The Hindu Business Line : Beware of brakes on creativity

Innovation, creativity, inventiveness — these are the mantras chanted round the world in this era of competitiveness and globalisation. Venture capitalists are everywhere said to be bidding goodbye to the nuts and bolts of project profiles and boldly placing their bets on revolutionary ideas and futuristic concepts. A number of websites are springing up in which netizens are giving free rein to their imagination to propose gadgets and gizmos that will, in their view, take the world by storm.

It is only such an unceasing urge ‘to seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield’ that has been behind the scientific and technological breakthroughs contributing to the progress of humankind. It is those who keep asking, ‘Why not?’ who are going to make the impossible possible and live up to the French saying, “We do the impossible at once; miracles too are no problem, given a little time”!

It is not that anything new that an organisation embarks upon should necessarily be of earth-shaking significance. Even small improvements to an existing technology, product or practice can make life vastly easier, and business-wise, lead to enormous windfalls.

All that is needed is to implant in those running organisations of whatever kind a spirit of perennial inquisitiveness and a capacity to think outside the box. Falling into a rut spells the doom of an individual or an organisation.

Both individuals and organisations must ensure that each tomorrow finds them farther than today. This they can do only by constantly re-invigorating, renewing and reinventing themselves. The process calls for eternal vigilance against three looming threats that they face: Sameness, stagnation and staleness.

The longer an individual has been involved in an activity or set up, the more likely is the prospect of his being up against all the three of them; so also is the case with an organisation of many years standing.

Resurgence of interest

Since sameness makes for easy familiarity with whatever one has been doing, it lulls one into a sense of complacency which one finds it hard to give up in favour of the ‘unknown devil’. More of the same also makes for less exertion and more comfort, and may even breed a delusion of being on top of a situation. It requires tremendous effort to break the mould and go on a voyage of exploration and experimentation.

Stagnation occurs when one has reached the peak of one’s competence, with little scope for value-addition, because of either systemic rigidities or declining interest. The sure signs of stagnation are inertia, dullness, apathy, low morale and absence of self-motivation. One is overcome by staleness when one is conscious of his faculties getting alarmingly blunted, but is frustrated by want of opportunities for imparting a new shine to one’s own personality or to the assigned tasks.

There is nothing to choose among the three brakes to creativity mentioned above in terms of the harm they cause. Each in its own way takes the individual or the organisation on the path to decadence. A survey conducted some time ago by the Gallup Group showed that most of today’s organisations are running at less than one-third of their human potential. But this is neither inevitable nor incurable.

In each of the cases, it is possible to help the individual or organisation to scale new heights by bringing about a regeneration, and even resurgence, of interest and an eagerness for embracing change. Individuals can discover and cultivate their métier by undertaking a variety of intellectual and professional pursuits. The best way of achieving this in the case of an organisation is to entrust a select group of insiders, cutting across rank, status or designation with the preparation of a plan to infuse new vigour.

B. S. RAGHAVAN