tangible innovation.

We probably all have our own examples of creative solutions to problems and opportunities. But going from anecdotes to an innovative organizational culture is a very different thing. Creativity and innovation raise at least two questions — questions that kept spinning in my head all through the CEO’s presentation:

• what can we do to promote creative thinking?

• how do we harness creativity and use it as an input to drive business innovation, whether for the company’s benefit or our clients'?

And to start, let me say this plainly and clearly: creativity and innovation are NOT the same thing.

The Mistake of Confusing Innovation with Creativity

William “Bill” E. Coyne, who was once Senior VP of Research and Development at 3M, once said: “Creativity is thinking up new and appropriate ideas, while innovation is the successful implementation of those ideas within an organization. In other words, creativity is the concept and innovation is the process.”

That wonderful definition raises two major challenges:

1. creating a healthy space where new ideas are valued, and

2. developing the organizational processes needed to turn the best ideas into reality — and, of course, generating value for the organization itself, its teams, its clients, or its suppliers.

“Creativity is thinking up new and appropriate ideas, while innovation is the successful implementation of those ideas within an organization. In other words, creativity is the concept and innovation is the process.” — William Coyne

And to understand those challenges, it’s important to know the adversary — or adversaries — of innovation inside organizations.

The word adversary implies there are conflicting interests. And I prefer the term adversary over enemy, because the latter implies “bad intent,” which isn’t the rule in an organizational setting.

For example, in professional soccer, many die-hard fans assume that fans of rival teams are enemies. That visceral hatred makes no sense to me. It’s true they’re adversaries with conflicting interests, but that doesn’t mean deep resentment has to exist between the members of both groups. Sun Tzu put it well in his masterpiece “The Art of War .”

Adversaries of Innovation

At first glance, every organization wants to be innovative. But the reality is that many internal decisions — strategic or everyday — pose real challenges to innovation. Some of the most important ones are:

Individualism

I haven’t read the first organizational statement praising the value of individualism, but it’s undeniable that there are organizational cultures built around the figure of the hero. Some organizations design variable compensation schemes based on isolated individual results rather than teamwork. This, under the excuse of healthy competition, often results in a messy dichotomy where the same company has winners and losers.

Individualism is necessary in some contexts. Even so, finding the balance and promoting teamwork, collaboration, and “win-win” thinking is essential to fostering innovation. Otherwise, it can lead to unnecessary secrecy that, ultimately, limits the main input of innovation: ideas.

Short-termism

The famous documentary “The Corporation ” argues that organizations have no memory. Every fiscal year, companies start over, and the financial result becomes the first and only goal. It’s easy to validate this hypothesis in publicly traded organizations. Track record, history, or long-term vision can do little to nothing against EBITDA.

A clear example of how short-term thinking affects innovation is the pressure on income. In many companies, the time allowed for training or acquiring new knowledge and skills is limited — or nonexistent. There are even organizations that promote the idea that people should study or develop new skills on their “personal time,” rather than as part of doing their job at the company.

Of course each person is responsible for their own growth, but shouldn’t it be a joint effort? What happened to the win-win spirit? Are we really more motivated knowing that the company we work for won’t let us develop new capabilities, and won’t give us any time to do it? What if it’s the company itself that urgently needs those new capabilities?

The Cult of Success

I want to be clear: nobody likes to fail. Failing is painful, and for some, unacceptable. But we have to accept it — trying new ideas and investing in them doesn’t guarantee success. A culture of innovation requires investment and risk.

If innovation always meant being right and being successful, everyone in the world would be a successful entrepreneur. The truth is that innovative organizations are simply better prepared to validate their ideas, test them, and discard them when needed.

Fail Fast, Fail Safe, Fail Cheap

If an organization is built on the idea of “always winning,” people will start betting on safe solutions with predictable outcomes.

Productivity

I don’t want to cause panic, but remember, we’re talking about adversaries. If your goal is to be 100% productive, it’s clear you won’t have time to propose new ideas, test them, and discard them when necessary.

A baker who wants to be 100% productive can’t stop to think about what other products they could develop, or what other baking techniques could save money, improve flavor, or produce something healthier.

Productivity is essential, but it can’t be the only goal.

Inertia

Inertia is the ability of a body — like an organization — to keep its state unchanged. This inertia implies resistance to change. Innovation is “change” — doing things differently to achieve different results.

How many times do we do something one way or another without stopping to evaluate whether there’s a better way? How many times were we able to challenge the status quo?

Bureaucracy

This is perhaps the easiest adversary to spot. If creativity is the ease with which new, valuable ideas come about, then the ease of sharing those ideas, assessing their potential, and working on the most promising ones will be a decisive factor in making sure new ideas keep coming.

How many times have we discarded an idea without even sharing it with the rest of the team, just from thinking about all the organizational obstacles it would face?

Yuval Noah Harari talks, in his latest book Nexus , about bureaucracy, and presents scenarios where it’s necessary — but in excess, it can be very damaging to an organization’s performance, and of course, to innovation within it.

Adversaries aren’t necessarily bad. A focus on short-term results and productivity can be the key to getting through a period of crisis, but in the long run, it can destroy organizational culture, the sense of belonging, and innovation.

A lack of bureaucracy can be useful in small organizations and startups that need agility and adaptability while they mature as a business, but at scale, the absence of bureaucracy can lead to inefficiencies, cost overruns, and a lack of alignment.

Innovation as a Competitive Advantage

The article Are Innovative Companies More Profitable? , published in MIT Sloan Management Review, shows a correlation between a company’s profitability and its ability to generate “winning ideas.”

Fostering an environment where new ideas are heard, debated, and valued increases people’s confidence in contributing ideas and, therefore, raises the odds of finding those “winning ideas.”

The ability to innovate isn’t just about having creative individuals on the team — it takes a group effort to identify winning ideas, along with the processes and executive decision-making needed to invest in those ideas so that some of them turn into value for the business and a tangible benefit for stakeholders.

The Role of Leaders in Innovation

Innovation requires three foundational elements. Without them, innovation can’t exist. Of course, on top of these three elements, each organization can add and complete its own model to define its distinctive brand, but without these three, real innovation is simply not going to happen.

1. Psychological Safety

Many people confuse psychological safety with always being happy at work, free of stress and worry. That simplistic view only leads to frustration. Psychological safety is “the belief that it’s completely fine, and in fact expected, for people to speak openly about their concerns, doubts, ideas, and even the mistakes they’ve made” — Amy C. Edmondson, author of the excellent book The Fearless Organization , whom you can also watch in an exceptional TEDxHGSE talk on YouTube about how to build a psychologically safe workplace .

Leadership’s role is critical in building and developing psychological safety, through how leaders communicate and work with others — not just in good times, but when things get hard, doubts creep in, mistakes happen, and people generally have a lot more on their minds.

Promoting Psychological Safety

To promote psychological safety in teams and organizations, leaders can:

• Accept and acknowledge vulnerability, and model behaviors that show it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them. Human beings are the essence of innovation and the only real vehicle for ideas — no matter how “creative” AI may seem, it isn’t, not really (not yet).

• Promote a curious spirit, ask open questions, and value the contributions of every team member — in my case, with a bit of dark humor, I always make sure everyone gets a chance to speak.

• Respond with the goal of building and growing, even in the face of a mistake — we need to make sure every idea and concern is received with respect, even if it doesn’t get implemented. Those who know me know that some teasing is always present on the team, but it’s never meant to hurt or affect anyone — it’s there to highlight the mistake, promote learning, and, why not, get a laugh — when the context allows for it, of course. I’ve spent more than two decades teaching in master’s programs at different universities and business schools, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people learn better and faster with fun and respect.

• Set a vision for the future and a purpose. I take a moment to really think about this one. As a programmer at heart — a computer engineer by profession — it’s hard not to think that vision and purpose are just pretty words, but the experience of leading has taught me that when a team is clear on the why and the where-to, the how becomes far more creative and efficient. I relate a lot to David Marquet’s talk on Greatness and that style of leadership.

2. A Cost Structure That Accounts for Innovation

If leaders play a central role in building an innovative way of working, the organization is the one that provides the main input: time.

In my case, having worked my whole career in IT and outsourced services, the challenge is defining a consistent cost model that includes, from the start, budget (and of course time) for people to train, get certified, attend professional events, connect with more people, and, of course, think. Ideas won’t come easily, or won’t be heard, if you’re always fully focused and in your flow state staring at a screen.

Productivity as the Only Goal

Let’s look at a generic example of the impact that setting a 100%-productivity target has on innovation.

Most of a company’s operations or core teams work to produce an output that’s sold to one or several clients. If we make shoes, keeping our employees 100% assigned on every shift means more shoes get produced — Henry Gantt would surely have drawn one of his original charts to project shoe output.

But a team dedicated exclusively to production has no time to innovate, to think of better and more efficient ways to do the work, or to design different products to make sure we keep selling — not just now, but in the future.

Forcing this goal also means no one can take vacation, or request medical leave, or, why not, get married and start a family. It’s the silly idea of equating humans with machines.

Innovation is a process, and therefore requires time — the time of the people who bring the most valuable input: ideas.

Questions to Answer

So the questions to answer are:

• How much time will I set aside for professional growth, acquiring new knowledge, testing new technologies, or simply attending professional events to catch new ideas? If we don’t understand the value of this investment, someone will surely say we’re not going to invest any time in it, or that people should do it on their own — that is, on their personal time. I’d invite you to read about cross-pollination and its impact on innovation — and no, I don’t mean bees.

• Does my whole team need to be productive at all times, or could I fund a team dedicated to research and development? Does my whole team need to always be productive, or can I have people sitting idle for a while, waiting for a new assignment? (It seems contradictory to have idle people, but think of an ambulance, whose purpose is to be available when needed — not, as some spreadsheet-optimization gurus think, to always be busy.)

• Does the cost structure account for the direct cost, as well as the cost of training and certifications? What incentives, besides gaining more knowledge, can team members have? Remember, we don’t always study what we like most — sometimes we study and prepare for what the company needs at a given moment.

There are numerous studies backing the importance of having a talent development and organizational capability-building program. People don’t just want to “work” — they want to grow, develop their potential, evolve.

3. Transparent Tracking Mechanisms

It can be a meeting cadence, a Kanban board, or a complex system of processes and IT tools. If it isn’t clear to everyone what happens to our ideas and contributions, there’s a good chance a different, hidden message gets through instead. A few years ago, a large client company had a very appealing slogan: “you can always make it happen.” But the general feeling of being ignored, and of team members’ opinions being dismissed, had completed the slogan with “you can always make it happen, but you’ll never know if it did.”

This anecdote shows that if it isn’t clear what happens to ideas, and how they’re analyzed, assessed, discarded, piloted, or turned into reality as products, services, or processes, the result will be a loss of credibility.

Innovation isn’t exclusive to a few people. Ideas sometimes arrive in a random moment of inspiration. So having a process — personal, team, or corporate — to follow up on those ideas is essential to developing an innovative culture.

4. Competition

Competition isn’t just good — it’s necessary, in the right proportion. Fostering a competitive spirit is key to making sure we’re truly testing the best ideas, and not just “the available ideas.”

You have to be very careful when setting up rewards and mechanisms for celebrating wins. Adversaries will be watching closely to take advantage and favor their own interests.

Innovation, Beyond the Talk

Innovation shows up in every organizational leader’s talking points. But the real difference lies in how leaders build the culture that lets creativity emerge and innovation flourish.