Before discussing the differences between the two (as suggested for my next blog)….
here’s a technique that can help your group/company generate both creativity and innovation….
There are many things that get in the way of creative solutions. Brainstorming dissolves at least two (or more) of these barriers.
- Barrier to Creativity #1: stopping too early in the development phase and failing to generate enough ideas.
It may be counter-intuitive, but the chances of discovering or developing QUALITY increases with QUANTITY. The most creative ideas usually come to us only after we have produced a great many ideas which vary in quality – from terrible to genius. Generating multiple ideas also increases the chance that we will synthesize two or more different ideas and create something altogether new, improved, innovative.
- Barrier to Creativity #2: stopping idea expression or their development due to negativity and JUDGMENT.
Judgment is something we ALL experience DAILY, in our professional and personal lives – whether we are dishing it out on ourselves or others or others are extending theirs to us! One of the gifts I have given, as a Licensed Psychologist, to certain clients, has been the ability to see a world without judgment. But how does this extend to business???….
……Businesses may not think judgment is their business — but when it interferes with the potential to be creative and innovative — it is that of business indeed.
Brainstorming has many applications — but won’t work for every problem (although I would imagine there are plenty of brainstorming services out there that wanting you to belief such).
I offer are BRAINSTORMING SESSIONS to help business people CREATE – be this the name of a new product or improvements to a current, popular product…. and, btw, the brainstorming sessions at Chevron were FUN (a side benefit)!