An article in the International Herald Tribune two weeks ago – “Innovation Isn’t Easy, Especially Midstream” – captured my attention for a variety of reasons.
Writer Nick Bilton talks about how large organizations often struggle with disruption – in other words, to create innovative products – unlike start-ups. (“Why was a small start-up with 13 employees able to build up Instagram, while a company like Eastman Kodak, which recently filed for bankruptcy protection, was not?”)
HIs reasons: inability to break out of internal culture patterns, being held captive by customers to current technologies, reluctance to adapt and change, particularly if experimentation may cannibalize existing sales.
But more than the insights of organizational innovation, the article brings to life the complex duality of the selling process for people in public relations. Perhaps you've read the articles that outline how creative people are ambiguous, malleable and two-faced – as if they’re negative qualities. In truth, they’re necessary qualities because the individual brainstormer has several balancing acts to master if they’re going to successfully sell their Big Idea to the decision maker.
Exploration vs. Production
To imagine a new product/service or new alternatives/options requires exploration. The individual brainstormer needs to search and discover, from yesterday (good ideas of the past, such as Instagram's nod to the Polaroid camera), from today (current events, attitudes and behaviours, as well as the societal and competitive environment), and from tomorrow (emerging trends, technologies and patterns).
Big Ideas vs. Safe Ideas
Once the Big Idea is found through exploration, it must be packaged and approved by the decision maker to extract its value. The problem with Big Ideas is that – by their very nature – they are not safe. Big Ideas require significant change of the company and demand a new mindset, both internally and externally. However, that openness for embracing 'something different' also means that the decision maker will be exposed to criticism and, potentially, failure.
It’s easy to say that genuine disruption is necessary for real creativity, but it's also a strong pill to take for even the most liberal decision maker. So, the successful brainstormer will tick the boxes of disruption and impossibility, but at the same time, moving forward with an issues management plan to manage this risk – both of the idea, but more so, for the company’s reputation.
Visionary vs. Practical
Something happens when the Big Idea moves from the visionary, free-flowing brainstorm to the practical, day-to-day implementation. The temperature of the idea drops, sometimes to the point of freezing to death. It’s not surprising. It’s the difference between the man in the crow’s nest and the ship's oarsman. The man with the spy-glass on high sees enticing new lands. The man with his bloody hands knows it’s going to be hard work to eventually reach those new continents. Imagine the difficulty in trying to play both roles.
To engage the decision maker, the brainstormer must be professionally schizophrenic. Unlike the advertising agency model with separate roles in the selling process (the ‘suits’ and the ‘creatives’), people in public relations must balance the necessary opposites to win approval from the decision maker of the Big Idea. At the same time, during the merchandising phase, the individual brainstormer needs to be visionary and realistic, starry-eyed and practical, and daring and cautious.
Now you might see why I've always said the Roman god Janus – a familiar symbol of the theatre – might also make a perfect god of creativity.
