Organisations don’t lack creativity, they often lack creative confidence. Innovative ideas are often fragile and they need to be incubated and fostered. This doesn’t mean these ideas shouldn’t be subjected to critical analysis, but it should be made clear that goal of constructive debate is to uncover the truth and not some cheap power ploy. This culture of common empathy and of giving new perspectives a shot requires fungibility of mind which in turn boosts the collective ‘creative confidence’ of the people on the floor.
Harder part of any innovation is the baseline confidence in thinking from some core first principles and ignoring the abstractions which build on top of those. Abstractions conceal the truth sometimes or atleast make status quo look immutable.
‘Somebody must have thought of and rejected this idea before’ – nothing kills newer ideas more than this notional concept of ‘everything which had to be done has been done’. It’s NOT. World / Universe is being built right now. Feel free to add your contribution to it.
Ishaan Bhola 