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Creativity as a Life Skill for Innovation

Creativity as a Life Skill for Innovation

Jan Spruijt

One of my favorite reads of the last couple of years is the work “Creative Leadership: Skills that drive innovation”, written by Puccio, Mance and Murdock. They argue that by making use of the right thinking skills an individual should be able to think outside their ‘area of familiarity’. The origin of radical innovation begins outside this so-called zone of comfort. By making use of the right converging techniques the individual should be able to make deliberate decisions between alternatives. See figure 1.

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Puccio et al. mention the following essential thinking skills necessesary for diverging and converging:
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Affective Skills (Puccio, Mance, Murdock)

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Cognitive Skills (Puccio, Mance, Murdock)

Recently, Puccio gave a wonderful Ted-presentation about creativity:

“Innovation does not happen in a vacuum”

Jan Spruijt

Last month, Rogier van der Heide, Chief Design Officer of Philips Lighting, spoke at TEDxAmsterdam about Open Innovation. He explained a few beaatiful examples of collaboration in the design phase to maximize possible outcomes. An impressive 7-minute speech, in which he – instead of using the normal powerpoint sheets – touched the audience by showing video’s, playing with light effects, got ‘Fergie’ of the Black Eyed Peace on the stage and made an old Rembrandt litteraly alive. More information on his speech: here.

On the Philips website he adds: “In order to get to innovations, it is essential to collaborate well and to share knowledge. Innovating is not something you do alone, it works like a ‘pressure cooker’, in which the innovation of LED technology is being accelarated in the application for – for instance – the illumination of art and buildings.”

He rounds off his speech with the following quote:

“Innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’re never alone. No one has the key just by himself.”