Understanding Innovation, Creativity and Mastery

In recent years I've often heard the words "innovation" and "creativity" used interchangeably. Sometimes mastery and creativity are lumped together as well. But as a technologist, artist and agile coach I believe there is value in differentiating these terms in order to foster each of them. Why? Because a creation can be beautiful, "one of a kind" and highly customized without being innovative (and vice versa) and as such still has great value.

To illustrate the difference I will use realist oil painting, another genre I'm familiar with.

As a practiced artist, I have the tools and skills to paint oil portraits that are completely customized.  What makes them creative is that they are designed and crafted as a one of a kind object. By capturing a person's likeness in paint by hand, a conservator can not only distinguish between my work and that of other artists but they can also distinguish between two paintings by me of the same subject - because they are new and "one-of-a-kind".

 Merriam Webster's definition of Creativity; "The ability to make new things or think of new ideas"

Those painted images are creative because they were made as new things.  That particular person has never been painted before and their image has not been previously captured in that way. But I can say that creativity doesn't necessarily make all of my custom images "innovative." It is my great hope that they are beautiful and valuable so they will become a legacy for future generations. But even if a painter has "mastered" a technique from the past, that established, time tested technique is not innovative - but it can be used to paint a creative work of art. Let's also appreciate the value of "mastery" both with or without creativity. Those same techniques can be used by a skilled painter to create a work of art that is not 'creative' by the dictionary definition but it is still beautiful and masterful. That masterful work is valuable because of the time and skill required to make it.

Now let's consider how creativity and mastery can be combined in the work of innovation. Imagine that same work of art but this time the painter who has mastered a given technique goes beyond earlier techniques and does something groundbreaking and completely new. That painter may use an old technique and combine it with newly discovered pigment or substance that creates an effect nobody has ever seen before. The effect might be dramatic or so subtle that only the innovator knows why it works. ( Yes, this is still possible and happening today, I've seen other artists truly innovate and I've been told by a manufacturer that I did things they never considered with the newest materials ).

With that simple illustration of the difference between creativity and innovation, I'll ask you to think of them as a Venn Diagram that can overlap, but separately they still have value. A creative work and/or masterful work of art or technology can be extolled or appreciated regardless of whether it's new or innovative. An innovative work should be appreciated and differentiated because it brings something new to the world for further exploration and problem solving.

If we can learn to see the difference, then we can further appreciate the intersection of all three. We can also better understand how to foster each of them. Technology has advanced so greatly that we can easily "create" software solutions quickly today without mastery. We can do the same with paintings. For some problems, that ease of creating raw, imperfect work has it's benefit because it can allow for greater experimentation. So there's no benefit in forcing the three terms together.

I think the interwoven use of the two terms is the result of the new meaning of creativity. Let's be careful about that. Innovation is more than creativity - innovation is not only new, it's potentially disruptive and groundbreaking. It's noteworthy because of what it changes.

Song of the Angels by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

For more on this topic: I think the books and resources below nail it. Please let me know if you find any additional resources I should include in my own learning.

The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
Recently published in 2015, this book is a fun history lesson about the innovators that led to the creation of modern computers. The grouping of stories illustrates how a series of inventors and innovative thinkers influenced each other and virtually collaborated (or shared ideas) and competed with each other through the ages. There is much more to the book than I can capture in a paragraph but I couldn't stop reading and hope you enjoy it too.

Innovators Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
Fantastic and now classic book on the challenges that prevent organizations from innovating and engaging disruptive technology. Christensen published a more recent book The Innovator's Solution.

Innovator's Hypotheseis by Michael Schrage
In response to the challenge of innovation Schrage proposes that innovative teams work in parallel groups he calls 5x5. Leveraging what I consider the power of cooperation in an iterative cycle with a feedback loop and constraints this is the first published format that resonates with my own past experience of how creativity and innovation actually *work*.

The Art of Innovation Tom Kelley and Johnathan Littman
Also a classic for those of us who are into "design thinking". IDEO as an organization are experts in the process of creative and innovative thinking.

The Best Definition of Innovation by Scott Burkun
While updating this post, I found this refreshingly confronting article by Scott Burkun imploring us to use the word sparingly and he provides his definition of innovation in order to distinguish it.