Corporate Creativity

Howard Aiken
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Warren Bennis
The organizations of the future will increasingly depend on the creativity of their members to survive. Great Groups offer a new model in which the leader is an equal among Titans. In a truly creative collaboration, work is pleasure, and the only rules and procedures are those that advance the common cause.

Rita Mae Brown (1944 - ____) US writer, playwright
Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

Coco Chanel (1883 - 1971) French fashion designer
Innovation! One cannot be forever innovating. I want to create classics.

Steven Covey
To be successful we must live from our imaginations, not from our memories.

Walt Disney's mission—WE CREATE HAPPINESS.
Peter Drucker
Business has only two basic functions -- marketing and innovation.

Thomas Edison
Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
I make more mistakes than anyone else I know, and sooner or later, I patent most of them.

Leif Edvinson, Skandia at the MindSports Olympiad 1997
The business world sees a measurable and growing intelligence gap - with need for intellectual expertise constantly expanding. Available talent is decreasing even though the population is increasing. Being bombarded with information - be it in Nintendo or shogi - and being able to process it, find patterns etc., is a vital skill. One way to increase this talent potential is through games.

Richard Florida
Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steelmaking.

William H. Gates (1955 - ____) US business executive
[Smart] is an elusive concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To ask an insightful question. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective.

Curtis Gillespie
To get to the centre of things you sometimes have to go to the edge first.
— (Toro, May 2004)

Phil Guarascio,
GM's vice-president for advertising and corporate marketing

I sell ideas and visions. That kind of selling requires a different set of muscles from those that you need to sell products. The challenge is to help people see things that they may not be able to see for themselves. Now, I'm not a visionary from the blinding-flash-of-light school. Instead, I base my ideas on intuition, on facts, and on specific opportunities. The greatest resistance that I encounter from people whom I'm trying to sell to is grounded in discomfort -- which really comes from a lack of understanding. So a great salesperson, in effect, knows how to sell understanding.

Anthony Jay
The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.

Thomas Jefferson
If NATURE has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea... No one possesses the less, because every other possess the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Steve Jobs
You cannot mandate productivity, you must provide the tools to let people become their best.

Henry Ford
Whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right.

The more you think, the more time you have.

Kahlil Gibran
When you work, you fulfill a part of earth's fondest dream assigned to you when that dream is born.

George Gilder
People cannot be expected to learn one expertise and just apply it routinely in a job. Your expertise is in steadily renewing your knowledge base and extending it to new areas. That lifelong cycle of learning really is the foundation of the new information organization and economy.

Sir Ernest Hall
To be a successful entrepreneur one needs a vision of greatness for one's work. If we dream extravagantly we will be inspired to forge a reality beyond the straight jacket of practicalities. There is a profound connection between art and enterprise which allows businesses to overcome the limitations of their existing visions.

James Humes
The art of communication is the language of leadership.

Steve Jobs
I want to put a ding in the universe.

Charles Kettering
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.

Henry Mintzberg,author and professor at McGill University.
Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet.

Gay Mitchell, Executive VP, HR, Royal Bank.
Companies have to nurture [creativity and motivation] — and have to do it by building a compassionate yet performance-driven corporate culture. In the knowledge economy the traditional “soft” people side of our business has become the new “hard” side.

Linda Naiman:
What is creativity? I define creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of a creative idea. If you have ideas, but don't act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

Creativity is a core competency for leaders and managers and one of the best ways to set your company apart from the competition. Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.

Quoted in the media:
(On Improv in business)Improvisation frees us from being perfect, being in control, thinking ahead, and second guessing. It can feel like jumping into the abyss at first, but once you jump, fear turns into excitement, and your imagination kicks in. (Fast Company Magazine Oct 2005)

Visual, metaphorical and symbolic thinking helps business people develop the visionary skills inherent in artists, inventors and entrepreneurs. (Vancouver Sun Aug 24/04)

Creativity is the power to create something new, to reach deep into our subconscious for that “aha” solution. Sometimes it happens in a nano second, and sometimes that solution can take a lifetime to reveal itself. (Peopletalk Magazine Spring 2004)

Creativity has two parts: thinking, then producing. Innovation is embedded in the creative process. It is the implementation of creative inspiration. (Peopletalk Magazine Spring 2004)

Creativity in the workplace must be nurtured and cultivated for it to flourish. This means creating a culture of trust and having the freedom to express new ideas without being ridiculed, allowing room for mistakes, and developing the radar to spot opportunities in unexpected places. Many of the inventions that are now commonplace, such as 3M's Post-It notes, started out as "mistakes." — from "Creativity and the Meaning of Work"
(Perspectives on Business and Global Change, published by the World Business Academy and Berrett-Koehler. March, 1998. )

Napoleon
Those who have changed the universe have never done it by changing officials, but always by inspiring the people.

Alex Osborn
Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom while discouragement often nips it at the bud.

David M. Ogilvy, founder, Ogilvy & Mather advertising
In the modern world of business it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

Tom Peters
Business isn't some disembodied bloodless enterprise. Profit is fine -- a sign that the customer honors the value of what we do. But "enterprise" ( a lovely word ) is about heart. About beauty. It's about art. About people throwing themselves on the line. It's about passion and the selfless pursuit of an ideal.

Ralph Peters
The great paradox of the 21st century is that, in this age of powerful technology, the biggest problems we face internationally are problems of the human soul.

Al Ries
Strategy should evolve out of the mud of the marketplace, not in the antiseptic environment of an ivory tower.

Ordway Tead
Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate towards some goal which they come to find desirable and which motivates them over the long haul. Author of

The Art of Influence (1935)
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former IBM Chief Executive writes in his 1963 booklet, A Business and its Beliefs: "I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people."

Jack Welch
Focus on a few key objectives...I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas.

Margaret J. Wheatley
Innovation is fostered by information gathered from new connections; from insights gained by journeys into other disciplines or places; from active, collegial networks and fluid, open boundaries. Innovation arises from ongoing circles of exchange, where information is not just accumulated or stored, but created. Knowledge is generated anew from connections that weren't there before. —Leadership and the New Science

The things we fear most in organizations--fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances--are the primary sources of creativity.

Alfred North Whitehead
Ideas won't keep:something must be done about them.

Alfred North Whitehead :
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.