THE CATALYST: Is Creativity equivalent to Innovation?

By Felix Concepcion Veroya, PIE, AAE, CLF, MBB, CSM, MEng – IE

Creativity is often defined as the mental ability to conceptualize or imagine new, unusual or unique ideas; to see a new connection between seemingly random or unrelated things.

It is a common notion that when someone hear the words creativity and innovation, they associate the two terms and most of the times often used them interchangeably. At this point in time, we want to create a clear line between these two concepts. Creativity is a means and innovation is an end. Creativity is about thinking new and/or different ideas while innovation is about taking action to make ideas happen. Innovation requires creativity, but creativity does not equate to a successful innovation.

As the requirement for new ideas, products and services rapidly arise, the skill to be creative and innovative also becomes essential. These two skills can be innate to some but uncomfortable to others. Either way, to further develop one’s potential skill requires sharpening the saw of creativity and innovation. In the next chapters of this book, you will learn the fundamentals tools and techniques on how to hone your creativity.

Two modes of thinking that can help you to be creative.

As researchers and practitioners suggest, there are two thinking modes that are by far useful in the context of creativity and innovation: divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking means coming up with many ideas or alternatives to a problem and/or opportunity while convergent thinking means vetting the various ideas to identify the best workable ones.

The integration of the divergent and convergent thinking bring forth innovation by facilitating generation, enhancement, modelling and validating ideas through the process. When an individual begins with the use of divergent thinking, variety of perspectives lead to increased generation of ideas and the use of convergent thinking allows better selection of usable and feasible ones.

Five Steps for Improving Creativity

To make innovation happen, it will require an iterative and dynamic practice of the use of creativity and the underlying science behind it. The need to have the creative process basically consists of five steps and such tools under each step. Picking the right tools and techniques are classified into four classifications:

• Those used to improve creativity and enhance the problem identification skills of the individual.
• General techniques used to improve the creativity of groups.
• Systems-oriented techniques used to work with problem networks or “messes” as systems scientists call them.
• Tools used to specifically measure an organization’s productivity and innovation creativity IQ.

There are typically five steps for improving one’s creativity.

1. Preparation
2. Incubation
3. Insight
4. Evaluation
5. Elaboration

The table below summarizes the underlying tools and techniques to provide a clear understanding of the creativity and to use this on your respective work spaces and in everyday life. From a dozen of steps from the past, it has been reduced to five steps – in the areas of creativity, innovation and problem solving – less is more.

Table 1: Tools for Improving Creativity

If you are reading this and you think you need to be creative and innovative for your business or work or studies, I highly suggest that you take courses on how to improve this skill set as they are the included in the 21^st century skills of the workplace. Building these skills will help you to become a #significantlybetter professional.

For questions, concerns, advises and speaking engagements, please send an email to fcveroya@asklexph.com or visit asklexph.com/courses for free e-learning courses for professional development.