People often describe me as a “creative” - personally, I’d rather be known as a “doer.”
Creativity on its own has no value in business unless executed. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and many die on the vine.
Ideas without feasibility assessment, approximate potential value, and a rough plan for execution are at best fantasies, and at worst distractions from core work that needs to be done.
Put another way, ideas are only as good as their follow-through.
That said, when creativity is actioned and executed it leads to innovation and that, in my view, is the most important factor of production in business.
Classical economics defines the 3 factors of production as:
Land / Natural Resources
Labour
Capital
Marx focused his factors of production on labour:
Labour
Objects of production (the things transformed by labour)
Instruments of labour (the means of labour)
Neo-classical economists focus their theories of productivity and production on further defining capital:
Fixed capital
Working capital
Financial capital
Technological progress
I’d argue that creativity when actioned is the most important factor of production.
Why?
Innovation extends capital and mitigates risk in the short and long-term.
So, if you are a leader in a company, big or small, what systems, policies or processes have you developed to convert creativity into innovation?