“CIO Master” Tuning VIII: Creative Leap

Innovation is about having new knowledge and new processes. Innovation is about too much knowledge in terms of too many good creative ideas, and too little available resources. Innovation is about prioritization, a system that can “smell” the right idea at the right time and place. Innovation means something new and valuable. Innovation is relative and has context. And innovation is a critical component of business strategy, Often technology is a disruptive force of  catalyzing changes, and information provides the dots to spark innovation. So how to leverage IT to enable creative leaps and manage innovation more effectively?
What fuels creativity? It is a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors: On one hand, we have the level of curiosity, desire to learn and natural ability to maintain an open and inquisitive mind, and on the other hand, we have the conditions of the environment in which we operate, with all the restrictions, the needs, the gaps and pressures that might push our creative minds to soar and also push the organization to put more emphasis on innovation management effectiveness. What there isn't in it is any overt behavioural guidance, so the approach relies on robust, but not rigid structure and process to achieve the result, the participants bring domain knowledge and are guided through the process by facilitators, but the facilitators only manage the process, they don't intervene in content at all other than recording and intervention on behaviour is kept to a minimum. The innovation structure and culture are built on fine tuning and well alignment of people, process, and technology. One of the effects of the innovation structure is that it reduces the impact hierarchy has, so people are freed up by the structure, you don't have to tell them to be free of to think differently. So creativity can flow seamlessly and innovation can be managed more effortlessly.
Creative leap is the way to resolve any paradox via going up a level of abstraction: Creativity is consciousness. It's such desire that sends a true spark through, allowing one to see how all things can be both connected and or disconnected to create completely new forms, systems, and ideas.An individual artistic creativity is an innate and nonlinear activity, the “aha” moment; although creativity can not be taught, your creativity can be harnessed via continuous practice. However, at an organizational level, a systematic innovation process leads to the development of foundation to solve business problems , understanding the challenge, understanding boundaries and hurdles as well as stakeholders core discipline. Keep it simple with the purpose of calibrating the team while enabling free thinking without judgment. Designing strategic conversations to deal with complex problems with multiple stakeholders so that conflicting interests could be reconciled. In the process of reconciliation, there is almost always a need for a creative leap - the way to resolve any paradox is to go up a level of abstraction and the conversational space and process takes groups naturally through that, so the approach transposes that from the physical to the conceptual and conversational domain. Russ Ackoff's three- step formula for creativity: (1) identify assumptions that you make which prevent you from seeing all the alternatives; (2) deny these constraining assumptions;  (3) explore the consequences of the denials. Creativity is the high level of thinking to resolve the paradox, and innovation is to transform creativity and achieve its business value.
One of the drivers of creativity is cross-fertilization and pollination of ideas: This is built into the structure so it happens very naturally in the process. Most of the organizations need both: the "into the box" and "out of the box" thinking. Research shows that 70 to 80% of successful innovations are based on "into the box" thinking. Most of the organizations need both: out of the box and in the box/core innovation. Typically, the majority of projects comes from the latter. How to accomplish this balance is a crucial issue for organizations to manage a healthy innovation portfolio. Shaping a bigger box by making connections between different boxes; rather than thinking outside of one particular box. Look at what other people have in their boxes, find out how their ideas different from what's in your box, and then think about what new structures can be built in space not yet occupied by anyone's box.  Building a creativity enabling environment via leveraging digital technology and platform is the ability of an organization to establish the right set of teams or people, collaboration and communication process that will eventually lead to innovation is the key.
Innovation has to result in something which leads us to a better state than where we are today. Strategic organizational development that combines classic strategy with the IT-enabled business capabilities required to compete and implement the strategy in growing pain, building sustainably successful organizations. And innovation leads the way with creativity bumps and leaps, curves and peaks, reap the benefit early on and keep moving on the success path.
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