Many have written about the hard and necessary work required to foster a ‘culture of innovation’ within an organization yet many of us keep looking for ‘silver bullet’ innovation tools and processes. In this article, the author, Ben Weinlick, describes this phenomenon and offers a view about what a creative culture might look like. As with many articles on this topic, the analogy he uses (a tree that bears fruit that many enjoy) and the list of 8 behaviors that characterize a ‘creative culture’ are fine as far as they go. But what is one to do with advice like “Seek creative collisions with other domains”? Statements like this are both profound and obvious – and too abstract to do much with. We ultimately need to go beyond the list-making stage and get to underlying mindsets and behaviors – and the incentives and metrics that will drive them – that will truly make a difference. The fact is that behavior and mindset can be changed with good tools and processes – and vice versa. This article makes that case, but only scratches the surface.
