Heart and Soul
"Invention is by its very nature a disorderly process... You can't put a Six Sigma process into that area and say, well, I'm getting behind on invention, so I'm going to schedule myself for three good ideas on Wednesday and two on Friday. That's not how creativity works…
"You cannot create in that atmosphere of confinement or sameness. Perhaps one of the mistakes that we made as a company – it's one of the dangers of Six Sigma – is that when you value sameness more than you value creativity, I think you potentially undermine the heart and soul of a company like 3M."
(George Buckley, CEO of 3M, in “At 3M, A Struggle Between Efficiency and Creativity: How CEO George Buckley is Managing the Yin and Yang of Discipline and Imagination,” by Brian Hindo. Business Week: June 11, 2007. Iss. 4038; pg. 8)
1 comment:
Paradox of creativity. Creativity thrives inside boundaries and flounders out in the open. Consider the creativity found in a 9th grade essay assignment with picky rules and 'academic' guidelines compared with the creativity found in the majority of television commercials where there are no real rules beyond the time limit and no boundaries beyond the FCC guidelines. The effort required to stay within strict guidelines stimulates the problem solving brain to create solutions which eventually turn into creativity. Where there are no boundaries there is no challenge and no stimulation. In that environment the brain can express itself fully. Trouble is, the brain itself simply does not contain any creativity, at all. Again, it is by challenging the brain to find answers to previously unseen problems that we get creative solutions.
Post a Comment