I believe that people are born creative and I love innovation. I read many science fiction and fantasy books, and the thrill of a perspective altering story with can be life changing.

But being creative and innovative is seen as young and naive. It seems to be viewed as lacking in depth and research. This always saddens me.

I do understand that INNOVATION is a combination of creativity and execution. I think people believe however that if you are creative and have lots of ideas that you cannot control your work, lack focus and are easily distracted. It is like the impulsivity of childhood, the excitement from the new ideas is addicting. So have people just matured so much that they don’t get excited about new ideas or have they just squelched their creativity because of shame and the lack of credibility it can bring when you are vulnerable enough to put yourself and your ideas out there for criticism and judgement?

In one sense, I get this. Lacking execution skills can be a flaw of the creative. Being led by emotions can leave you forever in the shallow. When focus is so important in execution because people have a single vision to follow, this makes sense, but is it necessarily diametrically opposed to creativity? I think that creative people are action oriented, so starting ideas and not following through can be distracting others from the one goal. I get that. I don’t like it when there are too many things to focus on. If you don’t have a vision, a focus, a goal, and execute, you don’t get anywhere. This is “crazy-making” behavior and when you’re leading others you can’t do this, but does that mean that creativity and innovation have to die on the vine?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. It means that you have to use different skills to manage your creative and innovative people. It means that you give guidelines and barriers around what you can be innovative and creative around. It could also mean, recognizing and helping them with their execution skills.

How do you develop your most creative resource?

1. Proactively give them problems to solve
2. Make them step into execution
3. Always listen to their ideas open mindedly
4. DON’T QUENCH THAT FIRE