Creativity and innovation

Faced with hard times, the company offered a bonus of one Ten Thousand Pesos to any employee who could come up with a way of saving money. The bonus went to a young woman in accounting who suggested limiting future bonuses to two hundred Pesos. Now that’s creativity for you.

In times of crisis, business establishments need to be creative.

Most business owners I know would cite “Being Creative” as one of the top business virtues. And when I say “Creative” I do not refer to accounting as the way “shrewd and cunning people know it to be.”

Nothing is more overrated than a new idea. Ideas by themselves are worthless. It’s what you do with them that matters. You can wake up in the morning and entertain the thought of combining the features of Y and Z, and produce product X and then we’d have a terrific service…..” This process might be entertaining and it may even serve as a great conversation piece during your next coffee shop conversation but it does not do anything to advance your business. The concept of cell phones had been featured in the Buck Rogers serials back in the 1930s – but cell phones didn’t come into commercial­ use until half a century later. Until then, it was merely an intriguing idea. If you don’t develop the idea, it remains just that, an idea. You need to do something with the ideas you have. Sure you are creative but unless ideas are put into actions then it does not mean anything.

Now this is where innovation comes into the picture. Innovation is when you develop those ideas of yours and do something with them. Can there be innovation without a new idea? “Sure,” says marketing guru Seth Godin. Godin says “mak­ing a product “new and improved” qualifies as innovation. So does streamlining a production process. But incremen­tal change rarely results in a huge competitive advantage. True innovation occurs only when companies come up with a concept that has never existed before (the idea) and work to develop it into a commercial product or service-creativity and innovation.

Wouldn’t it be a good idea for you as a leader to say to your people this: “five years from now, I want at least 30 percent of sales to come from products or services that do not exist today?” Cast this compelling vision and provide the necessary support for them to deliver on this vision?

Listen to what popular people have to say about this:

• “An idea doesn’t become an innovation until it is widely adopted and incorporated into people’s daily lives:” Says Art Fry, former corporate scientist, 3M, and inventor of the Post-it note

• “My skill is the ability to put ideas together. If you give me a blank piece of paper, I will give you a blank piece of paper back. I find imitating and innovating a creative exercise. What I am able to do is take a couple of different ideas and merge them so they appear to be something different. And I think that is what artists do:’ says Leslie H. Wexner, former chairman and CEO, Limited Brands

• “You just can’t grow revenue significantly unless you bring jaw-dropping new products and services to customers:” says author Gary Hamel

But you have to be sure that your creative idea, when executed through innovation should be able to produce revenues. And why is this so? Because if your cool new product or service doesn’t generate enough money to cover costs and make a profit, it isn’t innovation, it’s art. If you want art, go to a museum. If you want awards, If you covet awards, go to Hollywood.

Leaders should provide an environment for people to be innovative. May I surprise you by saying that not a lot of creative ideas emanate from the cubicle. But when leaders provide their people with a safe laboratory for experiment, a rewards system for creative ideas that are actually executed and the recognition that is accorded them, then be pleasantly surprised at how creative your people are.

Last piece of advice. There are many middle managers in corporations whose chief mission in life is to kill creativity by shooting down or stealing ideas from their own people. Send these people to prison and put them in solitary confinement.

Tough times need creative ideas and innovation to take place.

And why is this so? Borrowing the popular title of a book written by a clergyman, allow me to creatively say: “Tough times do not last but creative people do!”

(Click on to www.franciskong.com and send me your feedback or you can also listen to my radio program “Business Matters” aired 8:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. weekdays over 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.)